Anniversaries of Life and Special Needs Loss, Pt. 2
Guest blogger Kimberly Drew and her family recently celebrated daughter Abbey’s birthday. In Part 1 of her series about anniversaries of special needs loss and life, Kimberly described the arrival of their daughter. Today she explains how she learned to cope with the memories of Abbey’s birth and when it’s okay to grieve.
Anniversaries of Life and Loss:
It’s Okay to Feel a Little Sad
Abbey just had a birthday. I can’t believe she’s twelve years old! It feels like just yesterday that she came. That’s what happens when memories are strong and vivid. They were mostly painful memories, and it wasn’t until about two weeks after she was born that I let my heart finally rejoice that I had a little girl. We’d been told a few hours after she was born that there was a good chance she would not survive her traumatic delivery at all.
She truly is a miracle.
A couple of months after we brought her home I started seeing a counselor. I was having horrible nightmares on a very regular basis. If I let myself go to sleep, I would wake up drenched in sweat with a rapid heart rate and having just watched my daughter being resuscitated in my sleep. The paleness of her face, and the sound of her labored efforts to breathe are seared into my mind forever.
I was diagnosed shortly afterward with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
I thought that PTSD was something that only soldiers got from being in war. I didn’t even know what it was. When the counselor went down the list of symptoms, I had every single one. I was completely shocked. I didn’t tell anyone except for my husband for years. I don’t know why… I think I thought I should have been able to handle it?
She did live, after all, so what was my problem?
Time is a great revealer, and now I know exactly what my problem was. I’m happy to say that only once in a great while do I have those kinds of nightmares. I know the triggers and when stress starts to build, I have tools to help me cope.
But in the meantime, many birthdays have come.
Blowing out the birthday candles is a celebration of Abbey’s life. All day long we look at her and each other and thank God for her. I think of all the miracles that have happened in her life and body throughout the years, and I’m so humbled by God’s goodness to teach us how to be her parents and how to grieve the loss of the dream of a healthy baby. Like this website and Jolene’s books share, we found the beauty of new and different dreams for Abbey and for ourselves.
Her birthday is an anniversary.
It is an anniversary of her life. We spend about 98% of our day in complete gratitude and unfiltered joy. But for about 2%, when we are finally alone, my husband and I just hold each other and often cry. It’s okay to acknowledge that her birth was also a loss. Our pain does not go unnoticed by God, and anyone who has been through something even remotely similar knows what I’m talking about. Our greatest joy holds hands with our greatest trial.
It’s okay to be a little sad too.
How About You?
Have you had an experience similar to Kimberly’s? Leave a comment about how you’ve learned to cope with your grief and/or PTSD? Or do you have questions about how to find help? Leave those comments, too. Kimberly and Jolene will try to answer them or point you to resources.
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By Kimberly Drew
–Kimberly grew up and went to college in the small town of Upland, IN. She graduated from Taylor University with a degree in Elementary Education in 2002. While at TU, she married her college sweetheart and so began their adventure! Ryan and Kimberly have four amazing kids on earth (Abigail, Jayden, Ellie, and Cooper), and a baby boy waiting for them in heaven. Their daughter Abigail (Abbey) has multiple disabilities including cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder, hearing loss, microcephaly, and oral dysphagia. She is the inspiration behind Kimberly’s desire to write. In addition to being a stay-at-home mom, Kimberly has been serving alongside her husband in full time youth ministry for almost fourteen years. She enjoys working with the senior high girls, scrapbooking, reading, and music. You can visit Kimberly at her website, Promises and Perspective.
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Hi Jennifer,
I’m so sorry to hear about your two traumatic birth experiences. Have you sought treatment? PTSD in highly treatable, especially if you look for a therapist trained in Instinctual Trauma Response (ITR). You can learn more about ITR at the Intensive Trauma Therapy (ITT) website at this address: http://www.traumatherapy.us.
Also, I’m presently working on a book about PTSD in children, which will be released by Familius Publications in the spring of 2015. It will contain a chapter about how PTSD in the parents, too. You can track the progress by visiting DifferentDream.org. And you can sign up for the Different Dream email newsletter in the right hand column of this page.
Praying you will find peace,
Jolene
Kimberly,
I feel so relieved to see that someone else mentioned PTSD can occur after giving birth. I know that may sound silly but I think I experienced PTSD from the births of both of my daughters. Neither one of my birth experiences were the joyous celebrations that I had visioned and hoped for. Although my oldest daughter was born completely healthy, I was very much mistreated by the nursing staff during my 27 hour labor. I came to the hospital in labor on a weekend night. I was the only patient on the ward and the nursing staff had full intentions of keeping it that way. I was having contractions every 5 minutes and I was told for almost 18 hours that I was not in labor. Only when my “regular” doctor came on 20 hours later did she confirm I was in labor and was not progressing and needed a c-section. Thankfully, the Lord was watching over my little one and she was born healthy. Then there is my second daughter…. I had a high risk pregnancy from the beginning because I was at that magic age of 36 where you automatically become labeled as “advance maternal age”. UGH… At my routine 36 week visit, it was determined that my placenta was failing so I needed an emergency c-section. No time to go home, no time to grab my bag, no time to kiss my older daughter, no time for my husband to get to the hospital. So my second little one was born that night and although everything looked good on paper, I knew something wasn’t right. The next day I noticed a change in the nursing staff. They were avoiding us. Finally after demanding to know what the problem was, I was told in these exact words by a Nurse Practitioner who was caring for my baby… “I think she shows some signs of Down syndrome but I’m not certain. I’m sorry.” She then turned and walked out the door. No one offered us any counsel or comfort or even what to do next. We were told to follow up with our pediatrician. They left my husband and I there to take the brunt of this alone. In the meantime my baby wasn’t doing well and they were not doing anything to help her or me so I demanded a transfer to the local University hospital. Our daughter was transferred to the NICU and stayed there for the next two weeks because she was so tiny she wasn’t able to eat on her own.
I, too, suffered many nights of anxiety attacks when I allowed thoughts about the events to enter my mind for serval months after both of my girls’ births. I often joked about having PTSD but deep down inside it was no joke for me. I knew it was true. I never received any counsel or much support for my feelings. I just pushed through with Bible reading and prayer but I think it would have been helpful and I encourage anyone else out there that has similar experiences to find friendly counsel if they have the resources.
I, too on birthdays, cannot help but get very teary about the thoughts of my birth experiences, especially the birth of my second daughter. Not only do I mourn the loss of the sweet birth experience that I never got to experience but I also mourn the loss of that healthy “normal” child that I was told to expect all through my pregnancy (I had two different tests that were negative for chromosome abnormalities.). My life has been forever changed in the past 16 months. I am a different person. I am a person that I never thought I would be. I think through all of this that is what I mourn the most… the loss of that person that I was before all of this happened. I wish I could gain the strength to be that person again or come to peace with the “new” me. I pray daily for God to show me were this path into unchartered territory is leading.
Thank you, Lori. You said it so well…”a choice to focus on the miracles and the moments of joy.” Good advice, and it takes practice, doesn’t it?
Your post so connected with my heart. Our story is different but the grieving for the loss of what we thought was “supposed” to be is the same. Coping is a time thing…time and faith. A choice to focus on the miracles and the moments of joy and then choosing to hold onto those tightly even in the toughest of moments. Thank you so much for sharing!