In perspective
Mostly I look back on LB's time in hospital with nothing but feelings of regret, resentment, sadness, anger, the memory of terror. All those awful procedures he went through without pain relief, how deprived he was of human contact, despite us being there as much as we possibly could, how upsetting it was for us all, especially PB, how crap most of the staff were about acknowledging the emotional side of what was happening.
It's really important to me to acknowledge and name the awful stuff that happens in life, and not to always look for silver linings. Looking for the good in crap stuff so often seems to turn into downplaying how awful the awful bits were and saying that that awfulness didn't really matter because something good came out of it. But I do want to acknowledge one good thing which came out of the very worst bit of it.
That first night in the Paediatric Assessment Unit D and I had a conversation about the possibility that LB might die. It was, of course, a terrible conversation to have, but we ended up by saying that if he did die we felt he had had as good a iife as we could possibly give him. He had a lovely gentle birth with no invasive procedures (even Vitamin K orally, not by injection because we wanted to spare him a needle prick, softies that we are). He clearly loved breastfeeding and he got to do it whenever he wanted to. He was hardly out of someone's arms the whole first week - which was awful for us but so clearly what he wanted/needed.
I've already had my share of comments and implications from friends and relatives that we're not handling LB right - that we should make him sleep on his own in a Moses basket, that we should leave him to cry himself to sleep, that we shouldn't 'pander' to his unreasonable desire to be in someone's arms the whole time. I do have my moments of thinking along these lines myself, but thinking back to that conversation in the PAU reaffirms me in my instincts and convictions. Just as 'nobody on their deathbed wishes they had spend more time in the office' (actually, not sure I agree with that one, but that's a different matter), nobody on their deathbed wishes they'd spent more time leaving their child to cry unconsoled.
It's really important to me to acknowledge and name the awful stuff that happens in life, and not to always look for silver linings. Looking for the good in crap stuff so often seems to turn into downplaying how awful the awful bits were and saying that that awfulness didn't really matter because something good came out of it. But I do want to acknowledge one good thing which came out of the very worst bit of it.
That first night in the Paediatric Assessment Unit D and I had a conversation about the possibility that LB might die. It was, of course, a terrible conversation to have, but we ended up by saying that if he did die we felt he had had as good a iife as we could possibly give him. He had a lovely gentle birth with no invasive procedures (even Vitamin K orally, not by injection because we wanted to spare him a needle prick, softies that we are). He clearly loved breastfeeding and he got to do it whenever he wanted to. He was hardly out of someone's arms the whole first week - which was awful for us but so clearly what he wanted/needed.
I've already had my share of comments and implications from friends and relatives that we're not handling LB right - that we should make him sleep on his own in a Moses basket, that we should leave him to cry himself to sleep, that we shouldn't 'pander' to his unreasonable desire to be in someone's arms the whole time. I do have my moments of thinking along these lines myself, but thinking back to that conversation in the PAU reaffirms me in my instincts and convictions. Just as 'nobody on their deathbed wishes they had spend more time in the office' (actually, not sure I agree with that one, but that's a different matter), nobody on their deathbed wishes they'd spent more time leaving their child to cry unconsoled.