What a week!!

It's been a very busy and eventful week!!

I'm now officially a grandmother (Yaya) as of yesterday afternoon.

My DIL developed preeclampsia and they started inducing her Tuesday night. She, my grand daughter, came into this world at 3:54 Wednesday afternoon. She had 30 minutes on her mom's chest and they detected that she was having breathing problems. They took her to the NICU unit to make sure she was ok. She has been there since. They are monitoring her oxygen levels and breathing.

My DIL is having such a hard time, not being able to hold her daughter, as well as my son who is covering his feelings.

My heart is breaking because that little does not have contact and connection with her mom or dad. I've learned how important connection and contact are dealing with my screwed up attachment issues.

I went to visit them tonight and got to see my grand daughter for the first time. She is so tiny! 5lbs 8oz. The nurse was explaining to us that the most important thing was to keep her calm and not distress her. The nurse said that was why my DIL could not hold her. Heart breaking to me! I touched her lightly and offered her my pinky, which she grabbed and held on to. She is so beautiful.

We left after the nurse told us that. The baby cried when we walked away. My DIL cried and I wanted to also. Mine was internal.

Is this hurting her? Is this traumatizing her? Does she know? Will a part of her remember and not understand?

It's triggering all kinds of feelings in me that I'm not sure how to sort out.

There's a lot more in my mind that I do not know how to put into words.

I just wanted to put it here.

Thank you for hearing me.

Hi Trail,

I believe your parenting of your son and close bond with him and your DIL will have readied them for attuned, "good enough" parenting.

I was born severely premature and spent a month in the NICU and had cryotherapy to save my sight and heart surgery. I have the scars on my retinas, on the back of my hands and my back from the IVs and the operations.

I do not remember those times of course and I've been told my parents did kangaroo therapy with me and my twin.

As an infant, my caregiver nanny was severely depressed and I believe that was another risk factor together with my premature birth and difficult time in the NICU.

HOWEVER, I believe the bulk of my issues stem not from there but from the emotional neglect, physical abuse and emotional abuse I experienced growing up, plus all the peer bullying I experienced throughout school life and adult learning and work life.

YES, being premature and spending time in the NICU probably upped my risk factors and contributed somewhat, but there isn't a guarantee that children will grow up damaged, doomed from NICU etc.

What matters is your grandchild's OTHER early life formative experiences as well. Plenty of children who are ill as premature babies thrive.

Plenty of children with good secure attachments become traumatised from bullying or abuse from outside family and then have issues.

Yet plenty of traumatised young children and teens luck into truly loving and therapeutic foster and adoptive homes and HEAL.

I know I don't have a dissociative disorder so perhaps my words aren't welcome here and I'm overstepping. I hope you can take my words in the soothing way they are intended.

You did and are doing your best. You have raised a fine man and he and his wife will surely do their best. You are already a "good enough" grandmother and I'm sure you'll be a stable positive safe presence in the life of your grandchild.

i was born extremely premature and wasn't held for a few months because of being too sick and then my mom having medical issues of her own.

i am surprised they do not have kangaroo care where your granddaughter is. if your granddaughter is stable enough, it is proven to actually help them regulate their breathing and be calmer. they use it a lot with preemies and sick babies at many hospitals because of how it helps and also during certain medical procedures that might cause distress for the baby. it also helps them to have that contact with their parents to get to know them, etc. but even just touching them in general is good and talking to them. they can put something in with her with their scent too.

i don't feel those first few months of that lack of bonding with my mother was that big of an issue (not that i'd know though) because i needed that time to just grow and heal, etc. i believe more of the bonding is done in the first few months once home and the effect of the environment around them, etc. and they really get to know their parents and the roles everyone plays, etc.

in my case, i do believe my early life trauma was the precursor to some of my issues, but it was the rest of the traumas in childhood and people in general doing things that really caused the longer lasting and deeper issues.

Thank you for your quotes.

I don't have words right now, but there are some things that I would like to express later.

Thank you for hearing me.

Thank you again for your reply to my post last night. It did help to sooth and calm what was spinning inside.

My heart is very sad for the issues you had to go through at such a very young age. I am also sad for the abuse and bullying you have experienced. Those things can hurt and wound so deeply. I pray you find healing in your journey.

I've been trying to sort out what happened, for me internally, all day. I think I'm going to post about it in a bit.

