Guilt

No one could prepare me for how much guilt I would feel for giving birth prematurely. The only time I seemed to not be overwhelmed by it was when I was able to completely block it out and not even let it enter my mind. As soon as I gave the situation any thought, my mood dropped considerably. Time and time again my support system would assure me there was likely nothing that I could have done to prevent his being born early, but that's a hard thing to accept. Even more so as I hoped to have more children and if there was no preventable cause than there was nothing I could do to improve the chances of a full-term birth in future pregnancies.

I went over everything I did before and during the pregnancy trying to figure out what could have gone wrong. Prior to conception I had gone off the pill for a few months to assure that my cycle was regular again. During that time I also took a prenatal pill religiously, never skipping a day. I started eating much better, and stopped all caffeine intake. I got necessary shots beforehand and did a lot of reading and research around healthy pregnancies.

Once pregnant, I continued to take the prenatal pill, I went to every doctor's check-up, ultrasound, and blood test. I ate quite well, never drank, smoked, or did drugs. I took a prenatal class and had been signed up for a breastfeeding course. I did moderate exercise everyday. These were all the things I knew I did right.

The things that I truly obsessed about were the times I was not perfect. I had lunch meat on occasion. I dyed my hair early in the second trimester. I continued to use face cream and hand ointment. I had caffeine on occasion. Once in a while I exercised slightly harder than at a moderate level. I had warm showers here and there. I continued my stressful job full-time. All of these things are apparently not likely to cause any harm, but none are fully recommended either.

The biggest guilt came from my having had some likely leakage of amniotic fluid for a week or two prior to my water breaking. I assumed it wasn't anything to be concerned about, as it had been brought up in the prenatal class as being a relatively common occurrence. But my gut had told me to say something, or at least ask my doctor about it, and I didn't. Maybe if I had they could have confirmed leakage and I could have been put on bed rest, or changed something, in order to keep him safe and protected longer than the 31 weeks. This is the one that I struggle with, the one factor that I definitely did have control over.