Does anyone else feel a sense of confusion about their own feelings towards their living children and the child(ren) they lost?

I feel that since having my rainbow D last July I have a strange sense that whilst I totally wanted R (my first son, born July 12) after we lost him I needed D. The difference feels more subtle in reality than it looks written down but the shift in my outlook is noticeable (possibly only to myself! My dh didn't get this at all when I talked to him!)

That shift between the rosy glow of anticipation to the shadowy wait, hoping rather than expecting, was so clear during my second pregnancy but I was anticipating it. I knew the pregnancy would be nerve wracking but I wasn't so prepared for how I would feel once D was here.

I feel so grateful every day that D lived, that he lives and laughs and cries and eats and poops. Sometimes that stops me allowing myself to complain about the broken sleep, laundry, constant tidying and the trials of trying to keep a 7 month old entertained all day, how can I complain about any of these things when I would have given everything and more to save R?

It's just so hard to remain objective, my dh reminds me that had R been born safely and had we not found ourselves on planet 'my-baby-died' that I would have complained about all those things with other mums and it would have been fine.

That feeling that I needed to bring D into the world safely, the knowledge that to have a family we would have to go through it all again. The stakes felt so high that now he's here I feel I can't ever let that guard down.

Does anyone else feel like this? Is it something that people feel with children born before you experienced loss?

Any insight welcome here! I need to know I will be able to treat D like a normal child one day. It's not his fault I'm paranoid because his brother died.

Hello Katlea,

Such an interesting post, I think I understand where you are coming from? Maybe?

My daughter died over five years ago here but I have found myself back at Glow frequently in recent weeks, following the arrival of my fourth child. I feel that I am struggling with my relationships with my living children in the light of my experiences with their eldest sister.

Just to fill you in, my first pregnancy was twin daughters born extremely prematurely. One of my daughters survived, her sister sadly died in intensive care. I have since had a son and another daughter (both born at term). So I have three living children, now aged five, two and three months.

I have not a doubt in my mind that my first pregnancy was totally and utterly wanted. Very much the rosy glow that you describe. Those brief weeks of pregnancy, before my daughters were born, were some of the happiest in my whole life. I felt as though everything was coming to fruition for me, as though all my plans and work were about to pay off?

But then, just over half way through the pregnancy, the twins were born and G, my eldest twin, died. And that 'want' became something far more desperate? I don't know if that is the *needing* that you describe? Something so much sharper around the edges, so much fiercer than the mere wanting of a baby? And I thought that 'want' was strong enough until G died and I needed her sister live and then I needed her brother. This feeling was not as strong in my third pregnancy but, yes, it was still hoping rather than expecting.

I also feel as though I can never complain about anything related to my children. I find discipline very difficult, any cross words between us very difficult. It all feels a bit . . . heavy? And complicated? As I lost my first child I don't know if this is how it would have been in any event? I try and imagine myself into a place where she didn't die and consider what sort of mother I would have been but my imagination fails! Would I always have fretted to this extent? I simply don't know.

I would say that the wanting / needing balance has tipped as time has passed and with each subsequent child? I don't know if I will ever treat my eldest daughter entirely like a 'normal' child (and she has her issues, you don't walk from that premature a birth entirely scot free sadly) but the following two . . . . perhaps? I hope so?

Wish I had more insights to offer after all this time but just wanted to let you know that you aren't the only one struggling with these issues. I'm so sorry for the loss of your R and many congratulations on the arrival of little D.

Sending love to you, C xo

Thanks for such a lovely reply, yes I think you get it more than you realise!

We lost R after I went into premature labour at 23 weeks. Probably incompetent cervix but reason never really found.

When I first found glow in the bleary haze of those first months after his loss it was one of your posts that greeted me, the one that has you welcoming people to this cabin. The image of calling out into the darkness "my baby died too" has always stayed with me and was a huge comfort in those first weeks.

I think there was an element of desperation in that need for D to live, it's also so reassuring to hear from someone so much further down this road that those feelings do soften with time.

I remember the fear that R would die but also the fear he might live. Through my work I know just a tiny aspect of the struggles such tiny babies face and parents who navigate that path need exceptional strength. To do that at the same time as coping with the loss of G, wow. Just wow.

K x

Oh and many congrats on your new arrival!

I think the ongoing aspect of grieving is so hidden and reading that you have struggles seems completely reasonable. It's a lot harder to acknowledge at the time I guess. Everything is much harder when you are in the middle of it and can't step out!

I'm still reassured by your reply. I even find it nice (although not in the normal way of course) that you still come to glow after 5 years. I so want to hold onto the feelings and emotions I have that connect me to R and glow is one of the few places I have found that being sad and angry are totally ok. I plan to hold onto that bit of pain forever, it's one of the few things I have left.

