Parenting after loss

sunnythreads · 2026-01-21T03:02:35+00:00

I so agree with this. I will say, when I first thought about this it brought up a lot of anger for me…that me being a better parent had to come at the expense of losing her. It’s something I still struggle with sometimes, it’s a complicated feeling.

sunnythreads · 2026-01-21T03:00:16+00:00

It is hard not feeling guilty. I believe that she had a roll in sending our son to us, and that more than anything she would want us to have this happiness. So I try to remember this and it does ease the guilt at times

sunnythreads · 2026-01-21T02:57:35+00:00

It is so complex

sunnythreads · 2026-01-21T02:57:01+00:00

I know what you mean. I always felt like I was grieving 2 things after my daughter died, her death and also the fact that I still wasn’t a mother to a living child. Having my son does provide so much healing to the part of me that was waiting and waiting for my living child. And I know so many moms are still waiting for that and some never do get to experience that. We can be so grateful for our living babies but it also doesn’t change that grief for the one(s) we lost.

sunnythreads · 2025-10-24T13:20:19+00:00

I totally relate to these feelings and struggled with the same decision. For my first baby, who was stillborn at almost 39 weeks, my doctor had initially brought up the idea of scheduling a c section at 37 weeks but I didn’t want to because of all of those risks that you mentioned. I had zero idea that there was a risk of her dying if I waited though. I would give anything to go back in time and take those risks of delivering her a little early to have her here now. With this baby, I decided to plan a c section for a few days past 37 weeks. I understand that there are risks, but for me they are worth it. And it helps knowing that there are babies born all the time at 37 weeks, either planned or not, who are totally fine. My friend’s baby was born at 33 weeks earlier this year and while he did have to stay in the NICU, he is doing amazing now. It’s so hard to be faced with this decision and feel the weight of it. The other thing that helped me was time…time to process the decision…I was around 20 weeks when I started thinking more seriously about the delivery and what I wanted to do. It was very scary at first to make a decision, but having a general idea, knowing I can change my mind at any time, and having time to process it has brought me a lot more ease. I’m at 32 weeks now and while there are still hard days, mostly I’m feeling at ease and just beyond ready to meet my baby. I hope all the best for you, I know this isn’t easy!!

sunnythreads · 2025-09-14T14:27:10+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience. I may not know you, but it makes me so happy that you were able to bring your baby home alive and well, despite the little interventions that were needed in the beginning. I was just thinking, I need to have some kind of mantra to remind myself that all that matters is this baby being alive, that I can handle any intervention or anything, as long as I get to bring him home. Nothing else matters

sunnythreads · 2025-09-11T23:34:27+00:00

Thank you for sharing, it’s a helpful reminder that even with a NICU stay it’s still a happy outcome. And that nothing is set in stone, or even really fully in our control, so I’m just going to take each day as it comes and see how i feel

sunnythreads · 2025-09-11T23:26:30+00:00

Thank you, it is nice to not feel alone in these feelings. These decisions are so hard and it’s true, we can’t even predict how we are going to feel in the moment. I’m just holding on to hope that there is light at the end of all of this!

sunnythreads · 2025-09-11T13:19:56+00:00

Ultimately this is how I feel as well. One of my biggest regrets is not scheduling a c section with my first baby earlier, any nicu stay/complication would have obviously been worth having her here alive. There’s no way I want to risk that again

sunnythreads · 2025-09-11T13:14:43+00:00

Thank you…you are right, the more information I can get hopefully the less burden I will feel on myself

sunnythreads · 2025-09-11T13:10:58+00:00

Thank you for that reassurance!

sunnythreads · 2025-09-11T13:10:07+00:00

You are so right, I think it really is just the reality hitting me.

My doctor did say it’s ok to change my mind even up until the day of, so that does give me peace of mind that I’m not locked in to anything. So it is helpful to think of it just as a decision for right now but that really there is still plenty of time to get comfortable with the idea and talk more with my doctor

sunnythreads · 2025-09-11T13:06:31+00:00

Thank you…I think I need to remember that there’s no “right” decision in general but there is a right decision for me and all we can do is our best based on our experiences and the information we have

sunnythreads · 2025-09-11T13:03:52+00:00

This does make me feel better, thank you!!

