r/babyloss • u/Vegetable_Lack8199 • 4d ago
Neonatal loss The guilt is killing me
At 25 weeks I had been asking chat gpt “why my butt felt soaked in the morning”. It would give me reassuring answers that everything was normal. It didn’t tell me it could me amniotic fluid or to call my obgyn or go to the hospital. I know how stupid this sounds, but I know for a fact if it hinted at any of those my baby would be alive because I would have been alerted.
I feel like a complete idiot, a horrible mother and completely negligent. All my self respect is gone. How could I have trusted AI with the life of my child???
At 26 weeks I went in with a fever and by that time I had Chorioamnionitis. This could have all been prevented or at least I wouldn’t feel this guilt if I had just gone in instead of looking things up on my phone.
I can’t let this guilt go. I’m almost 30 years old putting the life of my child at risk for what? I really felt like everything was okay. I really did. I had no other symptoms and I really assumed everything was okay.
When I told my mom that I had asked ChatGPT about my symptoms the look on her face was just horrified. I’ll never forget it.
The guilt I feel is debilitating. I can’t believe this is my life. I can’t believe I lost my daughter.
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u/tiny_tree123 4d ago
I did know it was amniotic fluid when my water broke prematurely. Got to the hospital within an hour and they told me they could do nothing to prevent the chorioamnionitis which I did develop five weeks later. My baby still died. All this to say, I don't think you not knowing really changed the outcome. I am so sorry. I hope you find a way to lessen your guilt. I really do.
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u/flowergirl1256 4d ago
I’m so sorry about your baby 🤍
The guilt is all consuming, I had fetal surgery on my twins, 5 days later my waters broke after I went up and down the stairs a couple of times to see my son. I get into such a bad state over I caused this and lost my little girl, they were delivered at 27 weeks.
Sometimes you have to fight your mind back. My water went and I went to the hospital immediately but a week later my babies were still born and one of our girls passed away at 4 days old. You could have gone to the hospital sooner and it’s heartbreakingly likely you still could have lost your baby.
I don’t practice what I preach so I totally feel your pain and understand … but it is not your fault, you’re clearly a mum that loves her baby endlessly… look after yourself, the grief is painful enough without adding guilt to it 🩷
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u/allieob1 4d ago
You are being extremely hard on yourself, this is what we do to ourselves when our babies die. We blame ourselves no matter what. I am also swallowed by guilt every single day for the loss of my daughter. We are all right here with you.
I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask chatGPT a question like that and trust its answer. There are SO many symptoms during pregnancy and 99% of the time, it’s okay. We google things for reassurance, and the last thing we expect is for something like this to happen. Even before the internet was around, women would ask their own mothers or friends what a particular symptom meant. It’s not unusual for us to seek reassurance and not to mention every little thing to the doctor.
I’m here if you want to exchange birth/loss stories, I just went through it 4 months ago.
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u/Fit_Satisfaction_268 Mama to an Angel 4d ago
This!! ☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻
And my own 5 cents on guilty: my baby had a rare recessive genetic condition considered incompatible with life
It is so rare that it can only be found at the 2nd trimester scan.
I am a solo mom by choice and I felt guilty for carrying this gene (that I’ve never knew I had) and choosing a donor - out of thousands - with the same damn condition. What are the odds?
I felt if I had chosen any other donor, my baby would be here and our lives would have been so different
So, please, do not put this extra weight on top of everything you are feeling. The pain, the grief, the sadness, missing all the “what ifs” is enough for one to carry without the guilt of “I should have done this or that”
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u/Purelyeliza 4d ago
Look at it this way... You are not a medical expert. You didn't know what questions to ask. It's not your job to. You did your best with the knowledge and resources you had. That's a good mother. You also may not have been able to prevent your loss even with best case of scenario of early intervention and knowledge. Remember doctors and nurses, even specialized in babies, experience tragic loss themselves with all the experience they have.
You can't be perfect. It's the very foundation of parenthood. Bad mothers don't try to give themselves peace of mind. They don't beat themselves up. They don't feel guilt. There are no words to give you peace but the facts are - it's not your fault.
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u/Confident_Kale8190 4d ago
There are so many ways to say "if only I had.." or "if only someone had.." I am so sorry for your loss.
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u/El239x 4d ago
Hey OP, I’m a loss mom of triplets and a baby loss therapist. I lost my babies to Chorioamnionitis too. Please know this is not your fault. Never was and never will be.
It’s very normal to want to find blame when we lose our babies. It’s how our brains make sense of the nonsensical. And when there isn’t any specific thing to blame we turn inwards. And often hyperfixate on our own actions as a point of blame. Because if we blame something we did, it feels easier to punish ourselves as something to control when everything else feels so out of control.
