where I live

[personal touch]

Where i live,
means maternal health access is minimized,more so if you are identified as "special care" of maternal health one's access is
further minimized,the process of specialized care and maternal health is of different definition, it depends on where one lives,which will dictate the process of 'specialized care and the delivery of maternal health.
Where i live access to specialized care and maternal health is cruel and unnecessary punishment,but considered o.k

November is a bitter sweet month for myself,i have celebrations of joy within this month, but on the other hand November is month of reflections of what could have been,it is a month which provokes feelings of grief,it is a month i read my lessons of Martha,I try not to let anger interfere with the grief process,but some times knowledge is not a good thing,sometimes i find my governement leaders pathetic,sometimes i find my leaders old,self serving and of ill character.
Where i live the most available information on stillbirths comes from lobbying efforts regarding stem cell research.(I am not sure of the finances of stemcell research in comparison to maternal health research)
Where i live access to clinics are usually private,"investment operated" therefore advanced technologies are minimized,or more so public dollar investment into the the right needs are not identified.
where i live the ratio of gyn and obs is extremley high,the wait times are long,
where i live you,if you have a stillborn,you will wait to see a "specialist"up to three months or more for answers
where i live lab services are not readily available or of minimail access,there are several reasons why this is so,one is cost factors.

Grace Hope was born November 27th,2012,"stillborn"that is,6 months gestation,oh i so remember the tears as the grief came upon our family,I remember the special gestures of the stillbirth program,the excellent care of the nursing and physicians,i remember the grave side service very well, i remember the fragility of my daughter n law,the strength and fragility of my son,it was a time one will never forget,i do remember my daughter n laws clinical features,her account of what happened assisted with my investigation of what could of been the diagnosis.i remember investigating possible causes with what she told me happened,needless to say,the stillbirth was identified as a freak thing,we moved on with our lives,looking forward to the future.
Brandt was born November 17th,2013,"stillborn that is,he was full gestation,due date dec 6th,i really remember this grief process very well,I remember things like my son digging the babies resting place with tears running down his face,how frail my daughter n law was,after all she lost litres of blood just a week before.i remember the white and pure small casket being opened at grave side,and how we wept as a family,we hugged so close,we cried so hard. Even more,i remember holding this beautiful 7 pound plus baby boy,he looked like he was sleeping,I cried like a baby, my husband and i wailed together,I could not register what was going on,certainly this baby was going to wake up.
what even made the situation worse is we just about lost our daughter n law,we could barely comprehend the loss of the baby but the near loss of our precious daughter n law in the year of 2013 was beyond comprehension. We are thankful for the wit and intelligence of a great medical team which operates on minimal resources for complicated pregnancies,this is where i live" a place which has put little investment into complicated maternal health issues",
wish me luck meeting with the Health Minister,or better send me luck to allow me to approach the whole thing with not being mindful to the history,i am having problems writing or may i say forwarding the requests the Health Minister's office as they have asked of me,i think i am frightful of this move because of some of the common political responses i received when doing my information auditing regarding stillbirths,
where i live regional preferences are a mode of survival,hence noone really cares beyond their own territory,where
any encouragement would be appreciated

 

[Praxius]

In a realistic way, there is nothing that can bring comfort to such a situation from any of us, with perhaps the exception of any other members who may have gone through the same or similar situation.

My son was born three months premature due to pre-eclampsia. If they didn't induce the pregnancy at the time they did, my wife would have had a lot of serious problems like extreme high blood pressure, seizures, eventually leading to a coma and perhaps even death after all that..... not to mention the problems relating to the fetus.

Going through all of that, our son did survive being born so early and still had a ways to go in the hospitals. His stomach did not develop properly as a result and has had digestive problems with many foods such as wheat, soy & dairy. Over the course of his life now (almost 3 years old) he's perfectly fine with wheat, some dairy products but soy is still an issue.

