Saturday, April 16, 2011

When medical advancement cannot help us

I have been thinking about this for a while and wanted to ask the opinions of others about this. I have not discussed this in person with anybody yet. Except my husband. He doesn't have an opinion about so many things. This is one of them.

My grandmom had 3 girls before losing her husband to illness when she was 23 years old. My mom was her second daughter. I have tried to verify if they were all full term babies. Supposedly they were. With no complications whatsoever. My dad is one of the six children of his parents. In either of the families, there wasn't any infant demise or foetal anomaly (from as far as I can gather).

My mother and her sisters all had healthy children of their own. One of my maternal aunt's daughter was apparently born at 33 weeks and she didn't have any complication, just grew up as a regular baby. She is 31 now and has two of her own children. Another  cousin was born at 34 weeks - he's almost 26 years old now - such a handsome, healthy boy. In my father's side of the family, all cousins had done fantastically as infants and now most of them have their own healthy children. I do know of one cousin who died young due to cancer. I think she was about ten years old. But if this one tragedy is left out, no one has had issues with having healthy babies, bringing them up.

When my baby was in the nicu and I were still in the hospital, I had many visitors. So many of them had a story of a relative/friend who had prematurely delivered in 28 or 30 weeks and they told about how the baby was now a healthy youngster, or a even a adult married with his/her own babies. No body told me of a case where the premature baby hadn't survived. I know they were all trying to boost my spirits with positive stories. I was then wishing and praying like never before that my baby would survive too. And I can tell a success story to everyone else. A premie, but nevertheless, my son. He was so wanted.

Now, what am wondering now is, in spite of such advancements in medical field how did my baby not survive. 

The reason for me to mention all the healthy babies in my family is that they were born through minimum medical intervention. My mother recalls that she didn't consult a doctor until the day of delivery when she was pregnant with me. 

I didn't have any inkling that my water was going to break. Scans said nothing. Visits to doctors didn't reveal anything was wrong at all.

The neonatalogist who saw my baby was supposed to the best in my city. The unit and the facilities was supposed to be best. Yet my baby died from an infection. It saddens me so much.

5 comments:

  1. I don't think you'll ever have answers, which makes this whole situation that much more difficult to come to terms with. Some babies make it, some don't, it's just that simple. I know a lot of the complications from pre-term babies stem from clotting and seizures and the like. They have little to no immune system either, having not built up antibodies.

    As for water breaking spontaneously, it's my understanding that's just how it happens, and there's nothing you can do to anticipate it unless your waters happen to be bulging and they see this. But again, sometimes it's spontaneous.

    Jack too, was seen by one of the top neonatologists in Toronto. Doesn't mean they can save your baby, doesn't mean your baby will respond to treatment.

    I'm sorry, I wish the outcome had been different. I wish there were answers that would bring your baby back.

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  2. I think LauraJane is right, that you may never have answers and that is maddening. It's so unfair and I wish it were different.

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  3. First off I am sorry for the loss of your little Vitu. Like LauraJane said you may never know. This is our case, we still really have no concrete answer as to why our Leia is gone. I went to every doctor appointment and ultrasound. It hurts so much. My sister had two children who were both born premature at 32 weeks and they are both healthy and fine today. I don't know any other history as I am adopted so my sister I just spoke of is not related by blood. I can remember her saying to me at 32 weeks that I had passed the mark now where our Leia would be fine. Well that didn't happen. Again, so sorry and thinking of you. Shelly

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  4. I am sorry to hear about your loss. A close friend of mine had a miscarriage recently and I could see what she went through. It is painful to say the least - but as with everything in life, we have to move on. Time is the biggest healer - memories stay with us, but the pain will eventually subside.

    There are no answers to why this happened. I am a firm believer in the Hindu concept of Karma - each of us has 'sown' something in our previous life/lives - we keep 'reaping' the fruit of what we have sown in our present/future lives. The ultimate aim of the human life is to break away from the cycle of birth and re-birth.

    Gather your strength and keep the faith. HE will take care of the rest.

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  5. Personally I think they(hospitals/doctors) get too comfortable. They've seen it all and think they know what to expect. But that's just me being angry and bitter. If there are reasons why our babies die, it would at least be nice to know what they are. Strength to you as you navigate through the pain.

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