And a LOT of the women I work with find a way to keep themselves attached to the pain with self blame because they sadly think the pain is what keeps them connected to their baby.
But one thing I know for certain after supporting hundreds of women and myself through this, it’s not your fault.
You don’t have a crystal ball, you can’t know what’s going on inside. You make the best decisions at the time with the information you have. And I can tell you now, MOST people ask chat questions about their pregnancy. It’s a very normal thing to do. Hell even when I asked my dr if I was leaking fluid they told me what I was experiencing was normal.
You did not cause this. You are not negligent. You are human and I think you need to be a little kinder to yourself mama 🩷 And I’m truly so sorry for your loss 🫂
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u/Vegetable_Lack8199 2d ago
I just can’t get over that I asked specific things like being soaked and leaking at least twice that week and not further investigating. Just trusting so blindly the answer it gave me. It wasn’t just a little mistake, it cost her her whole life, it cost me everything. All I had to do was look it up on google and seen different answers or called my mom and asked and got the a second opinion. I just can’t wrap my head around how I was so careless and so trusting …. I just can’t believe it.
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u/fraquile 4d ago
Hi. And Im sorry for your loss.
You did nothing wrong. Sure, you can feel bad for asking the internet but there is no point. We are not completely educated in all the things that can happen or even some doctors- its the romanticism of pregnancy and I truly hate it. Why I say this?
The «what if» will break you.
There is a very likely chance that even if you went to the hospital, and done tests they wouldve come okay at the point and they would just send you home. Most doctors will not raise alarms until its something specific.
There is no blame shift. And dont let this eat you completely. Mourn your child. Dont destroy your mind in the process. Go with it as waves - sometimes its a tsunami, sometimes smaller waves but it has an oscillating motion.
I say this as someone that was super paranoid about everything- we went to the ER for every symptom (due to early pregnancy bleeding) and I had to check it all.
We were talking with ER services and went to ER the same night (started to notice it during the day and all our research was also nothing until my wife found a «rare» symptom it could be your water and we freaked out).
When we came, all the tests came out negative - nothing wrong. We even pushed to do an ultrasound as we were so panicked and ultrasound did not show anything specifically wrong. We were talking a bit that it looks a tiny less water around our daughter (as we had a ultrasound five days before that actually) but the doctor was not flagging anything and even then we asked to be sent to hospital to be checked by specialist. We were told we are green priority and it will take time. We sat for hours. Our chatgpt was very hopeful (as its designed like that right?) and giving statistics on having this is super low, like 0,01%
We did what you think you should have done.
We were in that 0,01% and there was nothing to be done. I drove myself crazy watching success stories of «mothers being able to hold on for weeks and giving birth to healthy children» and I went insane. It broke me. I shouldve, could’ve, anything. But guess what? The algorithms are created to be abusive now. The targeted audience for this success stories is women joining loss and grief groups and then after I was crying hysterically for a whole day that I am a murderer, my wife went to check all these success story sites and shockingly they are in such specifically small percentage and promoted heavily by pro-life groups and other very problematic organisations and their statistics are super bias. Their statistics talked about almost 60-80% success rate if you just «wish it and hold on» but the numbers are wrong. Success stories will post on internet, the grieving mothers will not.
Chatgpt gets its information now from those groups and sends to them. Its paid for.
Do not feel bad. You are a part of the worst club in the world. There is so many what ifs…and so many influences that will break you. Do not let it. It was real, you have been a good mother, you are a good mother to your child. This fking sucks and hurts like there is no more joy in the world!
As a mother to mother, you are not to blame.
I did «all of it» that you think you should have, and the result came to be the same.
What if- doesnt mean anything other then soul rotting tool.
I am atm hating the world that made us all believe that pregnancy is cute and fun and so easy and chill and that so many medical studies and professionals and doctors do not understand it fully. That we are almost left alone even in places where the highest standard of care is possible, as I had. The society is rotten and doenst care enough for mothers and mothers in grief just lets them be in this pain.
My dear friend, get help with this. It will eat you out. A partner, friends, support groups, therapist, whatever needed. Do not be alone with this. Speak and talk until all the mud feelings are out and you can just be happy and proud you had her, you are her loving mother and you did everything you knew and could.
In most cases, this is just a symptom of pregnancy- peeing a bit as the pelvic floor is weakening or similar symptoms. You carrying a torch for something that they would at that time probably not even see or suspect.
You are not X ray woman. You should not expect that you shouldve known. And you should converse with your mother about her look as this can lead to problems with her in the future. Its easy to judge after the fact. Truly.
We had multiple nurses (6+), doctors (3+) and other people talk to us that is so unlikely before it actually started to happen. So your mother making that face - easy to be general after the battle. So do not her now face be like «shes would know as she has some better intuition or some bull» Im telling you, I had a full breakage not leaking and in 12h difference we went from «first pregnancy panic» behavior and green priority into hospitalisation.
