Notes from the couch*

*Actually it's not a couch but a sort of deep chair that you sink into and my psychiatrist sits in the same type of chair.

1/ In order to move forward in some way but without forgetting, which isn't my goal, what happened to us has to become my normal. My reality.

It could be argued that most people will at some point lose a parent, some suddenly and unexpectedly, and that by virtue of its commonness this is a normal experience.

It could be argued that many conceptions result in babies with severe heart defects and / or chromosomal problems and / or any other of the myriad problems that can occur, and therefore these are common experiences and somehow, if not normal, not completely abnormal either,

But losing your baby for undetectable reasons at full term after a low risk pregnancy is NOT normal. Neither is all three of these things happening in less than one year.

So how to move forward by integrating what has happened into my normality whilst listening to the voice that's yelling "that wasn't f***king normal!" It's not normal that all those things should happen to one person in such quick succession.

My psychiatrist doesn't have an answer. She just said that it seems acceptable that both of those opposite viewpoints are existing side by side.


2/ Last week I spent the session recounting a blow-by-blow account of what happened on the night of 28th July 2006 and the week afterwards. I have been over this in my mind countless times. Yet recounting it tapped into sources of deep, deep pain and anguish and I sobbed uncontrollably. It made me feel like it was just yesterday. It made me feel like I have now managed to create a shell around me which holds me together but inside the work has hardly begun.

I spent last weekend in total fatigue and exhaustion after that session. I had been shocked by my own story, just like when I go back and read my own blog archives I'm shocked as well.


3/ I spend more time, a LOT more time, thinking about V. than I do thinking about the little bean that is actually living inside me now (well s/he was living two weeks ago, anyway).


4/ The other day I spoke to the bean and said, "Please still be alive." Then I immediately felt that I didn't really have the right to ask that. A. was alive and it wasn't enough. A. beat the odds for T21 babies and survived the 1st trimester and it wasn't enough. When I recounted that yesterday in the psychiatrists office I was very upset. It was near the end of the session and she said we'd have to work on that next time.


5/ Yesterday I mentioned that my belly was already quite firm and rounded. My OB told me that the body has a memory, and that pg hormones the second or third time around make the muscles go, "Oh yeah, I know what to do, no point hanging around waiting, let's just give way now. Forget that she doesn't really want anyone to know that she's pregnant just yet."

In addition, I admit that I didn't make much of an effort to return to flat stomachdom after V. Plus I had an undetected hypothyroid problem to boot.

So there I was talking about how my belly was already relatively big and firm, whereas before it was big and flabby. The psychiatrist asked, "When you look at your belly, do you think about it being a pregnant belly or a belly that's been a bit neglected?" And I had to say that it was much much more the latter.

I don't have a mirror and I don't tidy myself up when I walk out of my psychiatrist's office. I do wonder what people think when they see me walking back to my car with what must be red face and puffy eyes, same time every Friday.