The absolute worst thing you can say to a woman has suffered an incompetent cervix (IC) and has lost a baby or has delivered a child months before his or her due date is comments that seemingly point blame at the mom for delivering her baby early. Comments that start with “you probably shouldn’t have done this or that…” or “I’m sure it didn’t help that…” or my personal favorite “your not planning to try again are you?” are not helpful in any way, shape, or form. I don’t care how well-intentioned your comments might be, it is something that cuts deep to the core and hurts more than you could ever imagine.
Unless you are that person's doctor, have lived in that person’s shoes and have lived through the deep- searing emotional pain of delivering your baby too early, you have no business surmising what that person should or shouldn’t have done to have prevented an early birth or commenting on why they probably shouldn’t try again to get pregnant.
First of all, IC happens silently, meaning a woman generally
has no idea that her cervix is rapidly opening threatening to let her baby
literally drop out until it is too late.
You don't feel pain and you generally do not go into labor. You simply don't feel your cervix opening. This is hard to understand for those that have never experienced it. Second, IC is NOT caused because a woman did something to make it
happen. A woman who has an incompetent
cervix has IC because the cervix (a muscle) is weak and is not able to carry
the weight of a growing baby. Third, doctors
do not generally check for IC unless prior pregnancy losses have presented a
reason to diagnose it and therefore giving a reason to check for it in
subsequent pregnancies. So that means unless prior pregnancies have led to a
diagnosis of IC she will go about life enjoying what she thinks is a normal
pregnancy, doing normal things to prepare for birth like decorating a nursery,
working out, working a job, etc. and her cervix could be opening silently and surprising
even her doctor with an early birth.
To those of you reading this who have never had an
incompetent cervix and have delivered your children to term avoiding a stay in
the NICU I say this, be thankful that you have never lost a child because of IC
or have had to helplessly watch as your baby is cut from your body during a
c-section and whisked away to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) hooked to many
wires and tubes fighting for life unable to be held by anyone because their tiny body is too weak. Making comments surmising why it happened or what the mom might have done to "cause" IC,
regardless of your intention, is not helpful at any point in time.
I like to think that I have healed from the emotional wounds
of delivering my youngest daughter at 24 weeks due to my weak cervix, but in reality
every time someone close to me makes an insensitive comment regarding their
theory behind why my cervix opened too soon and why my youngest daughter was
born so early I am forced to relive every single moment of my daughter’s terrifying early
birth and every moment of every day of her 3 months in the neonatal intensive
care unit. I may smile at you and try nicely to explain why your theory is incorrect, but I am secretly feeling attacked. I wish that I could have been
one of the lucky ones to have given birth to her at term and trust me, if it
had been in my power to have never had an incompetent cervix I never would have
gone the route my body chose to take. Trust me when I say, if I could have gotten my child to full term I would have done everything in my power to make that happen. I wanted more than anything to have delivered her at term and I never in a million years thought I would have delivered her so early on that horrible day over 3 1/2 years ago.
I would NEVER have wished the fate of what my baby girl has had to go through just to be in this world. I had no power over what happened. I did
everything right in my pregnancy; it was my body that failed. Not even my doctor
could have predicted IC especially since the birth of my oldest
daughter presented no signs whatsoever that I had a weak cervix.
So here is my question for my fellow community of IC
sufferers, what silly things have people said to you regarding your incompetent
cervix or early birth that made your jaw drop? And after they made the comment,
how did you respond?
