Your worst moments / worst failures?

[SecondCor521]

1. August 18, 1997. At work. I listened to the first few seconds of a voice mail from my wife who was 8 months pregnant with our second child at the time. I decided to listen to it a little later because I had some urgent work stuff to do.

Listened to it about half an hour later. She hasn't felt the baby move all day and the doctor says to come in to have it checked out, so she's heading down to his office.

With ice in my veins and arteries, I call the doctors office to find out what's up. They won't say but tell me my wife is there and for me to come down to the office.

I drive to the doctors office. The nurse tells me that they can't find a heartbeat and they show me into the room where my wife is crying.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Three days later, the doctor delivers a stillborn son. He would have been ten next month.


2. May 4, 1998. On an out-of-state vacation with my wife to celebrate our anniversary, who is pregnant with our third child. She is 10 weeks along and bleeding some. She asks me if this child dies if we can adopt. I lie and say yes, never mind the rationalization for why, because it was an awful thing to do.

3. After returning home and going to our next doctor's checkup, no heartbeat can be found and this child is declared a miscarriage. She has a D&C on May 8, 1998. I think of, but do not ask the doctor at the time, if they can at least do a DNA test to tell us if it was a boy or a girl. This child is forever known as "the child we didn't know".

2Cor521

 

[samclem]

I've been thinking about whether to chime in since I read Nords's OP. This is a depressing thread.

- Death of my mother (heart attack). I was 17. My sister was 14. Dad was in the hospital with a lung problem--he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer two days later.
- Death of dad from lung cancer when I was 19.
- Death of my dog when I was 8. Every pet death since then has been a cause for sadness, but this one hit me very hard.
- Washing out of USAF pilot training. I watched almost half my class wash out for various reasons. Everything turned out fine for me.

Looking over the previous posts, I feel very lucky.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

"our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive degradations and despairs which otherwise must engulf us." ~~ william james 1842-1910

 

[Sheryl]

These two threads are very interesting, and the first ones I've felt motivated to respond to for weeks. I think it's because it helps me get to know some of my fellow posters. I don't think it's depressing - it's interesting to see the similarities, and comforting in a way to know we are all human and all go through these things. Mine (without huge amounts of thought)

1. Staying too long in a bad relationship - 19 years.

2. Being diagnosed with a rare, chronic, incurable disease.

3. Flunking out of architecture school (the first time - graduating the second time is on top of the other list - and probably was much sweeter for having first failed, then succeeded).

4. Either mom dying, or the fact that most of my visits to her in her last years were when she was in the hospital.

5. Getting pregnant at 17, having an abortion without telling anyone, then attending my senior prom the next day.

Well, ok, maybe that was a little depressing. But interesting. I didn't know what would come out until I started typing.