Giving Up The Guilt!

This post has been inspired by Mr Boos Mum who blogs over at Premmeditations. She wrote a letter to herself about giving up the guilt that comes with the birth of a premature baby and asked others to join her. This is my letter…

Dear me,

How are you? It’s been a tough emotional year hasn’t it. I know your not feeling 100% at the moment and it feels like it is all catching up with you. You need to rest and perhaps take a step back, you have done all that you can at the moment and I agree with others when they say you have done a fantastic job and come so far in such a short space of time.

I want to talk to you about those feelings of guilt that you have, that surface every now and then. It’s time to let them go.

You didn’t do anything during your pregnancy that led to your son being autistic.

I know you struggle with tablets and couldn’t take the big multi-vitamin tablets that they recommend but you are not the only woman on the planet not to take these whist pregnant. Yes you had an extra 3D scan but some woman have many scans during their pregnancy without any issues. OK, you aloud yourself the odd glass of coke every now and then, it’s not as if you drunk it by the gallon and drunk nothing else. Having the c-section was a must, without it Ethan may never had made it into the world. For someone who is scared of hospitals and anything medical you where amazing, even when you were fighting for that section after being in labour for well over 24 hours, knowing that the longer it was going on the danger for your son was growing with every minute.

I know that you feel guilty that you didn’t realise that Ethan was showing red flags during his first two years, and you feel like you are a failure because you perhaps didn’t show as much concern as you feel you should have when he was missing milestones and not developing like other children. But you were concerned and did ask questions when you saw your doctor or health visitor, they just brushed your comments aside. You trusted these people because you thought they knew what they were doing.

Hindsight is a marvellous thing, and to be honest if you had realised there were red flags then Ethan would have been too young for anything to have happened. It would have meant extra months of worry and stress and sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

So as of now the guilt must stop, you have done and are doing everything in your power to help your son.

When its a bad day and you are feeling low remember what a very wise friend once told you…

Keep smiling.

Love from

Me!