SIDS took the life of my friends' beautiful baby girl
Jul 27 '00
When I saw this topic, I felt the need to write. You see, when I was 7 months pregnant, My friends' beautiful baby girl died of SIDS.
I can remember the day just like it was yesterday. It was September 7, 1999. My husband & I just got home from our first Lamaze class. The phone rang. It was my Mother telling me to take a deep breath, sit down & try not to get too upset. That's when she told me my friends' 4 month old baby girl died of SIDS.
I can't even begin to tell you the horror I felt inside. I cried the entire night & following day. I screamed asking why, how could this happen to such an innocent baby girl? How could this happen to someone I know? I was sick over it for a very long time. I just couldn't be happy after that. It wasn't fair! They were great people. It was their only child. The baby was in perfect health! Would they ever want to have another child? If they did have another child, would they be able to live without being in constant fear for that child's life?
This tragedy happened at the baby-sitters house just a couple of weeks after my friend went back to work. When the babysitter was questioned, she said she put the baby down to sleep on her stomach. Then when she went to check on her, she wasn't breathing & she did CPR. The baby was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The baby-sitter just happened to be my next door neighbors daughter-in-law who was very possibly going to watch my baby when I went back to work. The baby-sitter was well respected & trusted by all. After this happened she was bombarded with police investigators trying to determine if it was an accident or not. After this happened, the baby-sitter decided she could never baby-sit again.
When the autopsy came back, they couldn't find any reason for death, therefore they call it SIDS. It's a real shame, isn't it? SIDS is not a disease. There are no answers. SIDS is just another name for saying that they don't know why a baby died. All they can come up with are suggestions on how you MIGHT be able to prevent SIDS.
This terrible tragedy turned a lot of people's lives upside down, including my own. I can't possibly imagine what my friends' went through & are probably still going through 'till this day. I couldn't be happy for my own pregnancy anymore. I couldn't talk to my friends' face-to-face. All I could do was send a sympathy card. I didn't even think they would want to see me or talk to me being that I was expecting a baby soon after they just lost theirs.
After my son was born, I had the constant fear that he was going to die of SIDS. That's all I could think about. You see, shortly after I had my son, I went through a TERRIBLE Post Partum Depression. I believe that this incident was one of the reasons contributing to that. All I kept thinking was why the Lord didn't take my baby instead of theirs.
As I am writing this, my baby is 8 months old. I love him more than life itself & thank the Lord every day that he's with me. It has been almost a year since this happened & I still haven't talked to my friends' who lost their daughter. I feel like such a horrible person. I just can't bring myself to do it. What would I say? How could I show happiness with my son in front of them? I just hope that some day they can forgive me for feeling the way I do.
You have to understand that SIDS is no one's fault. I think it's one the hardest thing in the world to understand. No one knows why this happens. They say it mostly strikes babies from 1 to 6 months old with the majority of the cases between 2 & 4 months months of age. It only takes 4 minutes of not breathing for a baby to die & it's impossible to check on a baby that often. Yes, they do have monitors that sound an alarm when it detects a change in the baby's breathing pattern. I've heard they go off constantly for no reason & would scare someone enough to go insane.
After reading this, please give your children an extra big hug & thank God for your precious gift of life that so many of us take for granted.
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amor2filho
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Member: ~Laura~
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