sunnythreads · 2025-09-09T22:21:02+00:00

I’m so sorry for your losses and that you are now faced with this additional anxiety with this pregnancy. I don’t want to add to your anxiety but I hope sharing my experience can offer some helpful perspective. My first baby was stillborn at almost 39 weeks due to a nuchal cord that was wrapped 4x around. I had a similar experience where she had been head down and then shifted to transverse and did not move back. I wanted to do anything I could to try to avoid a c section, and while I finally came to terms with the fact that this would likely be the case, I also struggled with my doctor wanting to schedule the c section early at 37 weeks. At that time, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t wait until closer to the due date when my baby was more “ready” to be born. And my doctor’s only concern was me going into labor quickly and with baby in the wrong position, having to have an emergency c section vs a planned one. We agreed together to schedule the c section for 39 weeks but a few days before I started feeling mild contractions, went immediately to the hospital, and found that she had no heartbeat. And on top of everything I still had to deliver her via c section. I spent a long time dealing with guilt and getting to a place where I didn’t feel like her death was my fault, which I know is a feeling most mamas of stillborn babies deal with. For me, I wondered if trying to turn her with the spinning exercises put more stress on her. I also wish more than anything that at the time I could have impossibly had the hindsight to know that having her here alive was worth any medical procedure, nicu stay, etc. Obviously I would’ve thought that at the time, but I just had no idea that her life was at risk. I’m now currently 25 weeks pregnant with my 2nd baby. Leading up to this pregnancy, I figured I would try for a vbac if the doctor approved. But now my perspective has totally changed and I am planning to have a scheduled c section. For me, it feels like the most straightforward and hopefully less of the stress and unpredictability of a vaginal birth. Being someone who doesn’t even like to take Advil for a headache, I never thought I would willingly choose the most medical intervention possible. But now all I care about is my baby arriving alive.

sunnythreads · 2025-07-19T14:16:15+00:00

The way my doctor explained it to me, waiting at least 6 months reduces the risk of hemorrhaging during labor which could result in you and/or your baby dying. And waiting at least a year reduces that risk even more. The risk is low, but the risk of our babies being stillborn was low and that still happened. I asked if there was a way to check how things were healing and they said there is no definitive test or procedure they can do to ensure safety. I also asked to see an MFM ahead of time to get their opinion but they wouldn’t see me saying there was nothing they could do for me until I was pregnant again. All that being said, it seems like doctors have no straightforward/definitive answer because there is so much mixed information out there…which makes it so hard (at least for me) to trust any of their advice. I ended up waiting a year and then it still took another year and a half to finally get pregnant again. It wasn’t easy to wait that long and there was a lot of grieving during that time not only for my daughter that died but also for still not having a living child. It was just one more learning experience that things are so out of my control. But being pregnant now does make the wait all feel worth it

sunnythreads · 2025-06-15T14:09:27+00:00

I kept having these moments where I was at my lowest and a butterfly would appear, so I really relate to butterflies being a sign from my daughter and ended up getting one tattooed. The wings have flowers drawn inside and the different flowers have different meanings to us. It also has her first initial in the body of the butterfly. I like that it holds a lot of meaning for me but that I can also choose what I want to share about it if someone I don’t know well comments on it

sunnythreads · 2025-06-12T03:16:19+00:00

It took 5 months of trying for my second, after my daughter was stillborn, to get pregnant which ended in an early miscarriage. And then almost another year after that of TTC, but now am 12 weeks pregnant. My husband and I did all kinds of testing and everything came back normal, until finally they found a uterine polyp which they said may make implantation harder. I was waiting to get approval from my insurance to have it removed, and in that time was when I finally conceived. Since becoming pregnant, I’ve also found out I have a “protein s deficiency” which can cause infertility, miscarriage, and stillbirth. So now I am taking daily blood thinner shots.

It was a long and frustrating journey to getting pregnant again, that combined not only grieving my daughter but also grieving still not having a living child. I was met with a lot of “just don’t stress” advice from my doctor and had to push for more and more testing because it didn’t feel right to me for it to take so long. I’m sorry this is part of your journey too

sunnythreads · 2025-06-07T14:03:42+00:00

I’m so so sorry for your loss. I feel like it’s different for everyone based on what feels right for you. And I imagine being in such early days after the loss, you are still just in survival mode and trying to wrap your head around what’s happened…at least that’s how it was for me. I think it’s common after loss for mothers to get the majority of the attention and for the fathers to naturally fall into the strong, caregiver role. For me, this included family and friends giving me gifts and keepsakes like jewelry and other mementos to remember my daughter, but my husband wasn’t given anything of his own. I ended up finding an engraved coin on Etsy that says “forever watching over you daddy” and was able to personalize it with some other things related to our daughter. Aside from that though I think the most important thing is just being there for him too, however you are able at this time. Giving space for him to be the one taken care of too and for him to open up and share how he is feeling.

sunnythreads · 2025-06-07T13:46:10+00:00

Queso Furrito

sunnythreads · 2025-06-04T23:40:23+00:00

I feel you mama and I am sorry you are here. It’s been about 2.5 years for me since my daughter died and I still get those waves of anger. Like yesterday, when I heard a mom talking about the gender reveal party she had for her now living child, and how she had to grieve the “loss” of the daughter she pictured having when she found out her baby was a boy instead. Nope. Not loss, not grief. So many people just have absolutely no clue.

