*UNSUBSCRIBE*
i had to do it. i sent the unsubscribe e-mail to SPALS this morning. i couldn't take it any more. every e-mail has the writer's bio-o-loss, and i was scrolling down and reading the bio each time, and it was killing me. writer after writer had multiple losses, and the thought that i could be one of those people with so many losses was unbearable.
i complained this week on someone else's blog that i am about angel-ed out, sick to death of all the angel talk in the perinatal loss community, but i think i understand why it is so prevalent, especially among mothers with multiple losses - how else could anyone survive the recurring horror without some sort of divine answer, some magical consolation?
i understand that a woman who has a single loss and then goes on to a subsequent successful birth is likely to leave the SPALS group, whereas women with repeated losses are going to stay around much longer, so the group is disproportionately weighted with women with multiple losses, which gives a distorted view of the group of women who've lost a child. i get the math.
but the reality is that i'm reading over and over again the posts of women who've lost five, six, seven wanted children, and it's freaking me out. what i understand intellectually doesn't matter in the face of all that anecdotal data in front of me. i have been the most regular menstruater (is that a word? well, it should be.) my entire life, and last week i was three days late (and no, i'm not pregnant; believe me - i checked. four times.), and i believe it was because i was so anxious from reading these posts from SPALS.
if there was something helpful in these posts, i would stick with it. but there hasn't been a single message that has benefitted me. and at this point i don't have any experiences to offer anyone else trying to conceive - especially anyone with fertility problems (another disproportionately-represented group on SPALS). so i just can't see any reason to stick with it and keep making myself sick.
i have enough fears on my own (such as the fear that my eggs are defective as a group, or the fear of going back to the non-stress test or ultrasound rooms where hans's death was found and confirmed). i don't have room for any fears that don't belong to me.
i complained this week on someone else's blog that i am about angel-ed out, sick to death of all the angel talk in the perinatal loss community, but i think i understand why it is so prevalent, especially among mothers with multiple losses - how else could anyone survive the recurring horror without some sort of divine answer, some magical consolation?
i understand that a woman who has a single loss and then goes on to a subsequent successful birth is likely to leave the SPALS group, whereas women with repeated losses are going to stay around much longer, so the group is disproportionately weighted with women with multiple losses, which gives a distorted view of the group of women who've lost a child. i get the math.
but the reality is that i'm reading over and over again the posts of women who've lost five, six, seven wanted children, and it's freaking me out. what i understand intellectually doesn't matter in the face of all that anecdotal data in front of me. i have been the most regular menstruater (is that a word? well, it should be.) my entire life, and last week i was three days late (and no, i'm not pregnant; believe me - i checked. four times.), and i believe it was because i was so anxious from reading these posts from SPALS.
if there was something helpful in these posts, i would stick with it. but there hasn't been a single message that has benefitted me. and at this point i don't have any experiences to offer anyone else trying to conceive - especially anyone with fertility problems (another disproportionately-represented group on SPALS). so i just can't see any reason to stick with it and keep making myself sick.
i have enough fears on my own (such as the fear that my eggs are defective as a group, or the fear of going back to the non-stress test or ultrasound rooms where hans's death was found and confirmed). i don't have room for any fears that don't belong to me.
posted by laura at 10:36 AM
3 Comments:
I avoided the angel-talk like the plague after Strummer died because it doesn't jibe with my beliefs and I didn't want it forced on me. I don't believe in god, my daughter wasn't need by anyone or anything for a 'higher purpose', she wasn't 'too good for this world' or any of that crap. Sorry, I know I'm not really popular for saying this but it is what I believe, and even as someone with multiple (2) losses I'm sticking to my guns.
It even briefly stuck in my craw when my mother-in-law requested an angel charm for Xmas to represent Strummer. I bought it for her but wasn't really happy about it, but then she's entitled to her beliefs and whatever helps her connect with her granddaughter is okay by me.
I also avoided reading too much about other people's losses. This was very out-of-character for me as I usually research everything to death (pun intended) but I just couldn't do it, and part of the reason I couldn't do it was because a lot of people talked about angels and I found it to be rather horrific. I know I'm prejudiced for thinking this way, but all I could see from people who were doing this was an avoidance of the finality of death. This is just my own screwed up views on religion, I know they are mine, but my reaction was so negative that I knew I had to stay away.
So I knew I couldn't join listserves with an angel bent, and had already gotten shit for my blog name and my handle so I just stayed away. I bought one book on parental grief at the time and that seemed to be enough, and it wasn't a damned angel one either.
Sometimes there are no reasons, well no good reasons anyway. Sometimes there's no one to blame, no one to make it better, no way to make an event make sense rationally or emotionally. My daughter's death is one of those things and I just have to learn to live with it. I'm okay with that, it fits my belief system.
I agree with deadbabymama, there is NO reason for a baby to die. I just don't see any explanation for it at all. It makes no sence for a life to be gone, and a perfect little person to be wasted like that. I do believe that he is with God, (even though I am not all that religious) but that is mainly because I just can't bring myself to belive that I don't even have the HOPE of seeing my son again. I don't blame you for leaving SPALS. I was a member once, and for me it was way too much drama (maybe it has gotten better, but it was horrible when I was there). have you tried SHARE's message boards? www.nationalshareoffice.com (i thinik, or is it .org?)Anyway, it's more seperated, so if you dont want to deal with the posts about ttc, you don't have to. And you don't have to read everyone's stories every time either. (((hugs)))
I lurk on SPALS, but don't post. I'm not sure why.I hadn't noticed all of the multiple losses. I guess I try to focus on the women who've gone on to have living babies.
I don't go in for the "angel" talk either, but I don't have a problem with it either. I always thought that women said that as euphemisms...the alternative is saying "my baby died" and I guess it's a lot nicer to say that my baby is angel.
I am kind of obsessed with hearing about people's losses, but I think it's mostly because I feel so stupid for being so ignorant before. I refuse to be ignorant again. I don't mean that to sound jugemental about anyone else...this is only the judgement that I have toward myself....not others.
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