Guilt

I never realized how much guilt goes along with grieving. When I lost my dad I didn't have much guilt, I was more mad at him for not making me spend more time with him when I was a kid than I was mad at myself. When we lost relatives in Dwayne's family I never felt much guilt over anything. So now all this guilt I am feeling over Isabella is a new thing.

First I still feel guilty for agreeing to induce at 33 weeks. I still feel like I chose myself over her. Yes I was having a hard time breathing and my asthma was acting up because of the extra fluid but I am sure I could have held off a few weeks more. She could have stayed alive inside of me for longer. I tell myself that she might not have even been born alive if I had waited, I tell myself there could have been more complications due to the extra fluid if I had waited, but none of that seems to help.

I feel guilty for not keeping her in the room with me longer. I don't even know exactly how long we kept her in the room. If I had to guess I would say an hour. Dwayne and the kids were leaving to go get lunch and I was just so tired from being up all night that I wanted a nap while they were gone. I knew they needed to take Isabella to weigh her and all that stuff so I let them take her while I tried to sleep. I had planned on having them bring her back after they were done but for some reason still unknown to me I didn't. I think I thought maybe it would be harder on the kids because of course her body was changing. I did have them bring her back hours later when Dwayne and the kids were leaving so they could say goodbye to her and see her one last time. I kept her in the room with me for a couple hours after they left but it just doesn't seem like it was long enough. I mean I know it wasn't her it was just her body but I wish I had spent more time with her while I could.

I feel guilty because I feel like I didn't talk to her enough when I was pregnant with her. I feel like we should have made more memories with her while I was pregnant. That was the only time we had with her and I feel like we didn't take enough advantage of it.

The biggest thing I feel guilty about is I never kissed her. I don't know why. It didn't hit me until a couple days after being home from the hospital and I broke down crying when it did. I kissed my fingers and touched her face with them but I never actually kissed her. I never gave my daughter a kiss. I feel so guilty over that. I will never know how her skin would have felt against my lips.

I know a lot of the guilt is not rational or logical. I can sit here and argue with myself about it and have argued with Dwayne about it going back and forth with it. But none of that seems to ease the guilt, nothing seems to take it away or make me feel any better about it. Even almost 8 months later the guilt is still just as fresh as the first day I felt it. While everything else with the grieving process has gotten better the guilt is just as strong, not getting any better or any easier.