Guilt

ryan is almost 4 years old. he is off the charts for age, weight, and verbal skills. he knows his letters, numbers, shapes, colors, and most letter sounds. we're working on reading - at age 3. he is an amazing little boy and shows absolutely no sign of prematurity. yet i carry a large amount of guilt with me regarding his birth. during treatment, i tried to tell my story - and couldn't get through it without crying. the main theme - my body failed my child. i wasn't able to take care of him when he was inside of me and i wasn't able to take care of him for the first 26 days of his life. my first act as a parent was to fail. is this completely unreasonable? certainly. i have heard countless other preemie moms say the same thing and each and every time i have told them that there was nothing they could do differently and they didn't fail. yet i hold myself to a different, unreasonable standard. i have a new therapist that is helping me work through these things. i really thought i was over it - i thought i had processed every aspect of premature birth, but apparently not. i'm working with rose to not be so hard on myself. as a side note, i have also realized that i'm pushing ryan. he is so smart and i want him to accomplish everything he can. i forget that he's 3. i see how i treat other kids his age and i know i treat him completely differently. i know he can do things, but i fail to consider that he has the attention span of a 3 year old and gets frustrated easily. so i am also working to lay off the little man and let him be a 3 year old.