Thank you friend!

Thank you again for your post last night. It helped to calm down what was spinning internally with me. It felt good to know that you and QM had heard me, and I wasn't alone.

I'm not sure what kangaroo care is, but I'm going to look it up. I did talk with my DIL this morning and she told me that the nurse told her that she was going to be able to do skin to skin contact with the baby today for an hour. I'm very thankful for that, for them! Hopefully, today will be the beginning of the bonding that I was so distressed about not happening last night.

Thank you for hearing me friend.

I would like to sort this out, and see if it makes sense to anyone who is hyper triggery. I don't know if that's a term or not, it's just what came to mind.

**** It could be triggering if you are easily triggered. Hope that makes sense.

I do get triggered quite easily, and don’t realize it until after the fact. I believe that’s what happened last night at the hospital. Looking back on it, it feels like there were several “parts” of me being triggered at one time and it was more than I could sort out. The result was basically an “internal flip out” like a whirl that I couldn’t stop. What I felt physically was this weird vacuum feeling. I was “there”, but it felt like I was gray (?)/quiet (?) So much was going on internally that I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even figure out what the thoughts were. I can’t come up with the words to describe what I’m trying to explain.

I was going to go through and list the triggers, but I’m feeling a bit “off” thinking about walking through them again.

This probably makes no sense. I do know it’s very disturbing to me and I so want to figure out what to do, to prevent the multi hijacking that happened last night.

Does this sound like something that anyone else has experienced?

How do you foresee it? How do you prevent it?

was it kind of like a buffer of some type went up around you to slow things down/make things going on around you distant or quiet? not sure if that is what you meant by a vacuum feeling.

i would think that it was the situation that caused it, so it might not happen again.

i have had times where things will happen one time with the right 'mix' of things but then not again or not for a long, long time again.

i have had the experience of when things externally are too much (twice) where it's like an invisible wall goes up to block out everything external for a few seconds. it makes things quiet and is really strange. i don't know internally what was going on in those moments though.

Yes. That sounds like what I felt. It's very hard to describe with words.

One of the moments was me pushing my DIL out of the NICU and my grand daughter crying. My heart was collapsing. My DIL was crying. I felt both at the same time. I didn't know how to comfort either one of them. I felt torn and stupid. Frozen. I think I remember my counselor calling it a bind. Maybe? I don't know.

It's been just so much. I can't sort it out.

I'm not in a good place right now and I can't figure out much. It's another bind that I don't know what to do with.

Thank you for sharing that. It does validate what I felt.

I love you Trail. That's all I've got right now but I am putting that out there into the Universe and hoping it reaches you. I can't type much more cause the body is messed up....but my heart still works and it is reaching out to your family.

Thank you so much my sweet friend!! I am receiving it and thanking you for it. I pray you feel better!

I will pm you in a bit. Thank you!!

Hi Trail...congrats on the Grandma thing. As long little one experience and feels the family love...I would think she would be all right, like totally opposite that we've received: we know better.

We are very prone to dissociation, very triggery as you put it and I do too. People, places, and things trigger us. Even memories and thoughts. Sometimes we go through a rolodex thing trying to find an alter to best handle the situation. Here at work, when I pick ip this phone, the carpenter backs up as I come up till he gets irritated and want to get back too work. All he talks about is work, but if a person steps up...we can't work and talk at the same time.

In another post I described our revolving door switching in AA meetings- leaves us mentally exhausted till we sleep later.

Finding out more about how my system works has always helped me so now I know what to expect...to try to win through it even if I have a lack of control.

Hang in there...it sounds like you are figuring it out.

Thank you AC!

I agree that her family can provide the love and attachment that will undo anything that she experiences now, until she is strong enough to leave the NICU. It's more believable in the place I'm in now both emotionally and mentally.

Your "revolving door" description sounds like what I was experiencing last week with everything that was going on. It was kind of like my feet got clipped out from under me and I flipped out. I'm prone to that too. I have no control over it. It seems to cycle around until it's done.

I woke up this morning and the air "felt" different. Things sounded clearer. Colors were more vivid. It's not "gray" and "muffled" like it's been. I really can't explain it. My thoughts are still kind of scrambled though.

Hopefully my counselor can help me sort through this tonight, if I can make sense of it to explain it.

Thank you friend.