Asking for help.

A few weeks ago I womaned up, and booked an appointment with a psychologist. Just getting the appointment is not that easy, as most of them have a couple of months waitlist here! I was a bit unsure of going, meeting someone new, having to talk about myself, and I thought I was doing ok – but I’d said I’d get some help once I got to the quieter part of the year, so I made myself go ahead with it. And I figured, even if I didn’t get anything out of it, I’d at least get the experience of being on the receiving side, which would be useful since I want to be a psychologist when I finish studying.

I’m glad I did – I’ve been back a second time now, and have some more sessions booked. I have a suspicion I’ll need to go for a while. It’s not easy, but sometimes the best self-care is doing the hard things, what needs to be done, not what is the most comfortable.

I think particularly when dealing with fertility treatment, we get so used to just keeping on keeping on. We survive, we put one foot in front of the other. Tick another appointment off, another cycle off, keep plastering that smile on, keep doing whats expected of us. It takes a bit of time after treatment to realise that that doesn’t have to be how it is all the time. Asking for help doesn’t come naturally for me, but I realised that while I could keep on keeping on, I’d done it for years after all, now it was time to stop focussing on surviving, and figure out how to start thriving.

Hindsight also has me thinking, I probably should have made more use of the counselling services offered through out treatment – so if you’re going through treatment, or coming out the other side (what ever that looks like), I’d recommend taking care of yourself by finding a good counsellor or psychologist – for you and your partner, together and individually. Because infertility takes a toll on all aspects of life, and you deserve to have a life thats more than just surviving xo

On this day.

{CW: Miscarriage}

A year ago today, 22 August 2016, we had one of, if not the, worst days of our lives. It was the day of our 7week scan. All the blood tests said I was still pregnant with our last embryo, the one out of the 4 we had pre-genetic screening on that was chromosomally normal. We’d not made it to the scan day with any of our previous pregnancies so we thought we had finally got lucky. The excitement and desire to see our babies heartbeat was high, even though I had some serious doubts due to symptom changes a week or so earlier.
I remember being incredibly nervous, sitting in the waiting room at the clinic, waiting for our specialist to call our name. I remember going into our appointment, getting myself up on the bed, with the ultrasound wand in place, watching the screen as the specialist moved it around trying to get a good view…..and still moving it around trying to find the foetal pole, a heart beat, anything to show a sign of life. I remember thinking, this is bad, its not supposed to look like this. And I remember Mr not having any idea of what was happening, til the specialist said “I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat, its a blighted ovum”. I remember just going numb, staring at that screen, as my husband held my hand and started to cry. The specialist left us “I’ll give you a moment”. We held each other tight, he cried, I was numb, frozen, barely able to form thoughts let alone words. After I was dressed, and the specialist returned, he tried to explain. Bad luck basically. The worst luck ever. I remember the specialist looked like he was trying not to cry too, he said he’d been looking forward to our scan all day. It’s easy to feel like just a number in the process some of the time, but for that moment I knew the specialist genuinely cared.

We talked through options for how to manage the next steps, and he gave us time to think about the decision, letting us text in later what we wanted to do, so we didn’t have to actually have a conversation about it.

And then we went home. I remember holding hands the whole drive home, I just stared blankly in front of me, random thoughts floating through like “Why us? How will I survive this? Why aren’t I crying?” I remember sitting on the couch when we got home, still staring in front of me, Mr held me close, I didn’t want to be held or touched, but I knew at some level that for the future of our marriage, I couldn’t block him out at this point. He needed me too. I remember thinking a blighted ovum was super cruel, here we were in love with our baby, and it had never even been there. I felt like such a failure, betrayed by my own body.

Somehow we made it through the evening, I think I cried eventually. We somehow found a way to tell our family. The next day we drove out of town for the day, trying to escape our world for a moment, in the hope we’d find a way to breathe again. Somewhere in there we made the decision of what to do next – I wanted on a D&C, Mr thought I’d already had enough drugs & intervention so maybe we should let it happen naturally, but after the last time I didn’t want to go through that trauma again. I also, however bad this sounds, just wanted the drugs, wanted the general anaesthetic so I could escape this pain for just a bit. I also just wanted someone to look after me for a change with no expectations in return. Fortunately (as fortunate as one can be in this situation) we only had to wait a few days before the hospital had a space for us. What should have been a half day at the hospital ended up almost a full day there – thanks body for being more weird again. And a day or so later we went away out of town for a few nights, we just needed to leave our life for a little bit….except you can’t ever escape that pain.

While I remained numb for weeks after, it wasn’t a numbness that means no feeling, it was more a freezing of the emotion. It didn’t change, there was no ebb or flow, there was no escape, and no release or respite. Just so much heaviness, so much pain.

