Pregnancy: SIDS
SIDS is on my mind a lot lately.
Maybe it's because the pregnancy is beginning to feel more real. Despite not seeing an ultrasound picture yet, I've heard the heartbeat half a dozen times. I get it, the baby's in there, it's real.
And with each month that passes, I'm inching closer to having this creature in my hands. A creature that is totally dependent on me, that is so fragile, going to sleep may ultimately kill it.
It sounds dramatic. But my family has been marked by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It took my brother in 1978, and my sister in 1983. My mother, to the best of my knowledge, has never addressed the deaths of her two children. She rarely talks about them, didn't attend the funerals, hasn't ever visited their graves.
But the ghosts of my siblings marked us. I don't remember how old I was when I found out my father had had a vasectomy after my sister was born, but I remember the guilt of knowing he didn't get it reversed to create me didn't happen until after she died. I remember feeling like a murderer, or at the very least, overwhelmed with a sense of too-aged knowing that in order for me to live, someone else had to die.
My mother was abusive. This is an issue of some contention between my brothers and I, but Mom was at times over-protective and at others, completely negligent. She lived in a world of extremes. After the wave runner accident that nearly claimed my eldest living brother's life, she became something of a ghost herself, floating from room to room in her night gown, chain-smoking cigarettes, waiting to cook dinner until nine o'clock at night. Behind closed doors, she'd watch movies with my father, shutting us kids out completely, and roll joints.
She kept the house spotless, perhaps as a way of controlling the other set of variables in her life. Her temper was explosive, and mean, and you could never fully be prepared for what set her off. Whether these were items of post-traumatic stress or just a bitter woman, I'm not sure. I just know I spent most of my adolescence, leaving the bus stop, hoping and praying she wasn't home, it might be the one day a month her agoraphobia wasn't bothering enough to keep her a prisoner.
I think of these things when I feel my child move. SIDS has been discovered to cluster in families. Trying to get my partner and his family to fully appreciate the trauma involved with SIDS is about as effective as communicating why I don't want to get drunk while pregnant. Knowing that we can do everything and still fail to do anything is maddening. It's heartbreaking.
I don't want to inherit my family legacy. I don't want ot discover my child, cold in her crib. I just wish they would recognize this isn't some far-off impossibility. I've lost my brother and sister, and several other relatives to this. SIDS is as much a family reality for me as cancer or heart disease. What kills me is that I can do everything right--sleep my child on her back, breast feed until she's three, keep her crib bare from excess pillows and blankets, and it might still not be enough.
Maybe it's because the pregnancy is beginning to feel more real. Despite not seeing an ultrasound picture yet, I've heard the heartbeat half a dozen times. I get it, the baby's in there, it's real.
And with each month that passes, I'm inching closer to having this creature in my hands. A creature that is totally dependent on me, that is so fragile, going to sleep may ultimately kill it.
It sounds dramatic. But my family has been marked by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It took my brother in 1978, and my sister in 1983. My mother, to the best of my knowledge, has never addressed the deaths of her two children. She rarely talks about them, didn't attend the funerals, hasn't ever visited their graves.
But the ghosts of my siblings marked us. I don't remember how old I was when I found out my father had had a vasectomy after my sister was born, but I remember the guilt of knowing he didn't get it reversed to create me didn't happen until after she died. I remember feeling like a murderer, or at the very least, overwhelmed with a sense of too-aged knowing that in order for me to live, someone else had to die.
My mother was abusive. This is an issue of some contention between my brothers and I, but Mom was at times over-protective and at others, completely negligent. She lived in a world of extremes. After the wave runner accident that nearly claimed my eldest living brother's life, she became something of a ghost herself, floating from room to room in her night gown, chain-smoking cigarettes, waiting to cook dinner until nine o'clock at night. Behind closed doors, she'd watch movies with my father, shutting us kids out completely, and roll joints.
She kept the house spotless, perhaps as a way of controlling the other set of variables in her life. Her temper was explosive, and mean, and you could never fully be prepared for what set her off. Whether these were items of post-traumatic stress or just a bitter woman, I'm not sure. I just know I spent most of my adolescence, leaving the bus stop, hoping and praying she wasn't home, it might be the one day a month her agoraphobia wasn't bothering enough to keep her a prisoner.
I think of these things when I feel my child move. SIDS has been discovered to cluster in families. Trying to get my partner and his family to fully appreciate the trauma involved with SIDS is about as effective as communicating why I don't want to get drunk while pregnant. Knowing that we can do everything and still fail to do anything is maddening. It's heartbreaking.
I don't want to inherit my family legacy. I don't want ot discover my child, cold in her crib. I just wish they would recognize this isn't some far-off impossibility. I've lost my brother and sister, and several other relatives to this. SIDS is as much a family reality for me as cancer or heart disease. What kills me is that I can do everything right--sleep my child on her back, breast feed until she's three, keep her crib bare from excess pillows and blankets, and it might still not be enough.