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Messages By: mammaclare
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April 9, 2007, 8:04 pm PDT
 Dr. Phil-- Thank you so very much for being the first nationally recognized personality to acknowledge and address the horror and sadness that is Hyperemesis Gravidarum. As I write this, my husband is sitting on the couch with a bag of frozen peas in the most private of places. His "frozen peas and jock strap" weekend has come after 2 hyperemesis pregnancies...but sadly it also has come BEFORE the conception and birth of the 3rd child we had planned and already loved when we were first married. Many of us lose jobs--some lose careers. Many of us lose close relationships--some lose marriages. Many of us lose our health--some lose their lives. And all in the face of what is meant to be the most glorious time in our lives--pregnancy and the expected birth of a child loved so deeply that it hurts. As I write this, my 2 month old HG#2 baby is cooing and kicking and showing off his new-found belly laugh (directed at mommy, of course!). My 3 1/2 year old HG#1 baby is upstairs in his room, reading books to himself and actually getting the simple 3-letter words correct. They are both so amazing, which only makes the fact that HG has completely dictated even our family size all the more difficult to accept. What is even more difficult to accept, and beyond difficult to say aloud, is that there were moments in both pregnancies that I actually prayed for a loss, planned in my head a termination, wished for my own death. These were PLANNED babies. LOVED babies. WANTED babies. Can you and your viewers can even begin imagine how one can be so sick and so terrified as to want, plan or even follow through with the termination of a planned, loved, wanted baby? Most can't. Most who haven't lived the hell can't even look us in the eyes if we are open about our own thoughts. There are days I can't look myself in the eyes 4 years later when I think of the night, at 10 weeks pregnant, I sat on my front porch in 10 degree February weather sobbing. As my tears froze on my cheeks, and I puked over the side of the bench, I waited for my husband to come home from teaching. I waited there in the cold because I didn't deserve the heat. I waited there sobbing because I was going to tell him that I saw only one way out...to terminate the pregnancy. I was terrified, sick, dehydrated (which drastically impacts your emotional stability and thinking process, by the way) and beaten down. I was a shadow of myself and just wanted it all to end. My husband looked at me with horror and disgust when I told him what I was thinking about and said if I followed through, he would walk out of our 4 month old marriage and never look back. Thank God for his resolve, his own fury...if not for that, my Rory would not be a part of our lives or this world. THAT is what HG is...a robber, a thief, a murderer. I am lucky. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of women every year feel that there is no other option than to terminate a pregnancy that has ripped their lives and minds and bodies to shreds. Many more actually have no choice--it is either the baby's life or their own. My husband is now a stay at home daddy. After the horror of the first HG pregnancy, I couldn't bear the idea of anyone else watching our miracle grow up. After all, I had considered seriously the procedure that would have taken his very existence. It took all the guts I could muster to have a second. The heartache in even making that choice is hard to put into words. It is one thing to be blindsided with your first HG pregnancy--another entirely to knowingly walk right into the world of IVs, ER visits, home health nurses, Ketostix, sleeping on the bathroom floor, weeks without bathing, carrying a bucket everywhere, worry about paying for medication that is upwards of $20 a pill and often not covered, and for the sickest there are semi-permanent central lines and feeding tubes as well. I did it, but can't do a third. This letter, these words from my heart, the tears in my eyes as I write them...they are all for our little Liam or Moira, who because of HG will always be just an angel in my heart. Thank you for doing this show, for allowing some of us to tell our stories and for helping us bring a face to a disease that most of the world has never heard of, and that too many doctors refuse to recognize and treat aggressively. Thank you--from my two gorgeous boys, Kieran and Rory, and thank you from my angel as well. Warmest Regards, Clare HER Foundation Member HER Forums Moderator Two Time HG Survivor |
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April 10, 2007, 12:04 pm PDT
Quote From: marianparoo I've never heard of the disease by name before, but isn't this what killed Charlotte Bronte? Yes--
Recently I actually taped an A&E special on the Bronte sisters solely because I was curious to see what the producers/script would actually say about her death...whether they would actually use the NAME (Hyperemesis Gravidarum).
NOPE. They actually said she was too "frail" to withstand nausea and vomiting of pregnancy. That is it. Disgusted me. |
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April 11, 2007, 10:06 pm PDT
Quote From: camera1 I am very sorry to read about how devastating this disease can be, however, has anyone taken a brief moment to realize that these children are human beings with feelings, who know their adoptive parents as their parents and that changing their custody at this late date could carry with it lifelong detrimental effects? I am sorry that there was no support system in place for this mom, but that is not the fault of these children. We have had a situation, not once, but three times in my family where a child has been taken away from the only home they know by a person who thought they had the "right" to raise them. Beautiful, loving children, taken from the only parents and home that they knew and loved. I can tell you that this is emotionally devastating to the child. Two of these children are now adults, addicts and people-users who are severly detached and paranoid. Who cannot truly love. Who, no matter what anyone says or does, cannot feel that they "belong." The other is 9 years old and has been placed with my family as a foster child - her father being one of the other two children mentioned above. She attends counseling weekly. How could a mother wish a life of detachment and paranoya on her children - that is what she is doing if she thinks she can take children this age from their home to hers without collateral damage. I have a grandaughter 18 months old and see her often. She knows me and my home well. We have tons of "stuff" her for her - everything she needs. But if her mother is gone for more than a few minutes, she is looking for her. A bit longer and she begins to panic and cry. A child this age is VERY attached to the people she recognizes as her parents. Why would Allison want to do this to her own children? I do feel sorry for her situation, but it is too late to change things without hurting the kids. When in doubt, always refer to Soloman. Sorry, Kids First - Moms come in a distant second. Thanks for allowing a different opinion. Camera I do appreciate that you have a dissenting opinion, however your words sound cruel and steeped in anger over what has happened in your own family.
Perhaps, as the PP mentioned, the adoptive parents should have taken a moment to question their choice to ignore Allison's desperate attemps to revoke the adoption...an adoption that she signed in a moment of deep despair and that she IMMEDIATELY tried to revoke.
This case is a lot different than a mother whose children are removed from the home, and then she wants them back because she got her life together finally. It is a lot different from even the mother who planned and chose adoption all through pregnancy and then month after the birth changed her mind. And in many states, both of those above scenarios is completely plausible, if not actually common. In Florida, the laws are archaic at best...and just do NOT have the children's interest in mind as you say is tanamount.
Lastly, I do agree that an 18 month old has developed strong bonds, however I also know that there is strong evidence in the general adoption psychology literature that proves new bond formed even as toddlers can be as strong and healthy as those formed wtih parents who have had children since infancy. Many international adoptions are actually OF kids who are in that age range and I'd bet their adoptive families would be offended at the notion that they don't have a bond with the child. I also would argue that the children themselves would not recall the situations that happened in their life at around 18 mos to 2 yrs of age, so without any proof of long-term issues in children whose home/parent situation has changed as a toddler, I can't support your position that Allison is HARMING her babies in any way.
If you can share some documentation of detachment and paranoia in a large sample size of children moved from one home to another at 18 mos, then I will stand corrected. If not, then I don't think your own situation is representative of what would happen to the Quets twins.
And why in the world would their own mother not have the "right" (as you put it) to raise her children? She has attemtped to change custody starting right after she was talked into signing adoption papers. Was taking them to Canada smart? No way. But I still support her desire to regain rightful custody of her own babies--custody that really, in the end, was only stripped of her because of very backward adoption laws...laws that most certainly do NOT follow Soloman. |
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