My greatest regret in life, more than anything else, is not holding our little Noah, Doodle B, for the brief time he was alive. At the time it was just too painful to even contemplate, and I can't properly explain the conflicting emotions I was feeling at the time.
So you can imagine the pain I felt reading
this story. Yes, I recognize that it's an extreme case, certainly not the norm. Most micro-preemies cannot be saved by mere skin to skin contact...and yet, I was hysterical for some time after reading this. It's one thing to feel guilt over not holding him, quite another to wonder if that might have made the difference between survival and losing him. I do recall how the neonatologist told us she'd never seen a Caucasian boy born at his gestation and weight survive, how he was too small for the breathing tube to have even worked on him...but still...
Sometimes I wish I didn't have access to all I do via the internet.
Similarly, I read
these stories in the New York Times today (featuring blogger friend
Kerry and her boys), and while the general discussion of the articles on the boards focused on whether they were too judgmental of those who transfer more than 1 in IVF, whether they make infertile couples seem like zealots who will get babies at any cost, whether they were too doom and gloom*...what I focused on was completely different...it was the fact that of sextuplets born at 23 weeks, some of them survived (so far)...Making me wonder, what would have happened to our Doodles had we made different decisions? Would they be with us? I've seen a lot of data since then indicating that even had they survived, their outlook for a normal life was practically zero. But I can't stop wondering.
I know these are the very worst types of questions I can ask myself now, that absolutely no good can come from revisiting painful decisions long behind us, but these different stories I've encountered recently have brought a lot of unresolved pain to the surface. And we miss our Doodles so much.
*On the doom and gloom point, while I truly feel for and understand the emotions of those currently pregnant with multiples who don't want to hear all that can go wrong, I think it's necessary to have information like this out there, both to educate those undergoing treatment about what multiples (particularly high order multiples) really mean, and to counter the glamorization of multiples by shows such as Jon and Kate Plus 8 - the rest of the world needs to understand that multiples aren't all fun and frivolity. And if this story can prevent one loss like ours, that's a good thing. I won't get into the obnoxious and ill-informed comments on the stories though - pure idiocy.
