I'm going to try to have a conversation with my shrink about how I've been feeling about our sessions lately. May prove to be a challenge, since I can't quite articulate it for myself yet.
If you had the chance, what would you want you shrink/doctor/friend to know about what infertility after loss is like. Even if you've finally gotten pg? What was pregnancy like for you? What was/is it like between the time you decided you were ready to try and the arrival of the bfp? The baby? What was it like to go through treatments and/or other losses?
What if you decided to stop IF treatments and pursue adoption? Or to choose to remain without living children?
How did any/all of this feel? What emotions were dominant? What emotional or intellectual processes did you need to go through to get to where you are today? Even if you are not quite there yet?
I'm sorry. This is all so personal and huge. I think I need to feel validated in some way, or have some sense knocked into my angry, self-pitying head before and as I begin this conversation. If you have anything to share, I hope you will. Feel free to stay anonymous or email me directly.
I got a call back from the IF shrink I emailed, so I will be in touch with her soon, too, probably.
Thanks, folks, for anything you can share, and, of course thanks for being there.
S
6 comments:
I find that shrinks and friends alike are too busy telling me how things "should" be to listen to me tell them how things actually are. You should be over it, you should just bounce back, etc. It's rare rare rare to find anyone who gets it, because you only get it by going through it. I hope the shrink you emailed is more specialized in this area and won't require you to educate him/her so much as this last one seems to. What the hell? You'd think the person could do a little homework for the amount of money they're being paid.
Like you, I've lost two babies. My hubby and I recently went to a shrink as required by the clinic before doing IVF and she refused to let us proceed. We very cleverly switched clinics and are doing it anyways, though :) It was not my first bad experience with a shrink, but was certainly the worst. My opinion right now is that psychologists suck big time - and I say that even though my own dear brother is a shrink. They tend to see only the dysfunction in a person (that's what they're paid to listen to!) and so only see where you're "off" and ignore the rest of you that is totally normal. Sometimes it would help a lot if SOMEONE would say "Look at all the ways you're NORMAL" and cheer you on because it's a huge accomplishment to survive what you've been through.
I'm so glad I had my counselor after the deaths of my twins, and continue to have her during this pregnancy. We've discussed many things in the (almost) one year since O&B's death, including how it feels like I couldn't really think of them during this pregnancy because I was too worried about getting stressed out about a repeat loss. We talk about my emotions, how I'm feeling regarding the people around me, how I'm feeling towards O&B (and really how much I miss them), how I'm feeling about bringing a baby home this time and how to make O&B part of this little one's life, despite the fact that he won't know them in the flesh.
Unfortunately, the biggest thing to relay the shrink/doc/friend, isn't anything you can relay at all. It's how THEY are, how you connect with them and if they are open and receptive to the range of emotions that we all go through as we figure out what we're doing when we have kids, but they aren't here, and how willing they are to accept your emotions and help you deal with them in a healthy way (not just get over them).
The problem with me is that I haven't made any decisions. I haven't made any choices. I chose to have my children. But they died. No choice. And now I desperately want my child, our child, but I don't know what to do. It's so very hard to put into words. So very very hard. And it's even harder to make people listen. Even shrinks. Even though they get paid to listen. I'm sorry I'm no help.
the one thing I really got from our grief counselor was affirmation. of my loss. of infertility. of the children I would never have. they were all terrible losses and I grieve/d each one. remember with each new loss (including each cycle), you re-live all your other unresolved losses.
as I tried to look towards the future, she also gave me a few tools to help remain open to the possibility for good. telling myself that it wouldn't always be like this helped me through some of the worst moments, and helped me feel not totally hopeless.
wish there was something more helpful. I agree you just need to make a good connection with someone. I connected with my counselor over loss. she had lost her husband (and possibility for children) to cancer at age 35. we shared a moment about missing my grandmother that brought me to tears, and I knew I could trust her to hold that space for me.
here from the blogroundup...
and while I never had a loss, I did have 4 yrs of trying to get PG. I know that it doesn't make me like you, because I did get PG and bring my children home...so I hestiate to write..
but I wanted to tell you that I am so sorry for your loss and that I do hope that you can articulate how you fee and that your dream of a family comes true soon.
I'm here via the roundup, and though it feels off, like you won't care, I'm going to share just in case it helps! Feel free to ignore me. :)
I would want them to know that it's different for everyone and that they just mostly need to listen and be there for me. Course, in real life, gl with that one, huh?
When we had our loss (which was early, very very early which makes a HUGE difference) it made me really really sad but more determined to keep going. I knew how great that BFP felt...and I wanted to be a Mom sooo bad. It made it all feel more worth it to know (part of) what I was missing.
When we did eventually get pg (more than a year later on our 3rd embryo transfer) the pregnancy was terrifying and nerve-wracking. I didn't buy our son a crib until October and he was due in Dec (though we did have one crib for our (adopted) daughter...they're only 6m apart...and a cosleeper) and couldn't bear to buy boy clothing "just in case." Had a doppler that kept me from going insane. I'm terrified of getting back into the IVF game (doing that now) even though the kids are darn close to preschool age and I should probably have gone for it by now. I joke that I have PTSD from IF and from seeing a friend go through hell with her twin pg at the same time as mine, but...it's only half a joke.
We decided to stop treatments at one time and did pursue adoption (obviously!) but then ended up going back after getting into shared-risk after a post-treatment consult. (Planned on halting either process temporarily if either worked, har har on us, within the span of three days I got a BFP AND we were matched...worked out great in the end, but I digress...) It was hard to make that decision....but at the time we had sooo much fail under our belts that it felt more hopeful than we were familiar with anymore. Then again we were young and stupid and thought we could do anything back then. LOL Not that it was in any way a bad choice. It was wonderful and fabulous.
I don't think I had proper time to actually fully grieve bio kids. I flirted with it, but with everything that happened, didn't quite get there.
I am still neurotic about ttc/pg/healthy baby. Our son has mild issues (extremely mild autism spectrum/sensory stuff)but my friend's one twin has severe issues still and it's enough to know that nothing is a given. The first time I had confidence in statistics, this time not as much. The bad stats are people too and all. I don't see how people go all happy-go-lucky through ttc. Esp those with history of crap in any way. But...I can say...that I feel clearly that it's worth it to try. So...there you go. Hope has always been my guiding principle here. There's always hope, even when hope is a bitch and stomps on your heart.
Good luck, God bless.
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