Under the Tree - April

1) How long has it been since you lost your child/ren? Has your grief changed at all? Is your life becoming any easier or is it just harder as time passes?
Next weeked will mark the one year angelversary of my twins Cole and Breanna. Cole was born on May 3rd 2008 and passed away almost 3 hours later. Breanna was born on May 4th 2008 and passed away almost 30 minutes later. As their one year appraoches I certainly find myslef much more emotional but certainly leaps and bounds from where I was a year ago and even 6 months ago. This is most likely a result of the antidepressants I was put on after my melt-down at Halloween. As their 6 month anniversary approached I felt this overwhleming sense of hopelessness and I just could not and did not want to endure the agony of greif any longer. I worried that I would feel like this forever and that the pain would never go away. So I finally seeked medical help and have felt like I am dealing much better now. I hope that with time I will be able to come off the antidepressants and that the overwhelming pain and heart ache will subside. Part of me really feels that once I have another child that I get to take home, care for and raise, I will feel more at peace. No one will ever replace Cole and Breanna but I believe that having a child in the family will bring some joy into my life.

2) How do you feel when you see pregnant women when you are out and about?
Wow... that is quite the difficult question to answer since for me it changes as time passes and also changes based on my mood and even changes based on who the person is. I'll start off by saying that in most circumstances when I see pregnant women or babies, especially twins, it's like a train wreck that I cannot take my eyes off. I know I don't want to look and see but I'm just fascinated and can't stop starring. I used to get sad when I saw little babies but now I feel more like I did before my loss, a little bit of "oh so cute" joy and a little bit of jelousy (like when am I finally going to have a baby). Although, I still have not actually spent any length of time with or even held a baby since my loss. I have this incredible desire to hold a baby but I know that I will just break down and cry and I feel bad doing that with someone else's baby and having them feel uncomfortable.
As for pregnant women... they seem to be ALL around me right now. Just about every week I find out that someone else is preggers. For the ones that have also had a loss or have been supportive of my loss, I am so happy for them but also a bit nervous because I don't want them to suffer any more pain and loss. For random aquintances that naively flaunt their pregnancy and symptoms, I awe at them and wonder how people can be so oblivious of all the awful and terrible things that could happen and that there are NO gaurantees. I cringe when I hear them say things that assume a happy ending. I know, and hope, that nothing will go wrong because odds are everything will be fine, but I wonder how they can be so blind. After all the pain that I have gone through how can they be so confident that it can never happen to them. Towards strangers that I see around I worry for them that something could go wrong and they might lose the baby and I wonder if they will know what to do in those precious few hours that they have with their baby and whether they will know where to get support from.

3) What's your therapy in the aftermath of losing your child/ren? Do you go to counseling? Do you do artwork or some kind of exercise or do you simply just let yourself be? What helps you?
I would have to say that my saving grace has been other people that I have met that have also suffered a loss. In particular Jane, Nat, and Nicola have been my biggest form of therapy to just talk about the day to day ups and downs. I met them all early in my greiving and I really don't think I would be doing as well if I didn't have them. I also went to groups (where I met Nat and Jane) and found lots of websites/message boards full of supportive people that have had a loss. I also have been a psycologist, Dr. Donohoe, who is fabulous and keeps me sain about what people that have not have a loss are thinking. I'm so thankful to have been seeing him once or twice a month and especially when I had an emotional breakdown in October. I immediatly went to him and he directed me to the help I ultimately needed, antidepressants, my best therapy!!

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