Breastfeeding An Adopted Child - The Tenth Day of Christmas

I spend a lot of time being bitter and jealous.  Today I realized that while being infertile sucks, there are much worse things that could happen.

I was talking to my sister today, and she told me something awful that has recently happened to a friend of my family.  This is what she told me. 

My dad's friend's daughter, Jessie, had a baby a few months ago.  He was not growing well and had trouble eating and breathing.  I don't know the whole story, but I know they put him on a feeding tube and he started doing better.  He couldn't breathe when he was laid flat on his back, so they always had him propped up.

The doctors wanted to do an MRI on the baby to try and find out what was wrong.  Jessie told the MRI technician to make certain that they didn't lay him flat on his back, because he wouldn't be able to breathe.  They took the baby and put him in the MRI machine.  He screamed for a few minutes, then got quiet.  They pulled him out when they were done, and he was flat on his back and not breathing.  The MRI technician had ignored the mother's instructions and cost the baby his life.

I held it together on the phone, and we moved on to talking about other things.  Then I looked on her Facebook page, and totally lost it.  Now I am a crier, but usually I cry from anger, or selfish reasons.  But the letter she wrote to her son on one of her pictures just floored me. 

All I want is to be a mother, and here is someone that had a beautiful baby, and through no fault of her own, lost him.  It makes me realize my struggles are so insignificant and petty.

This tragedy fills me with so many emotions.  I am overwhelmingly angry at the MRI technician whose arrogance caused this to happen.  I am sad at the thought of the mother that lost her baby.  I can't fathom what it would be like to have your precious child taken from you.  I feel guilty for being jealous when my family told me she was pregnant (this has nothing do to with her and is just my usual bitterness).

I consider myself a childless mother, as pathetic as that probably sounds.  Somehow in my selfishness I never thought about the real childless mothers.  I grieve for an idea.  Other people grieve for an actual human being.  So I am going to make a real effort to keep my jealousy and bitterness in check. 

This is probably a horribly written post.  I tried really hard to do justice to this family's struggle, and I am sure I have failed miserably.