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Thursday, July 15, 2010

A Debate...

This is a vent. I don't really know why I feel the need to vent about this...Perhaps the fact that I'm sick is making me hyper sensitive, perhaps this is just one of those things that REALLY rub me the wrong way. I don't know, but I don't really think it matters. I imagine that there are a lot of loss mommies out there that will see exactly where I am coming from.
I participate on a parenting website. I enjoy talking to other parents, I enjoy getting input about things going on with Dayne and when I was pregnant, I felt so much better seeing that there were so many other women going through the same things as me. The same pains, the same sicknesses, the same excitement.
When we lost Alexandra, I stuck mainly to a few areas where I wouldn't see the new babies or hear about new baby things. I stuck mostly to a board dedicated to debate. The people there were very supportive of me when they found out about our loss and it was really touching. I have participated in debates about loss since I lost my daughter. I feel that I have done reasonably well with articulating my point of view without getting offended or defensive.
Today I discovered a debate about when a baby dies. The question was in regards to whether it'd God's will when a baby dies or whether it's survival of the fittest. There is this little nerve in my heart that was hit when I read the question. The nerve kept getting hit as I read some of the responses.
This is one of those things that I hate. When someone tells me it was God's will, God had different plans, etc. I want to scream. Why do I need to hear that?
I have yet to hear someone tell me that my daughter just wasn't meant to live because of survival of the fittest though. How could that possibly apply? Her umbilical cord was compressed, had she been outside the womb, she would have lived. The failure was not on her part, or God's. If blame must be placed, it really should be placed on me, for not having her earlier, for not realizing something was wrong.
My reaction, that nerve getting hit, was caused by a few things. First, I hate the implication that something was wrong with my daughter. There was nothing wrong with her, she could have lived outside the womb, she was totally healthy. It was a tragic, tragic accident that stole her from us, it had nothing to do with her ability to survive outside the womb, or something being wrong with her. Which leads me to the big nerve...I cannot handle the idea that someone would think anything that comes even remotely close to blaming Alexandra for her own death. My perfect little angel, she is to blame for nothing.
I imagine some people may end up here at my blog through my comments on that debate, and I imagine they will read this. Hopefully, I don't offend. Hopefully, they see what I am saying, how I am feeling, what I am thinking. Hopefully, people never really think that Alexandra is to blame.

6 comments:

  1. And what does that say about some one like me? I was born with a congenital heart defect. The only reason I'm alive now is that I wasn't born a generation ago when the surgical procedure that saved my life wasn't invented yet. I was born not the fittest...but I'm alive anyway.

    My comment to this would be "Please don't Darwin your way out of feeling empathy for my dead baby. Or use it to feel superior as to why your kid made it out alive and mine did not. My dead baby is as special and precious as your live one...the only difference is that yours is breathing, and mine is not".

    Seriously...it's all fine and dandy to theorize...until it happens to you.

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  2. I think I know the debate board you're referring to. Most of the girls on there are really nice, but I've come across more than a few...bad apples (to put it nicely). I know EXACTLY what you're saying. Stevie was perfect and healthy too, and it was the cord that caused her to die. The whole thing came from two rare blood clotting disorders I didn't know I had...so by the "survival of the fittest" argument, shouldn't it have been ME that didn't make it? I don't know. People just don't think before talking sometimes I think...

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  3. Melissa, I'm sorry to hear that you've had a bad day. I was trying to write you an email and can't find our old ones to simply reply to. Can you send me your email address again pretty please ma'am?

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  4. I've always hated "it's God's will" or "maybe it was better this way because your baby was sick". There was nothing wrong, they were perfect! Sometimes it's the cord, sometimes it's just unexplained like in my case. Don't worry, this debate would rub me the wrong way too. (((HUGS)))

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  5. Your debate site ignores one very important option. Nature.
    I believe in "survival of the fittest" in cases where there is no help for those born without strength or natural defenses.
    I believe that God sometimes "wills" bad things to teach us or guide us in our journey on this earth.
    I also believe in NATURE. Sometimes things just happen. The gestation of a child in a mother's womb is a complicated thing in a physical sense. There are any number of ways that our bodies betray us during a lifetime; our immune system isn't strong enough to fight a germ, we get allergies, or we're lactose intolerant.
    The position of an umbilical cord has nothing to do with God's will or whether the child will survive in the world. It happens as a course of nature. Nobody is to blame especialy you, Melissa.
    HUGS,
    Aunt Alison

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  6. You know what, even as a Christian, I don't like the whole "it was God's plan" thing. We have no way of knowing if it was His plan or not...and what they're essentially saying is that God took your baby's life. I refuse to believe that God wanted Abigail, or your Alexandra, to die and that's why they are gone. Sometimes things happen; that doesn't mean God made it happen.

    But I know that, when those things do happen, God is right there with us, loving us, giving us strength even minute by minute, holding us up. His heart breaks along with ours. He knows the pain and He cares. I don't think for a second that He took our babies. But I believe they're with Him.

    ((((Melissa)))) I'm still thinking about all of you and praying for you.

    Val

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