Otherwise, we have been very lucky all things considering. My wife took a long time to figure out how to deal with what happened and still trying to sort it all out, as she couldn't have a "Normal" pregnancy and he had to be born early..... and while we are also grateful that it wasn't any worse than that, and while we know very well that there are many people who are not as lucky as us who don't get as far as we did, it's still a difficult thing to deal with. While you and even my wife will consider those who have "Normal" pregnancies and health babies as the lucky ones, it is very rare anybody doesn't have something difficult along the way to deal with. Nothing is ever easy when bringing a child into the world.

Now how does any of this compare to what you explained?

It doesn't, but then again, I don't believe anybody should compare their pregnancies with others just as they shouldn't compare their children..... people shouldn't even compare the lack of children or the losses during a complicated pregnancy.

Your above situation, though very difficult and hard to deal with can not be compared to another family's situation where they too were in the same boat.

It just is what it is and we all encounter and deal with it in our own ways.

The other problem is that I'm a guy. We generally look at things in a logical manner in order to deal with things we face. My wife has told me many times over the years that my logical way of dealing with things (in particular our situation) does not help her in anyway with what she was going through. She needed the emotional aspect to bounce back on to help figure things out. I don't know how to do that other than to listen and nod and her friends at the time never went through a similar experience and thus, they couldn't help in an emotional or logical way, so it took her a long time to sort it all out with only my logical way helping her along.

In the same breath, I can't expect anything I type here to help you or your daughter-in-law with what you are going through. I have not gone through what your family has gone through. We were close to being in the same situation, but close only works with horseshoes and hand grenades.

I will not try and pretend to understand what you guys are going through because that would be an insult.

The only thing I can relate to is your confusion, frustration and how you can somehow feel alone amongst it all despite all the help that was given by the doctors, nurses, etc.

There were a lot of unanswered questions for us as well (just different ones) and though being here in Australia when my son was born, the process in the medical industry is pretty much the same as back in Canada. We were lucky for him to be born in the best hospital in Victoria and we had a lot of help and care during the process. We had a few insensitive people along the way trying to "help" who only made things worse, but overall it was good.

But then our son was doing much better than many of the other babies in the hospital and they needed the beds, and then transferred us to another hospital which didn't seem to give a sh*t about our son or us and was stuck in this cramped room with some 20-30 other premature babies. We knew there was a problem with him taking his milk and it wasn't coming back out of him the right way. He was also vomiting an awful lot, cried almost all the time, seemed like he was in constant pain and stopped gaining weight light he used to.... the nurses ignored our concerns with a trivial reply of "Babies vomit you know?"

They then pushed us out of the hospital the moment he barely met the requirements of being released then left us with a child on our own with some serious issues. After 2 sleepless nights and him not taking any milk, with my wife unsure what to do anymore after giving up on getting help from the hospital, I said we need to call them. We called them up but refused to help us because "He was no longer a patient." and left it at that.

I drove us all back to the first hospital where he stayed, we explained the situation and after they saw what was going on, they took him right away and did tests and figured out his digestive problems.

During all of this, I quit my job because they refused to give me two unpaid days off so I could help my family. My family was more important and like always, I was determined enough to find another job after I focused on my family, which I did.

Why am I saying all of this?

Probably because I never really spoke much about it in these forums and many in here know nothing about it.

Maybe to give you and your family something to read and see that we all have something rough to go through, some worse than others obviously. But more importantly, to show that one thing I do know is that you and your family have gone through something very rough, very difficult, that I know that these kind of losses for your family can leave you questioning a lot of things.... things about the medical system, things about your family history, things about your body, my wife / your daughter-in-law thinking their bodies failed their babies and that it's their fault.

I know that the emotions are raw and I know that some in your life (friends, etc.) probably have expected you to just get over it by now or that it'll get easier over time.

I know that they don't.

My wife and I at least have positive things to grab a hold of regarding our situation. Our son is doing well, he's growing well, he's too smart for his own good and he's happy. I do not seek sympathy or anything from others regarding my family's personal struggles, I am merely sharing our story just in case you or others may find a shred of something in it that may help with something.

I do wish you and your family luck with your struggles.