Photo of angelversary plants

This is what I made for our angleversary .

As we dont have a garden I wanted to plant a symbolic tree in a pot and add some beautiful flowers to remind me of our angel.

Our angleversary was on the 20 th of May but it took me some time to take a photo and post it here.

Things I do to feel better

The last week I have desperately tried everything I know to relax and calm down as I have felt huge stress , so much that I had a high pulse rate and probably high blood pressure and sleeping difficulties .I felt so miserable and decided I have to do all I can to stop this
I have never done so many stress-reliefing activities before :

-Went for acupressure
-Acupuncture
-Listened to slow calming music whenever Im at home or driving .
-Jogging to get physically exhausted .
-Went to the beach on my day off and spent a few hours just relaxing / sleeping / reading in the sun.
-Continue to go to therapy sessions .
-Blogging and absorbing love and support and prayers from my wonderful blogger friends :)
-Writing to do lists to get organized and feel more in control.
-Attending a huge party with Hubby ( with no little children involved )

And I have to say IT WORKS !!!!
Thanks God , it works .

I feel better than I have done in a long time .
We had great fun at the party , talking to nice people and dancing .
I was able to really enjoy it .
My therapist keeps boosting my selfconfidence by reiterating to me that I dont have to get over things right now , that I can get over them when Im ready to do so and as a paradox it makes it easier to get over when you feel you dont have too!
I dont have to feel useless for not being able to get over things .
Not that Im totally over my grief or anything but I have been able to function quite well this week side by side with the grief .
I have even downloaded some photos that I wanted to post a long time ago but never had the energy to do .

coping with stress ?

This week I have taken a break from blogging as I felt so overwhelmed and stressed after the visit at the IVF clinic .
I have felt fear for going through the IVF proces.
I hate the uncertainty about it : you go through so much with all the injections that has to be done and the egg retrieval and then you dont even know if it will work...
I have felt so sad that it doesnt work the " normal " way for us .
I have been so stressed and I slept bad and felt how my pulse rate have been increased during the day bacause of the stress.
I have also dealt with my referral for a hysterosonogram as there have been so many problems with it : my gynecologist forgot to write the referral first and I discovered that a few weeks later when I noticed that the appointment never came . I then called her office up and reminded her and waited another few weeks without getting an appointment just to discover she had " forgot " it again and when she finally sent it off four months had passed !!! Then I still didnt get an appointment so I had to call up the ultrasound clinic just to discover that the referal was put to a mailbox to a doctor that is on a holiday so they STILL hadnt schedualed me in for the sonogram !!! At that stage I was going mad as I then had to call my gynecologist office and ask them to fax the referral to another clinic that have a doctor that is not on holiday and now Im still waiting for my hysterosonogram and still havent got an appointment .I will never go back to this gynecologist again.'
Its like she thinks that now when you have got an referral to the IVF clinic you dont need any other tests ...very ignorant .

I have made efforts to try to relax as I know stresshormones are not good for me and will mess up my system and ability to conceive but it doesnt really work so much.
I have had acupressure and then acupuncture ( I changed acupuncturist to someone that I think is better and more experienced )
In all this mess I have also had my brother visiting us and as I love my brother so much I was happy he came but I couldnt enjoy his visit to 100 % because of my inner stress.
Yesterday I had a day out with two dear friends and we had a really nice day going to an art exhibition and then going for dinner to a restaurant in the evening still I couldnt totally relax and enjoy it .
One of my friends is pregnant and the other is the girl that was due just a few weeks before me .I love them both and we had fun and I enjoyed the day but its like there is a cloud above me that doesnt let me relax totally and have fun but makes me feel uncomfortable now and then and I wish it wasnt like that .
I think Im not ready for IVF yet and I need to wait until after the summer but yet it makes me uncertain if I do the right thing .Maybe I should´nt wait but just go ahead with it but at the same time I dont feel ready.
In one way I wish I had postponed going to the IVF clinic as it made me so upset to go there .
Today Im going jogging and then to the gym to get physically exhausted which I hope will make me sleep better

To IVF or not to IVF + insight from therapy

Today I had a very stressful day as I went for my first IVF appointment with Dave .
I know I said before we are going to postpone IVF until after the summer but meanwhile we got a referral from my gynecologist as we got the green light from the insurance to get 3 " free " trials ( This is the way it works here - you get 3 IVF trials for free that are financed by the public health care sector ) ( Our first consultation we did private as we didnt want to wait so long to discuss the results of the semen test) Now we got an appointment so I decided we better go to the IVF -clinic and get prepared and see what they have to say .
I was shocked after as it suddenly became so real - the injections , the egg-retrieval - no nice things ....I realized that this is for real and soon I will have to inject stuff in my belly fat ...we got all the prescriptions so if I want I can start it all after AF arrives in about 2 weeks .
My thoughts went to Nan , Lori and Anne that have already gone through it and I think you are such heroes !!!
" Holy Cow !!! " I felt weak when the midwife was showing me how the injectors and syringes work and wanted to try it on my belly ! I refused 2 or 3 times but she pushed me and didnt give up until I let her put that needle in my belly - fat .... what a shock ! ((Even if I realized it doesnt hurt )
I feel now that I definitely want to wait until after the summer - I need to build up som courage for this !!! I know I will do it if I have to but this wont be easy!!!
All you that went through it are so brave and strong !!!
I dread the egg retrieval as it seems horrible .
I need to wait and want to try some less invasive remedies as Clomid a few times before I give that up.

Four days ago I also went to my second therapy session and I was pleasantly surprised that the therapist didnt push me to " get over " things!
So far I really like my therapist and even if he is a man( nothing against men here but I have realized that men proces things different than woman and was a little worried that he wouldnt understand )
I do feel he gets a lot of things and I felt so reliefed that he didnt push me to move on as I had thought he would ....he even went a step further and twisted it around and indicated that it can equally be something wrong with the people that dont respect my grief and dont want to hear my " story " .Their reaction is due to defense mechanisms but just because they have them doesnt mean there is something wrong with me and my grief , I find that thought very comforting as I started to think that ´there is something wrong with me that cant get over things fully when some people have indicated to me that I should " get over it "
He lifted a heavy weight from my shoulders and i feel I can " breathe " again ....knowing its ok to greive as I want to makes it easier to face life´s daily obstacles .It prevents me from getting depressed I think ( its kind of a contradiction but the burden of feeling that there is something wrong with me that cant " move on " fully was so heavy to carry )
I left the therapy session with a smile that day and it felt great!

Today was a very mentally drainig day because of the visit to the IVF clinic .
I feel I need to digest it all.