Anger

My husband is really the only one that knows how much this whole experience has affected me. When we get together with friends or family I can put on a happy face for a few hours, I try to sound upbeat. Hard to believe from me doing a blog that I'm actually a fairly private person. My husband really wants me to get counselling and when we get back from Australia I will.

I have a lot of anger. As much as I've tried to suppress it, most is directed at my husband. Here's a little back story:

My husband and I argued a lot during those 3 weeks between echo's. When they gave us our options after the first there was only one for me. The surgeries. Compasionate care wasn't an option and I couldn't do the transplant because I felt it was unfair. (She would be on anti rejection meds for the rest of her life which are very damaging to other organs, especially when they are still developing as a child. Also transplants are only good for 15-20 years, which sounds good until you think how do you tell your child "you better enjoy life because you won't be around for your 20's"?) Terminating the pregnancy went in one ear and out the other. It was not something I considered. If I could give my baby a chance I would. It wasn't until we got home that my husband told me he wanted to terminate and try again. I never thought I should've asked my boyfriends their views on late-term abortion. At first whenever we talked about it I would start crying. I just couldn't bring myself to really consider it. After a few days my husband told me that even though that's what he wanted I was the one who had to go through it, so if I couldn't he would try to get over it. Basically the decision was up to me. I hated him saying this because it wasn't. She was our child and I felt like if we had a bad day or she didn't make it through the surgeries he would come back and say I told you so. You made our child suffer.

Over 2 weeks he slowly kept bringing it up and I allowed myself to at least consider it for his sake. He gave his views on why we should but to me all I could think about were the what if's. Would I be ok always wondering what if we had given her that chance? Now I feel manipulated. We had pretty much decided to end the pregnancy before that second echo. When I thought about our marriage I didn't think it would last if we carried on with the pregnancy. We would both resent each other. He would resent me because the only reason we would be at the hospital so much is because I decided to "keep" her and I would resent him for his lack of interest and help. He also told me that he already resented Hailey. I'm not even sure where it switched but somehow we started talking more and more about ending the pregnancy and less about the surgeries.

What I hate is that he never tried to view things from my point of view. To him the surgeries were a "band-aid" not a fix with no guarantees. I asked him what defects he could accept and he said none. I asked if this was really the case given if it was something like missing her ovaries and all it would effect is her having biological children and his response was yes. I'm SO angry at this. How does being able to reproduce change anything when there are so many children given for adoption in the world? I'm angry because to him there was only one option and there was nothing to change his mind. There is no way I could take care of a child with this condition on my own. I'd need the support (physically, mentally and financially) and help only a husband/partner can give.

Basically I'm angry that I didn't know these views before. Would they have changed anything? I don't know, but at least I could say I knew before. All I know right now is how much I resent him. If he'd had an open mind to other possibilities she could've still been here. I'm angry at myself for not sticking up for her more, for not fighting harder. I say this because even though her condition changed and worsened I still carry the guilt knowing things probably would've ended the same way.