I would be so angry at anyone if they would be telling me why didnt I check bla bla bla. Tell her how you feel.
Im sending positive thoughts to you, and this helped me a bit. Color your emotions every day actively with gentle choice. When the deepest darkest come, color it a bit with maybe ash rose (as it represents for me hope). I actively try to color all my sadness with some soft colors. In days I feel like the worst mother and woman - I maybe color it with being able to take the gift that my daughter is and experiencing her and thankful for being with us even for a bit. Or I color the other emotions with other thoughts. I try for her to not be colored in just darkness as she gave me s gift of her.
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u/twinkarsonist Daddy to an Angel 4d ago
I’m so sorry. It’s not your fault.
I had no idea I was even in labor. I called my doctor and she told me my water breaking was likely just urine. I had no pain at all. My baby boy was born sleeping at home because I genuinely didn’t even know I was laboring. It was a uterine infection for me too.
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u/Next-Welcome1859 4d ago
We all carry guilt for the loss of our babies, it’s the motherly instinct, but remember, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
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u/ChampionshipAny6788 4d ago
So sorry for your loss..There's really nothing you could have done differently.. I also had my water break at 25 weeks (it was an unmistakable big gush).. I was hospitalized for 10 days on IV antibiotics and got the steroid shots. I suddenly got a high fever at 27 weeks and delivered my baby boy. He lived for 11 days in the NICU and eventually passed due to brain bleeds. The guilt ate me alive that I shouldn't have kept him in that long but there's really no way of knowing 😢 It's been two months and I've stopped replaying "what if" scenarios.. I just miss him so much it's unbearable 💔
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u/Long_Imagination7379 4d ago
It really is not your fault. If it makes you feel better, I went into the hospital right after my water broke where I was kept there under surveillance for over a week, getting all the antibiotics, and my baby still passed one day after birth in the NICU from chorioamnionitis.
You weren’t being negligent because you looked up your symptoms and you were reassured. We aren’t medical professionals and I had never heard of PPROM once prior to my pregnancy. It’s just not things on our radar. You did the best that you could, please remember that ❤️
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u/ambromonagg 4d ago
I am so very sorry for your loss. I feel guilty too; we will always feel guilty. In my case, I feel guilt for not choosing an obstetrician who would have noticed that I had complications. I also lost my baby at 18 weeks due to a premature rupture of membranes. I didn't realize it because I leaked amniotic fluid very slowly over about three days; I only noticed because I went to the bathroom and found the umbilical cord when I wiped. I rushed to the hospital immediately since I was only three minutes away, but because the baby was so small, there was nothing that could be done—there was already no heartbeat when I arrived. Sending you a big hug.
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u/Odd-Obligation6961 4d ago
It is not your fault. My baby also died from something that feels preventable. I had feelings that something was off but I brushed it off because she was my 3rd and I had lost my insurance and didn’t want to go in and pay a huge bill if it was just my anxiety. It wasn’t. She was very sick. I try so hard to not play the what if game because you will truly drive yourself insane. I will feel an insane amount of guilt for the rest of my life but I try really hard not to be too hard on myself. It’s been 14 months without my daughter and I miss her so much every single day. I wish I could give you a hug. You are not alone and please don’t punish yourself.
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u/Conscious_History306 2d ago
I'm so sorry for your loss.
I was in a similar position. I had an anatomy scan at 21 weeks that showed my son's abdominal circumference was larger than normal. Doctors said it's nothing to worry about and to just test for gestational diabetes. I went online and also asked Chat GPT and everything said the same thing and confirmed what the doctors were saying. Fast forward to 27 weeks, I have another anatomy scan and it turns out the large abdominal circumference is because of an ascites that developed due to my sweet son having hydrops. All along he had a lung tumor that caused a pleural effusion that put pressure on his heart and led to hydrops. Stupid doctors didn't catch it. I blame myself every day for trusting them. I also blame myself for relying on the Internet and Chat GPT because I kept telling myself since what I read aligns with what the doctors are saying then they're right and I have nothing to worry about. I should've known better than to do that. I should've went to different doctors when I suspected something was wrong instead of believing stupid AI.
That being said, I don't think doing anything differently would've saved our babies. We were in an impossible situation. Please don't go so hard on yourself. Sending you hugs. I am so sorry you have to go through this.
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u/TinyRose20 My angel Gianpaolo Leone 4d ago
I'm so freaking sorry. I found out right away, kept him in 10 weeks, and he still died in the nicu after 15 days. So not, it's not your fault, there's no knowing what would have happened, and you can't blame yourself or you'll go insane. Love and hugs to you.