February 28, 2008

Again, Why?

I'm just having one of those days where I just hate that the world isn't fair. Last night at work we were fairly busy. But not with just happy laboring, term, women. No, we had a 22 weeker laboring and we weren't successful in stopping her labor. She will deliver today and her baby doesn't have a chance. We had a patient on post-partum recovering from a 29 week stillbirth. Another former patient who lived on the unit for months on bedrest sent a letter saying her son had passed Christmas night. There are people out there whose babies have serious issues to deal with, even before they are born. People who would be great parents but have recurrent miscarriages, or deliver their baby straight to God. I think what made all this come to a boil was I just reconnected with a girl I went to school with with the beauty of the internet. We lost touch after graduation and we were catching up on each others lives. I saw pics of her beautiful daughter and when I asked her how old she was, my friend told me "She would have been 2 in April, but she passed away when she was 11 months". Sometimes I just want to jump up and down, throw a tantrum, and scream at God for all these horrible things. I know we're not supposed to understand why, and I have talked about this several times before, but I want to know why. Why does the couple who finally got pregnant after years of trying lose that baby close to term, while a crack-addicted mother who has had 8 kids, all of whom are placed in foster care get pregnant over and over again? It just doesn't make sense. A lot of people think OB nurses have the best job because "we get to hold all the babies". While we do, there is a lot of work, and a lot of grief we have to process, and a lot of times, humor is how it gets done. I pray my friend (who is pregnant again) continues to have the strength and courage she's already shown and that her current pregnancy is perfect as pregnancies can get.

2 comments:

Caro said...

I often ask why too, but in the end there is no answer I guess.

A Lupie Momma said...

You sound like a wonderful nurse. I had a wonderful nurse last week when I had a d&c for miscarriage. She cried with me. Then she told me about her daughter who had miscarried 3 times. Then when I left, she said I hope you are back with a christmas miracle.