Saturday 25 September 2010

Bottom of a Barrell

That is where I was.

I was told it was probably normal but no one knew what to do or say. Even I don't know what to do or say.

I had no idea on how I was going to pull through on this one. Again, my husband, family and friends helped me stand. I was also very lucky to have a thoroughly supportive GP.

I was diagnosed with severe depression onset from bereavement, high anxiety levels and OCD. Those are my medical labels and you know what I wear them on my sleeve along with the fact that I am a very proud ANGEL mummy to TWO beautiful boys.

A friend told me a very beautiful saying and it will forever more stay with me as I miss my boys terribly but she told me that "they are just playing out of sight."

We returned the the hospital at the beginning of April 2010 to get his post mortem results. My consultant ran through everything. My baby had a variant of HLHS. He had various other heart abnormalities as well as bi-lateral lobes on his lungs. He had a partial malformation of the gut too.

Poor baby boy but at least he was at peace with his brother. I just wish he was with us.

The consultant said our chances were at 10% of having another HLHS child. He ran through that if or when I got pregnant again that he would gladly see me again but understood if I wanted someone else. I said I would prefer to see him but was touched that he could feel my pain.

If I am totally honest, I never thought I would feel human again, I just felt like this emotionally numb person. I was watching myself via the third person; doing the right things, saying the right things but it wasn't me. It sounds utterly crazy but its how I existed.

My GP, once again, very supportive referred me for some counselling. The first lot, she was rubbish, I would spend each session crying at this stranger for no reason that the fact that she was there and she just wanted me to talk. She didn't ask any questions or anything. I would come out of there so emotionally drained.

It was around this time that we heeded everyone's advice and booked a week's holiday to Egypt. It felt so wrong but maybe everyone was right? Who knows. I asked friends to check in on the boys every day for me, just so I knew that they were okay. As we were waiting to board the plane, I felt like my feet had been super glued to the tarmac; every inch of me, did not want to get on that plane but my husband was behind me and I knew I had to try for him and everyone else. I somehow managed to get on the plane. The holiday was okay, in hindsight, it was the wrong timing. We never relaxed enough to enjoy it fully. My husband said on return that he also didn't want to get on the plane but knew if he told me we wouldn't have gone and he thought I needed the break too.

Since the day our first died, another ritual we had was we always looked out to the night sky and looked for the biggest brightest star and whispered secrets and thoughts to him and said good night. A ritual that carried on when our youngest died and wherever we went we did it too. My gosh, the only good thing from that holiday was the night's sky... it was beautiful and breathtaking!

When we got home, I went back to the GP and said that the counselling wasn't working and she agreed it didn't sound like it was helping. Coincidentally, she had been posted an info pack about a counselling centre for pregnancy and baby loss which was in our local town. She gave me the number and urged me to call them as she truly felt they would help. She said we needed to learn to love again. I had always pestered my husband for a pet and he finally agreed I could get a kitten. A wonderful friend's cat was pregnant and she told me I could have the first look in and we chose a beautiful girl cat. I fell in love with her straight away and she still is a mummy's girl to this day.

It took me a long time to pluck up the courage to phone the counselling place and they quickly put me at ease. The first appointment she ran through what they offer, a 10 step programme, some steps took longer than others but we worked through every single emotion felt about that step and the result should be some sort of resolution to the emotions. I truly believe that that counselling centre helped me understand everything and question why I felt that way.

So there we were approaching the Autumn and the first anniversary of our eldest. It was getting hard emotionally to deal with things but the counselling was helping me work through it. We went for an overnight stay in Cornwall to use up a holiday voucher we had been given and I felt so much more different to the 3 months prior. Okay so I saw the boys before and after but that knot in my stomach had worked its way loose. It was the last of the firsts that we were going to have to live through.