A year on, I still hold the memory of our baby close, I might not have got to hold them in my arms, but for a few weeks there I was pregnant, the pain is still strong, I miss our baby so much. I’m guessing over time the memories of the days themselves will fade, but our love for that wee embryo never will.

One of those weeks.

It hasn’t been a week where heaps of things have gone wrong as such….just a trying week. I’ve lost track of the number of pregnancy announcements I’ve seen, and then the media has been full of election turmoil, and a media frenzy about someone asking a female politician if/when the plan to have kids (I gave a lot of reckons on this, but I’m not going to go into it here).

On top of that it’s just been a week when grief hits you out of nowhere, particularly for Mr – so lots of compassion and support has been needed for each other and our marriage, and that takes quite a lot of energy.

I felt my mood sliding downwards this afternoon, so headed to the Mall. I don’t overly like the mall, but thought being around other people (without needing much energy for interacting/socialising) might help me feel like I’m not the only person in the work, rather than sitting at home on my own. Also though there might be a slim chance of finding a jumper to buy….and retail therapy can help sometimes right! Typical of course, the place was full if pregnant bumps and push chairs….just what I needed! Rapidly list any interest in shopping, so after buying myself fries & a cookie (desperately trying to find something to help!) I headed home again.

Got home to an email from a friend…..you’ve probably guessed already…..yep, another f’ing pregnancy announcement. Now there’s definitely different levels of coping/reactions when it comes to these announcements, depending on who they are and their story. This friend went through IVF for their first child, and had several unsuccessful cycles since trying for a second baby, and have now been blessed with a natural miracle, which of course is super awesome.

I started thinking her eating well, and seeing a naturopath obviously worked, maybe I should give it ago & see if I can stick to a similar healthy eating plan……and then swiftly fell headfirst into reality as I remembered there will be no natural miracles for us.

I think now might be a good time to return to my place under a rock with a supply of chocolate and hide from the real world for a bit.

Raw Honesty

So often we’re told to keep positive when going through shitty times, like infertility treatment etc, and while I know on some levels this helps, I think it’s also good to acknowledge the reality of unsuccessful treatment, and all that goes with dealing with the losses and disappointments. Lots of articles and blogs about people dealing with infertility talk about the silver linings, how much they’ve grown as a person, how they’re stronger now, more compassionate etc but often I find myself thinking that I haven’t grown or hot stronger –  and that maybe there’s something wrong with me. Sure, I get up out of bed everyday and do the things that are expected of me (like going to uni…possibly not things like going to baby showers!) but that doesn’t leave me feeling stronger. In fact most of the time I just feel tired, exhausted with life.

I appreciate the intent behind those articles and blogs – trying to give those of us struggling some hope and to feel like we’re not the only ones, but sometimes I just want to know how people are really feeling – the shitty, bitchy dark thoughts that take over when they’re not putting on a brave face and coping with the world. Because really, we spend most of our days in the offline world, trying to look like we’re doing ok, and surviving so I figure surely our blogs and articles are the places for that raw honesty. And I find I feel less alone when I read about others honest shitty thoughts, that maybe I’m not so bitchy after all. (Having said that I don’t want my blog to always be negative, and to sound like I’m a Moaning Minnie!). Because I think in sharing our pain we can create stronger connections with people – I know for myself its not easy showing my true thoughts and feelings to the world, especially now I’m well practiced at putting on a brave face and keeping on keeping on!

There are a few blog posts I’ve read in the past few months where I saw some more raw honesty, and while I wish these bloggers weren’t experiencing the pain, I was grateful they shared it with us readers – maybe you’d like to read them too, from The Ecofeminist, Delayed But Not Denied and Breathe, Write, Repeat.

Sharing our experiences with the world so honestly reminds me of this poem, which has always rung true to me….

So my request of you is, keep sharing your good days but share your honest shitty thoughts too 😊

Flowers in Winter

I wasn’t really planning on this being a metaphorical post, but now that I’ve created a title I can see how it could be one….

A few years ago someone close to us was given a Daphne bush when they had an ectopic pregnancy, and then when we had our miscarriage last year, they gave us one. I haven’t known anyone who’s had a miscarriage/baby loss since ours, but I’ve often thought it’d be a nice thing to do – who knows, maybe it would become a ‘thing’ to give a Daphne bush to someone grieving their baby and that future.

Last week I noticed that this Daphne bush had started flowering – it’s possibly a little early (but plants seem to be a bit confused with our weather here….I have hyacinths flowering already!), but it reminded me that in a couple of weeks it will be a year since our last transfer, and then a year since we lost our well loved embryo. And while nothing really takes a way that pain, I figure being reminded by a pretty flower (and I love the scent too) is one of the better ways to be reminded.

