Learning that your baby has been diagnosed with a lethal, life-limiting, or severely debilitating diagnosis raises challenging questions and many difficult emotions like grief, shock, disbelief, isolation, and anger. You are not only faced with the decision of how to proceed with your pregnancy, but must also confront the inevitable loss and intense grief for your child. You feel heart-broken and devastated.
It's normal:
- to question whether the diagnosis is a mistake
- to feel fluctuating feelings of denial and hope
- to feel that it's unfair
- to feel guilt or responsibility for "creating" the abnormality
- to grieve the loss of a "normal, healthy" child that you had imagined
- to feel anxious and/or depressed
- to question the decisions you made
I am here to listen, to support you, to help you sort through your thoughts, and to help you process your grief.
Additionally, we can talk about things like:
- how your faith beliefs are impacted
- memory-making
- facing stigma
- dealing with tough emotions
- communicating with your spouse/partner (differing grief expressions)
- how to honor/remember your baby's life