One of the interesting things about having become a mother for the first time in 1973 and then becoming a mother for the second and third time in 2001 and 2004 was how much some baby advice had changed.
Back in 1973, I had an acquaintance who lost a baby to SIDS, so I was terrified about the possibility. I would stand outside my daughter’s bedroom door to listen for her breathing. If she didn’t wake up at the usual time in the morning, I would go in to check on her and she was always beginning to wake up – thankfully. Back then, we put a baby to sleep on their stomach in case they threw up, they wouldn’t choke on it.
But by the early 2000s, the advice had changed and I can only assume it was due to statistics that proved babies would be safer sleeping on their backs. And both of my sons also survived their infancy.
The reason this is on my mind today is an awful story I just read about a hopeful adoptive mother.
She and her husband were going to adopt from a “friend”. The pregnant mother changed her mind only a week before she gave birth. And of course, this was a terrible disappointment for the couple hoping to adopt and destroyed the friendship that had previously existed.
Sadly, this baby died from SIDS.
The hopeful adoptive mother admits to conflicted feelings about this. She admits that the adoption failing to go through left her heartbroken because she had become emotionally attached to the developing fetus, thinking of it becoming her own baby to love. The baby now dying has left her feeling like she lost her baby twice. She understands that she really doesn’t have any right to mourn the loss of a baby that was never hers but never-the-less.
The hateful part is that she also feels vindicated, as though it is karma taking the baby away from its original mother, because the hopeful adoptive mother was denied the opportunity to raise this child.
She also admits to being irrationally angry. She believes the baby would still be alive had this child been in her care.
Weirdly, she is relieved the baby didn’t die in her care, if this was the child’s destiny from the beginning.
What to make of all of this ? She is one very mixed up lady to put it kindly, which I would.
However, I don’t disagree with this woman in my adoption group’s harsher response to the hopeful adoptive mother –
What you should be feeling is sad that a baby died, and compassion for the mother. A decent person would stuff their selfishness and feel sympathy. This baby was never the hopeful adoptive mother’s responsibility. Some more advice, you could thank god that baby didn’t have to feel the torment of a mother/child bond being broken before she left this world. I’m sure her Mom’s kisses were what she fell asleep thinking about, as it should be. And this part hurts but you were never her friend. You are lying to yourself about that part. Unkindly, what you are is a predator, mad that your potential prey got away.
Missing Mom 