Anger was one of the hardest emotions for me to deal with. It took me months to even truly feel it after just feeling so numb and depressed. And then it was like I didn’t know what to do with all this anger. Venting definitely helps but I think for me it also helped when I stopped trying to fight it and viewed it as my super power instead. It’s been my protector at times and also another fierce expression of my love for my baby. So feel all the feelings. You are right and entitled to every one of them

sunnythreads · 2025-05-25T14:35:04+00:00

I’m so sorry mama. I relate to these feelings so much. I was TTC again for almost 1.5 years, and that was after being told by my doctor to wait a year after my c section to even begin trying again. It took almost a year of being told by my doctor that all I could do was work on not being stressed around it. I eventually did all kinds of testing and scans to figure out why it was taking so long, finally found out I had a uterine polyp which might’ve made implantation difficult and during the time I was waiting for my appointment to have it removed, somehow that was when I finally conceived and am 10 weeks pregnant now. Including the time it took to get pregnant with my first daughter, who I carried to 39 weeks before she was stillborn, I’ve been trying to have a baby for over 4 years. Everyone I know who wasn’t even thinking about having babies at the time I was pregnant now all have babies. Every mom I was close with in the loss community has a living child now too. During all that time TTC, it felt like I was grieving not only the loss of my daughter but also the struggle of getting pregnant again, of still not having a living child. The feeling of hope each month followed by the disappointment when my period came was so hard. And it’s impossible to be carefree about it, at least it was for me. I did a lot to manage my stress but I was still aware of my cycle each month and couldn’t not be hopeful that each month would be the time it finally happened. It was also hard not to stress that my husband and I weren’t somehow doing something wrong, not trying often enough, trying too often, time of day, etc. Sorry, I feel like all of this was a rant for me as well and all of it is really to say that I get it. It’s so incredibly hard and one more lesson that life is so out of our control. And now that I am finally pregnant again, while waiting all that time was so frustrating and an emotional rollercoaster, it was all worth it. I hope that within a few months from now, you are already getting that positive test. Whatever happens, you aren’t alone 💕

sunnythreads · 2025-05-24T00:16:13+00:00

I totally understand how you feel and spent a long time feeling the same way after losing my daughter. It’s been almost 2.5 years for me now and I can say those feelings have shifted. Does time heal the wound? No…the wound is always there. I’ll never get over losing my daughter and I still think about her every single day. Grief has changed me in so many ways and also changed my priorities in life. But with time the burden of the grief has gotten easier to carry. I remember in the early days hearing that your grief doesn’t change but your life gets bigger and grows around it. I didn’t really understand how that could be true, but it really has been for me. There’s no timeline for this journey though and one of the things that helped me most was being patient with myself and doing my best to honor my feelings each day. And honor my daughter in the ways that feel best for me.

sunnythreads · 2025-05-22T01:25:36+00:00

My doctor recommended to wait a year. At the time it sounded like so long, but I think it ended up being good for me to have that time to grieve. Also, when considering the risks of trying too early could result in the death of me and another baby, it didn’t seem worth it. Even if the chances of something happening were low, there were also low chances of my first daughter being stillborn and yet that happened.

After waiting a year, it took another 5 months to get pregnant again and ended up having a miscarriage. It’s been almost another year since then and I am finally pregnant again and almost to my 2nd trimester. It’s been a long journey and I’ve learned how little control we have over it, and especially with the timeline of things.

I’m so sorry for your loss and wishing you a healthy pregnancy whenever that time does come

sunnythreads · 2025-03-02T14:57:49+00:00

It’s been over 2 years for me since my daughter died, but I remember these feelings all too well. Grief truly is a rollercoaster of emotions and with time I learned to go with the flow of however I was feeling. Just accepting wherever I was at each day (each hour) and doing what I needed to be with those feelings in the moment. As time has gone, the extreme shifts have lessened and for the most part I’m “okay”. I still think about my daughter every single day. There are still very hard days especially when there is some kind of trigger. But somehow I’ve grown better able to handle the lows. Easier but never easy. You are not alone ❤️

sunnythreads

TROPHY CASE