Guilt hitting hard today

This might be long, need to get it off my chest, it really just hit me today how lucky we got. We had our son last March 2023. After a miscarriage and years of TTC, I resigned myself that it would just be me and my husband. When I found out I was actually, finally pregnant with no intervention, my first thought was one of panic. I knew how quickly things could go wrong. I didn’t want to go through that again. I hated being pregnant. I had every symptom appropriate for each trimester my whole pregnancy, but it was otherwise a normal pregnancy. At my 38 week appt, my BP was really high, and after 2 seperate nights of observation, we finally decided I would be induced. Induction did not go as planned, over the course of 12 hours, I only dialted 1cm, and babies heart rate dropped with every contraction. Finally I was on the table for a c section. That went fine. But since I ended up delivering early, and had a c section, I didn’t have my milk in yet, and baby didn’t latch anyway. My PPD nurse was awful. Insisted on me breastfeeding, wasn’t willing to give me formula right away. Babies blood sugar kept dropping, bc I wasn’t producing and he wouldn’t latch. She kept threatening to send him to the NICU. Finally a different nurse gave us formula. But I was beyond upset by that point. 3 days later we’re at his newborn appt, his blood sugar is dangerously low again as well as his body temp, so we were sent to a pediatric ER (after the dr made us feel like absolute garbage parents) We spent 8 hours in that ER room with our baby under a heat lamp and feeding him every 30 minutes to try to get his blood sugar and body temp up. We weren’t prepared as parents because we didn’t anticipate him being born early, and I also attribute being unprepared to how I was feeling mentally throughout my whole pregnancy. Now 18 months later the guilt has really just hit me today, how lucky we are that our little boy is still with us. I can’t help but wonder if I had been more vocal with that nurse, or had a nurse that didn’t care about formula being given, if we would have had that experience. But I can’t help but blame myself for our little guys first few days topside being pretty terrible. If you made it this far, thank you. The guilt is really just weighing on me today, I’m certainly going to hold my son a little tighter tonight
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It's okay to let yourself feel that guilt but then try to let it go and fully realize you did everything you knew how to do for him. You sound like an amazing mother. It is very hard when a medical professional urges you to do something, not to trust that. Not attempting to talk about myself, but only to commiserate, I had a less dramatic situation but similar. No milk coming in and a nurse forcing me to try and re-try breastfeeding while my daughter got weaker and weaker and losing weight in the hospital. Finally I demanded formula, from a different nurse, for her and everything ended up okay. It took me, I feel now, way too long to demand what I knew in my gut she needed. Hold that baby tight and just know it all turned out in the end! And that your feeling guilty only proves what a caring and wonderful mother you are. ❤️

I had a similar experience. I wasn't induced, but I was not progressing and ended up with an unplanned c-section. I grieved this a lot. And I also felt guilty that my milk didn't come in right away, that we did use formula for the first week and that I ended up taking Domperidone to increase milk supply. Long story short, I've had lots of guilt, mama. But sometimes grief shows up as guilt. I wanted everything to he different from day 1. I blamed myself for not "manifesting" the birth and midwife I wanted... all the things. But time heals a lot. Physical wounds and emotional. I'm not glad about what I went through but it is our story (mine and my daughter's) and it is personal, intimate and unique to us. I'm also just glad I have my baby and she is smart, healthy and soon this experience will be a distant memory.

@Elizabeth I’m sorry you went through something similar as well! Thank you ❤️❤️ I needed that reassurance

@Angie I’m sorry you didn’t have the birth experience you wanted! But that’s a good way of looking at everything and making into something *sort of* better. Thank you❤️❤️

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