Every mother who smoked through their pregnancy felt guilty and miserable about doing so, well knowing of the risks involved. Most women swear they will stop if they become pregnant and some even become pregnant hoping they will quit smoking.
Imagine smoking during pregnancy and experience the worst possible of all the risks we are warned about actually happen,- premature birth and infant death. Well, that's what happened to me. I too was so sure I was gonna stop when I got pregnant. When I pPROMed I knew it could be because of smoking, and I also knew that the risk of infections were higher for smokers than non-smokers. Yet, I couldn't stop smoking in the weeks after the pPROM, and finally I got an infection that prevented the doctors from doing anything to hold back labor the few essential weeks necessary to be able to save my babies.
Even after labor and watching my babies die all I could think about was how I could get out of the hospital to have a cigarette, and one of the nurses kindly reminded me (irony) my smoking probably was the reason why my babies died.
To be able to remain fairly sane and not be so overwhelmed with guilt that I either develop some form of mental sickness or end up committing suicide I have to tell myself everyday that this happens to women to never smoked a day in their life too, and there is absolutely no way any doctor can conclusively tell me smoking was the reason and nothing else.
But I still absolutely hate my smoking habit and really want to stop. I want to try again to have a baby, but I can't allow myself to do that until I stopped smoking. If I continue smoking and loose another one I don't think I would be able to convince myself smoking probably wasn't the cause, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself .
I had success before with Allen Carr's The Easyway. Success meaning I actually stopped smoking, but got caught in the trap again a few weeks later. I'm reading it again, but this time the modified version specially designed for women. Then I come to the chapter about smoking during pregnancy and it says 'all women know that smoking can kill their babies'. Thanks again for the reminder. I fell apart again and cried and cried and just wanted to throw the book in the wall. Unfortunately the book is on Kindle on my mobile phone, and I can't afford a new phone right now, so destroying it didn't seem like a good solution.
After 13 cigarettes or so in a row, a bucket of tears and a lot of anger and wanting to throw books and phones and cigarettes in the wall I picked the book back up and finished it. It claims stopping is so easy with Easyway and that I should smoke one last cigarette now and make a ceremony out of it, but it still doesn't seem easy at all and I don't feel ready to go through that ceremony, as I am not convinced at all it will be my last one.
I just feel frustrated I don't get that euphoria they are talking about, and that I actually got the first time I read the book. I don't even know why I'm blogging about it, it doesn't seem to help me much either. Blahhh...
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