Some people say things that hurt others feelings. Most the time they don’t even know it. I did go through a traumatic event with the birth of my baby and most of the time I overlook what people say but there is always a time I can’t look past it. So, I’ve put together a list of the top 5 things not to say to someone who has had a traumatic birth of a baby.
- At least you get to heal from your C-section before your baby comes home. This may be true but the last thing on my mind is the 6” slice across my abdomen. My baby is in the NICU fighting for her life.
- You lost all your baby weight so fast. Again, this may be true but let’s keep in mind I didn’t make it to 40 weeks of pregnancy either. At 27 weeks my baby was born. So I missed out on 13 weeks of weight gain. I did gain quite a bit of weight with my pregnancy and a lot of it was swelling from the Severe Preeclampsia which went away after my baby was born (not right after either).
- Breastfeeding is so much better. Again, true! But not all women are the same. I had to start breast pumping early due to my baby being born 13 weeks early. My baby was tube fed for the first two months of her life and she spent 94 days in the NICU. I did rack up a supply of breastmilk due to her being tube fed. I tried all kinds of things to produce more milk but the cow went dry and there is no sense in beating yourself up over something you cannot control.
- Are you ready for another one? Ok, let’s think about this one. I just went through a traumatic birth of my daughter and you really think I’m ready for round 2? NO! Thank goodness this question wasn’t asked while my baby was still in the NICU. To be honest, I probably would have bit someone’s head off over this one.
- You get to sleep since your baby is in the hospital. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t sleep that well. I stayed up worried about all the ands, ifs and buts that would come my way. It’s my first pregnancy and I had never experienced a NICU before. To me it’s scary and sleep isn’t very forthcoming.
I know some of you are thinking; did people actually say that to you? And the answer is YES! Some people don’t think before they speak. In difficult times, it is hard to figure out something to say to someone but I would like to go over some things that meant a lot to me that people did say or do.
- A community Facebook page was set up for my daughter. This helped out a lot. With all the calls, texts, and visits it was hard to keep up. Not to mention, at first I was in no shape to try and inform anyone what was going on. With the page, all I had to do was post an update and everyone that read it was updated. This page also gave me hope knowing that all the people on there were praying for my baby girl.
- Outreach of Help. Almost everyone I spoke to wanted to know how to help but didn’t know what to do. I, of course, had no idea for them either! Some people brought us preemie clothes which was great because we didn’t expect to need them when we were planning our baby shower. We came home one day and our grass was mowed! Wow, you have no idea how much of a help that was. Another time our laundry was taken care of. I know I’m not the only one who hates laundry but this was a very pleasant surprise. Another time, our house was cleaned! That was a relief all in itself. I mean think about it….these are all daily chores that we had to neglect to be with our baby. When we needed to clean out a room to make it the baby’s room (keep in mind, she came 3 months early) for when she came home, some friends were there to help too. Even meals were cooked for us. Believe me when I say, we didn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing meals so this was a big help too!
- Encouraging Words. Not everyone had the time or was close enough to help but knew encouraging things to say. I remember being told, “Hang in there! God’s got this!” Another thing I was told, “She’s in the best place she can be.” In all honesty, she was in the best place she could’ve been because Lord knows I couldn’t take care of her like they did. Those were the things I kept telling myself and it helped. If you can’t think of anything else to say, then “Congratulations”, “Praying”, or “Let me know if I can help” would be just as good.
I’m here to tell you, in my eyes, I’m forever in debt to those people who took time out of their lives to show us they cared and wanted to help! Thank you guys so much! I don’t think we would have made it through the way we did without you! If you know someone that’s going through a traumatic birth of their baby and want to help them out, I hope with this information you will know some things you can do.