I think you are both describing something I call for myself my survival instinct. Very dark and very terrifying. When the baby died, she lost her life and her future. I lost her and the world as I knew it. I landed in a deep, dark, pain filled abyss. As I climbed out, little by little, the feeling of, "I am never going back there. Never, ever!" developed. I feared that pain. I would do anything to not feel like that ever again. I lost me down there, the me who came out had been put back together, more or less, but there was a lot that was missing and injured.

I needed my two older children to live to keep me alive. That was the very basic feeling. "If they die, I'll die too." Might not be true, but that is how it felt on both a conscious and unconscious level. Anything that touched that part of me could set me off in a panic of adrenaline rush and fear, with the quick breathing, tense muscles and shaking. Often only on the inside, no one else would usually even know.

The feeling did ease for me, as the years went on. One, neither of my two older children died. That helped a lot. And nothing else that happened turned out to be as bad as the death of my daughter. That helped, too. The second thing that helped me was getting the two of them to adulthood and the lessening of my responsibility for their life or death. They are 24 and 26 now and it is very unlikely that I will do anything, all unknowingly, that will kill them. :-)

Which doesn't really give you much help. I'm sorry! What I did in the years in between then and now was learn to break down the fear. To confront it. Fear is different than grief. They are very tied together, obviously, but they are different and require different responses to live and cope with.

Wishing you some peace and some ease as you figure this out!

Love,

Jill A.

Jill,

Survival instinct, yes that makes a lot of sense! Also, I had never thought about the difference between grief and fear. As you say, they are massively tied together but the need I feel for D is very much a fear tied into my grief for R.

Confronting it and really thinking about what those fears are seems such an obvious thing to do seeing it written down but I've never once thought to differentiate!

And to hear your children are grown up is lovely, I just wish there wasn't someone missing.

Thank you both for your replies, its touching that you are both so much further out that me but still come back and offer such great advice. Since D was born I get some lovely peaceful moments but the turmoil of grief still hits randomly. It's good to know how normal that is.

Oh Katlea. 23 weeks. Same as my girls. I hope that my comment about my surviving daughter did not seem flippant. It is a situation where it is hard to know what to wish for, when the outcomes are uncertain and I'm so sorry it is one that you have had to face with R.

Glad that I haven't freaked out you too much by still being here five years after the fact. I know that having a new baby and the processes of pregnancy and childbirth always drive me to reconsider my first pregnancy and babies and each subsequent child has both healed and reignited the grief in some measure.

Jill - I agree, it is the feeling of 'I am NOT going back there.' Despite the fact that I know that I can be sent straight back there and I will have no say in the matter. Perhaps that is the extra edge to the usual parental anxiety? Because it is easy to kid yourself that children don't die, until one of your children has and then all the others suddenly seem fair game too? And having responsibility for trying to protect against something that you really can't entirely protect against? No wonder we get panicked.

Thank you for your words Jill. I really do appreciate your perspective so very much.

Oh Catherine, no it didn't come across as flippant at all. I hope I didn't come across that way when I said I was frightened R would live.

I'm sure every decision I make for D will trigger a thought of R, even if it is subconsciously. I will never be that 'normal ' parent, and actually it's probably silly of me to feel pressured to be that. I would like to think over time I might be able to convert my paranoia into vigilance, I think that sounds reasonable ...?

Dear Katlea, It sounds reasonable, I don't know if it will happen that way for you. It might, maybe you will be able to fully dismiss the fears or reduce them to a sensible level. My experience has been that almost everything new or unexpected will set off the fear and the panic. I have to mentally stop, immediately, and do a risk evaluation. That has gotten much easier and more natural with practice over time. My first question in evaluation is always, "Is this a life or death situation?"

Humor helps. Watching a three year old go to pre-school and trying to decide if it could kill him. Letting a 14 year old go to a movie with friends and looking for all the ways she could die. :-) I can come up with them in the time it takes you to blink. I call it going from everything is fine to death in 10 seconds flat. I had to stop trying to control that reaction and learn to just roll with it. To decide if each death threat contained any reality or not. If not, then I would just go on and try not to let the fear show. If yes, and there are things our children do that can be dangerous, I would have to make the decision of whether this was worth the risk and if the risk could be reduced. Simple things, like letting them go swimming or owning a pool. Tougher things like various health problems, medicines, therapies. Sports.

I hope it does ease for you. I hope the fear and paranoia will fade away. I believe most of it will. But that instinctive, off-the-chart, heart racing fear may not leave entirely.

This is just my experience, for you to compare yours to as you go along. That helps, too! And there is a difference in the fear of something happening to your child and the fear of what that would do to you again.

Jill A.