Robbed

This is a post that has been brewing since Ella was born.  I can finally sit down to write it.  I finally feel prepared to write it.  It's not easy to write.  It may not be easy for some to read (still struggling with infertility or having dealt with pregnancy loss, loss of a child), so do not read on if you fall in those categories.  

Let me start by expressing (again) how grateful I am that things are the way they are.  The most important thing to me is that Ella is here and she is growing every day!  Given everything that we have been through... infertility, severe undiagnosed preeclampsia, birth at 25 weeks, NEC... the fact that Ella is still with us is nothing short of a miracle, many, many times over!  The child (as I've always known) is meant to be!  

I know that there are so many women that I am connected with who have been through true loss.  And my heart truly breaks for them.  I've met parents in the NICU who have been through devastating loss; it's horrible and makes me so very grateful.  I won't go into further detail as those are not my stories to tell. 

The rest of this post is simply expressing and acknowledging my feelings about the lost third trimester.  

After everything happened and Ella was born I talked a lot about (but never wrote about) all of the things that I wouldn't have to experience since Ella came so early, as a way to look on the bright side.  

Bright Side

• I never had to take the Gestational Diabetes test!  
• I never needed a cervical sweep!  
• I was able to avoid stretch marks!  
• I didn't have to be super-pregnant in July!  
• I never have to use that squirt bottle...  

What other things should I be thankful I missed out on?

Also, I don't have to worry about Ella having a (July) birthday when all of her friends are gone to camp & on vacation.  I also don't have to worry about Ella being the youngest in her class.  

But if I could go back and do anything differently, I would do anything to be able to carry Ella full term and deliver her as a happy, healthy newborn.  I would give just about anything to be able to do that for her!!

For now, I see a very pregnant woman in Target and I envy her. I hear about a newborn coming home on Facebook and I want to shake them (the parent, not the baby) to make them realize how good they have it!  I see newly post-partum bellies of mothers in NICU who obviously carried their babies far along, and I am actually jealous of them... and they have babies in NICU too!  

I feel robbed.  I feel like I was robbed of so many of the significant milestones of pregnancy.  

• I never felt Ella kick me enough to make me satisfied.  
• She never kicked to make me feel uncomfortable.  
• I never felt her have the hiccups in utero.  
• I never felt her kick from the outside.  
• I only received ONE stranger comment, 2 weeks prior to her birth, about my pregnancy.  
• I never had the opportunity to be obviously pregnant.  
• I never got the waddle.  
• I've not gotten the excitement of preparing her nursery (I still have to do it, but it's different now that she's already here... and I'm not even home to work on it). 
• I never got to nest.  
• I never got to feel BH contractions.  
• I never got to wonder if this could be the week, or today could be the day I meet my baby girl.  

I HATE that my body failed us both!   That I couldn't keep either one of us safe in order to let her finish developing the way she was supposed to.  I hate that it means we don't know yet what long-term problems Ella will have to face because of this.  

Don't get me wrong, I don't dwell on this or carry it with me all of the time, there are just triggers...  I know that I can't change anything that happened.  It's just feelings that I need to acknowledge... and hopefully those feelings will subside with time.


Maybe some of this is why I can't get rid of the ticker on my blog yet?