And while I don’t really feel like I’m blooming, I’m still alive, taking one day at a time, so I guess a bush that flowers most in winter shows its possible to survive the dark days.

Do you have any special reminders of your losses?

Magnetism

We caught up with friends today who are here visiting from overseas. We hadn’t seen them or their 2 girls for about 3 years (and they don’t know about our struggles). It was barely a split second before the girls stopped being shy and decided Mr & I were their new best friends (possibly helped along by the unicorn gifts!), snuggling on our laps, holding our hands as we walked around the nature reserve and asking us to carry them.

It was nice to see my child magnetism might be returning – and that these kids at least don’t think I’m a bitter old women.  And I even managed to actually play and have fun with the girls #winning

But seeing this lovely family, with great family dynamics, building wonderful memories together, seeing my husband playing so nicely with the girls and being so loved by them – reminded me so strongly of why I want a family of our own.

That’s the thing isn’t it….just because the treatment is over, doesn’t mean the dream is.

All Those Shoulds

I keep meaning & wanting to post a blog post, but every time I set aside time to write one, I feel like I should be using that time for working on one of the many assignments I have on the go, so then time flies and still no blog post…..so I told myself that tonight I should write one at last…and hoping that I’ll finish it quickly & squeeze some assignment writing in before dinner!

A few days ago it was one of those dates filled with “what if’s” – it was the due date of our first miscarriage, so of course I kept thinking I should have been celebrating someones 3rd birthday. And then I thought to myself, it’s 3 years now, I probably should be getting over it by now, or should stop myself dwelling on it so much. But that is something I find hard…when our miscarriages are the closest things to success we’ve had from going through infertility treatment.

And off and on over the past while, I’ve been thinking about a friend (and friendships in general), the one I mentioned in an earlier post. I haven’t visited her at all since she had her baby, and have barely had any contact with her. I feel like I should have. But then I think, she could contact me, she doesn’t ask how I’m doing (even though she knows our general story), she didn’t pay attention when I said keeping texting & emailing would help us get closer again. I supported her through episodes of depression, and challenges living away over seas etc etc, she should make an effort to support me. And then I think to myself, I should be more compassionate. I should make more of an effort (it’s what I’ve always done). She has a new baby after all, she’ll be busy with all that newborn parenting stuff, she probably doesn’t understand how things are for me, she probably doesn’t know how to be supportive, she probably feels awkward or worried she’ll cause more pain. So if I’m being more compassionate & understanding, then I really should make an effort & reach out to her….

And then I thought some more, & realised maybe I should cut myself some slack. Maybe I just need to accept that for this period of my life, I might not live up to the standards I’ve set myself, maybe it’s ok to not be the perfect friend all the time….’cos really, right at the moment, what I need is friends, and to be my own friend, and honestly, I don’t really know how to be a good friend to myself just now, so maybe I should be figuring that out for starters – when I have any spare energy beyond surviving university.

But then the vicious cycle starts once again, as my brain tells me I should be able to cope and I should be the perfect friend still, because being a good friend has always been a big part of my identity, and I don’t want to lose any more of who I am.

And on and on the Shoulds continue…..what do you tell yourself you should do or be?

MIA: A Piece of My Heart

{CW: Miscarriage}

Dear Baby,

Today would have been your due date. We would have been eagerly awaiting meeting you if we hadn’t already met you. We really thought you were the one that we were going to get to hold in our arms. We did everything we could in the hope of you – I had another hysteroscopy to check there was nothing that would prevent you from getting all comfy, I took extra drugs, had intralipids, and we had pre-genetic screening of the batch of embryos you came from. You were the one that had all the right number of chromosomes. But still during the TWW, we worried. We’d nearly run out of hope, and could hardly comprehend that this time we might get a positive pregnancy result.

When we found out we’d got our BFP, we were so happy. The joy on your Dad’s face was a sight to see. We told our friends and family – wanting to enjoy the moment as much as possible for as long as possible, you see when you’ve already experienced a loss it’s hard to take a BFP as definite. But this time, we dared to dream. We wondered what you’d look like, we imagined our life with you, we started discussing if we’d choose a midwife or an obstetrician to look after you and me. I wrote letters to you, we talked to you. We talked about you with those who knew, helping to ease the anxiety that comes with such an exciting and scary time. I started a Pinterest board, thinking about what we’d need to get in anticipation for your arrival. I watched your cousins play, imagining you playing with them too.

And most of all, we dared to love you.

