Is there an alternative way to connecting to mysql dbs?

I'm really growing tired of how mysql++ is so sensible.

ex: you call fetch_row once too many it crashes. You don't call it often enough, next query crashes with sync error. There seems to be no real way to get the number of rows returned without doing a count() but if the returned set is 0, then guess what, when you call fetch_row, it will be one time too many and, crash.

Lost mysql connection? Crash. It's just too crash sensitive imo. I rather let it fail so I can handle the error instead.