le souci du jour*
let's take a break from names, eh?
here's my worry today - once we go public, i am afraid of being the recipient of thoughtless pregnancy advice from dumb people who think the fact that hans died erases my full-term pregnancy experience.
of course, here, in blogland, i trust that my astute fellow parents-in-loss will know better. but on the outside...i'm wary of what i will get. in my short pregnancy with the tadpole, i got spectacularly thoughtless direction on what pregnancy would be like from one friend whose baby was born three months after hans, indicating that somehow my pregnancy didn't count to her because my son was not on my hip. i received comments in varying degrees of dumbness and thoughtlessness from co-workers, too, which i tried to ignore as the clueless attempts of pathetic people to be nice.
i have no tolerance for such unsolicited crap this time. it will help that i will be nearly four months by the time we get back from hans's birthday trip - that much less time for people to be craptastically oblivious. but if and when people say such idiotic things to me this time, i will not hold my tongue. i plan to make them feel like crap. i will smile sweetly and say, "yes, hans was more active after i ate something sugary, too," or, "i know what you're talking about; i barfed for nine months the first time." i don't care if it makes people feel bad. they need to pull their heads out of their asses. and god help them if they do it repeatedly; i will tell them off and have no guilt for doing so. i do not have post-stillbirth amnesia. hans was with us for 40 weeks. i know more about pregnancy than their low-risk selves will ever know - or want to know. so zip it.
* my french is pitiable, so that's probably not the right way to say "the worry of the day", but i thought it might sound more elegant and less whiny and repetitive than "yet another thing about which i'm insane and bitter", which is getting kind of old, no?
here's my worry today - once we go public, i am afraid of being the recipient of thoughtless pregnancy advice from dumb people who think the fact that hans died erases my full-term pregnancy experience.
of course, here, in blogland, i trust that my astute fellow parents-in-loss will know better. but on the outside...i'm wary of what i will get. in my short pregnancy with the tadpole, i got spectacularly thoughtless direction on what pregnancy would be like from one friend whose baby was born three months after hans, indicating that somehow my pregnancy didn't count to her because my son was not on my hip. i received comments in varying degrees of dumbness and thoughtlessness from co-workers, too, which i tried to ignore as the clueless attempts of pathetic people to be nice.
i have no tolerance for such unsolicited crap this time. it will help that i will be nearly four months by the time we get back from hans's birthday trip - that much less time for people to be craptastically oblivious. but if and when people say such idiotic things to me this time, i will not hold my tongue. i plan to make them feel like crap. i will smile sweetly and say, "yes, hans was more active after i ate something sugary, too," or, "i know what you're talking about; i barfed for nine months the first time." i don't care if it makes people feel bad. they need to pull their heads out of their asses. and god help them if they do it repeatedly; i will tell them off and have no guilt for doing so. i do not have post-stillbirth amnesia. hans was with us for 40 weeks. i know more about pregnancy than their low-risk selves will ever know - or want to know. so zip it.
* my french is pitiable, so that's probably not the right way to say "the worry of the day", but i thought it might sound more elegant and less whiny and repetitive than "yet another thing about which i'm insane and bitter", which is getting kind of old, no?
posted by laura at 5:56 PM
7 Comments:
You've earned the right. Go wild.
and I'll get out of your way
come to think of it, you have a "longer term" pregnancy experience than I. Lu was only in there for 37 weeks. I can't believe people would be so short-sighted...wait, actually, I can.
You can say these things to people only if you solemnly swear to blog about it here.
Rach
People will certainly say assinine stuff. Proving my theory that people around me have chosen to forget our experience with our son: yesterday my s-in-law called to say "hi" and talk about her current pregnancy. The baby she conceived the week of my son's death. I said I was feeling a bit sick and she went through twenty minutes worth of what I could and could not take. She discussed all three of her pregnancies. I am the failure in her eyes so I guess she felt I needed the advice. I simply said that I knew what to take as I had been down this road before. At least it shut her up until next time. So more power to you and refusing to take it!
If my experience is anything to go by I can confirm that people will say dumb-ass stuff that tries to 'erase' the first pregnancy. I can also confirm that the best way to shut that crap down is talk about your first pregnancy and, in your case, your son.
People may find some little thing to bug you about that indicates that they'd like you to do something differently this time around so that this baby will be 'safe' - in our case people kept asking if this baby was going to be born in the hospital even though deadbaby didn't die because she was born at home.
Yeah, give 'em hell!
People are stupid, what more can we say? I remember talking to a pregnant woman about 6 months after my loss and every time I mentioned my pregnancy she would visibly wince. Thanks for making me feel even worse about the whole thing! I thought it was bad enough having my baby die, but I guess her existence should never be mentioned again lest her mere memory infects every pregnant woman with deadbabyitis. It's times like that that I'm very happy for knowing everyone here in blogland...
Glad to hear everything is going well so far -- I'm thinking extra happy and healthy thoughts for you and your progeny!
Amen, sister! And I'm completely with you. This fear of stupid comments is what lead me to decide a few weeks ago that I was not going to tell anyone other than very close friends and family members about this pregnancy until absolutely necessary. This is probably the one thing I will have control over during this entire pregnancy, so it makes me feel empowered to keep it to myself. When I do get the occasionally well-meaning but ignorant comment, question, or piece of advice, I make sure to reply with, "When I was pregnant with Julian..." to remind them of my infinite experience and wisdom ;). I gave all my pregnancy books to my blissfully ignorant, low-risk pregnant friend since I feel like I no longer have use for them (and am a bit resentful that they hardly mentioned anything about loss or complications).
Yeah, i did that too -- i compared *all* my pregnancies. In fact one of the things which made me sad after Chloe was born healthy and alive was that now i could not compare all three any more...sigh.
I didn't realize you went until 40 weeks with Hans, for some reason i thought he died earlier. Nicolas died at 34 weeks.
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