We really thought we were going to get to meet you, dearest baby. We’d never made it to a 7week scan before, so were super excited to see the flicker of your heart.

Instead, we found you’d gone…..and with you, had gone pieces of our hearts.

We will always love & miss you Baby.

xoxo

PS we left these flowers for you and your siblings today. 😘

Guilty as Charged.

I am a Queen of Guilt, I can manage to feel guilty about pretty much anything. Though looking at Brené Brown’s definition of guilt and shame, I think its probably more shame I feel. But rather than explaining the difference, I’ll continue using the word guilt (and you can go read her books and see for yourself if her definitions work for you).

Guilt goes hand in hand with those feelings of failure – bit of a vicious cycle really. It’s easy to feel guilty for not having achieved the desired outcome, but particularly so when there are so many variables at play. My guilt has increased even more so since we finished treatment. I’ve pretty much read all the different things one could/should try in an attempt to improve chances, so there are lots of opportunity for feeling guilty.

The thing is when going through this, there’s this common thought bandied about by people going through it, medical professionals, well meaning others – if you’re going to have to walk away from treatment and having children at some point, then you want to make sure you know you’ve done everything you could have. But for all that we did do, having reached this point – I don’t feel like I did everything I could have. I don’t feel like I did enough.

I feel guilty for having put on weight, for not having done enough exercise, or for having done the wrong exercise (which is probably partly why I put on weight as I was trying to manage the guilt at the time for doing too much or the wrong type of exercise!), for eating the wrong foods, for taking too many or not enough supplements, for not seeing a Chinese herbalist for longer, for not getting that health issue checked out more, for being too stressed, for not feeling grateful enough, for drinking too much coffee, for only drinking decafé coffee (those chemicals you know), for having too much dairy, not enough dairy, for not having enough acupucnture, for letting my hair air dry (a cold head’s bad ya know), for drinking cold drinks, for not drinking enough herbal teas, for eating too many carbs, for not eating enough vegetables, for wearing my Fitbit, for having my phone to close to my body, for eating microwaved foods, for not being grateful enough, for using the wrong skin care products, for getting my hair dyed, for  gardening without gloves, for drinking that wine, for not sleeping properly, for not doing enough therapy after our loses to remove stored emotions, for not detoxing, for not doing the fertility diet beforehand to ensure I was in the best form, for using electric blankets, for having showers too hot……the list goes on. I’ve even started feeling guilty for the things I did when I was younger (working shift work, using paints etc etc).

So for all you go through treatment saying you’d do anything if it meant you got pregnant, the reality is you never know whats going to make the difference – if anything. And me, well I look back on what I did do, and just see all my imperfections. I didn’t follow my healthy eating plan to the letter so maybe that’s why it didn’t work. I didn’t give up coffee, alcohol, carbs, sugar or processed foods 100% so maybe that was the issue. If only I’d been able to be healthy properly, maybe it’d have made a difference. Because we all want to know why right? If we had a reason for why we didn’t get our baby, then maybe it’d all make sense. Instead, I just feel guilty for all the things I didn’t do, which leaves me feeling, that all this was my fault.

 

Coping strategies – or lack of.

Last night wasn’t the first night I cried myself to sleep – though this is one of the few times I’ve admitted to it (silly isn’t it, feeling embarrassed about giving into tears). Sleep is proving more difficult than normal, which automatically lowers my coping abilities. Needless to say, today was it was a very tired me, trying to stay awake through Uni classes and attempt to interact with people normally.

Besides this lack of coping….all my normal coping strategies don’t seem to be of any help. Normally I like escaping into a trashy novel – I’m finding that most of them have the ability to make me cry (not really what I want when catching the train to town) or I’m not really that interested in someone else story. I’m even less interested in the magazine I normally like browsing – don’t really want to know how well someone else life is going! The reality is, I just don’t really care about anything at the moment.

Walking, gives too much time for thinking (and we all know how bad that can be!), colouring in can be the same. Having a nice coffee in a cafe, generally results in seeing babies and families, so I just feel sad again. Sunshine doesn’t seem to make its way into my heart & uplift me anymore – -if anything it causes some dissonance as I feel my mood should match the sunshine but it doesn’t.

So I look for distractions, keeping busy, unfortunately while I have lots of study I should do, I’m struggling to concentrate on it – it’s so easy to think of everything you shouldn’t dwell on while trying to read about everything I’m supposed to be learning.

But when it comes to bedtime (which I find myself delaying most nights) there aren’t any distractions, I can’t turn my brain off, and there’s no hiding from the pain.
Tell me, what are your most effective coping strategies? Maybe you can help me find some new ones xo