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.

First year angleversary

Thank you Nan !




Today was the day I have been waiting for with some tension and fear .

One year since we lost our baby too soon.

I had taken the day off and planned to take it easy , plant a little tree that I have bought for him in a bigger pot as a way to remember Adam ( I have no garden just a balcony so I cant plant a " "real " tree)

My plans changed as I got busy with things I didnt expect ( finalizing a purchase of a new car ) which took me a half day and then I went on to make all those phone calls I normally dont have time to make and then my husband came back from work and the day was nearly over ...

I bought flowers , white lilies ,to put close to the rememberance stone Dave got on the EDD in December .

It hit me how the rest of the world moves on - not many of my family members and friends remembered , for them its not even something they remember but for me its something that changed my life probably forever .

I am so thankful that I have beautiful friends here in this blogging community that do remember and care to say some words of encouragement, it truly makes my heart smile and it gives me hope .

Today was a day when I let myself think about how Adam would have been , how he would have looked like now , how it would have been to look in his eyes and get a responsive smile ...

It doesnt make it easier that one of my best friends had a baby just a few week before Adam was due .

Whenever I talk to her I can hear her little one " talk" in the background and I wonder is that how Adam would have been like ?



Its so frustrating that we are still trying to conceive and are waiting impatiently for that + sign .We have been trying for 8 months now and no luck ...

I feel so unsure of what the future will bring but yet I do have some hope it will happen again and that we will have a happy end .

I havent given up even if its a tough road to get to the goal .

Tonight I will pray for Adam and all the other sweet angel babies that I know about , I believe their spirits are happy as they went straight to God in heaven and one day we will all be united .

But until then I have to keep going and do my best to be a better person and to keep trying to become and earthly mother too .

How do you cope with your first year angleversary?

Hi

This month is the month when my baby went to heaven one year ago.
A whole year has passed since the bad news gave me a shock and changed me and my life probably forever.

I will never forget the screen with the image of my uterus with this little baby within but no heartbeat ...all my dreams that were connected with that baby and that pregnancy died and I lost control of my life ( forever ? )
I wish I could say that I have moved on , but unfortunately I cant .
The truth is that I havent fully moved on .

The last year has been a struggle to keep up normality and to keep going , a year full of sadness, grief , hope and dissapointment ( hope after TTC and then dissapointment after AF:s arrival, dissapointment to hear that hubby has crappy sperm but hope again after RE telling us its not so bad and still not useless to try the " normal" way)

Hope for healing but dissapointment that there is no quick fix to healing .
Parallel to the miscarriage I have also been dealing with my fathers death.
At times I have probably just disconnected from my feelings as it has been to much to handle at the same time , I have just " cut off " my feelings and just existed for a while as I didnt have the strength to proces it all at the same time .

The last year has been a sad year for me and I dont remember much of it after the loss ....its just like a fog and me struggling in it to get past it .

I try so hard to keep up a " normal " and "happy " side of me to not loose my old self totally but its hard at times .

A week ago I went to a therapist for the first time after my loss as I felt I need some help to move on and one thing that he indicated to me is that I should try to open up more , try to show how I feel and talk about what has happened .

This is many times very difficult for me as Im used to be" the strong one " the one that can take care of herself and cope with things and the one that helps other people and listens to other people.Lately I have felt that I cant even reach out to other people as I feel so energy less.

I also find it hard to talk about something that people dont want to talk about .

Nobody in the " real world " asks me how Im coping , if I think about the loss still or if I think about my father .
Im just supposed not to mention it , not to talk about it .

I realize it might be that people think I will be upset if they mention it but I still wish somebody would ask me and listen to me .

I have a need to talk about it and be listened to.

Im forever grateful that I have found the best support in the world on line and I know that I could never have made it without the amazing woman that I have met , that care to listen and give words of encouragement and send prayers .I know I am blessed to be a part of this community and thanks to you all I am a better person today .

Yet I wish people that are close to me in the real world would care more to ask me how I am and also take the time to listen to my answer , not just avoid it .

I admire all woman who tries to educate the society about this .
I was stunned to hear that babylost mums have started a radio show that deals with those topics .That is truly wonderful and so much needed.
I want to contribute to that in my own way by trying to open up more and talk about it despite that people expect me not to talk about it .I feel I need to do that for the sake of future babylost mums so that it will be easier for them to go through a loss .
Thats one of my goals - to open up more and talk about what has happened to me .
Its easy to say but I know its difficult to do it in reality .
I decided to write more as a training in opening up and talking about whats in my heart.

I want to face my angleversary and not deny it as I tried to do with my EDD.
I want to find peace and stop worrying , I want to start to live again as this has consumed my energy so much the past year.
I hope God will help me to do so .
I hope God will help me to face my angleversary in a graceful way .

To Andrea for 1-year angleversary

Today my thoughts go to Andrea

at http://persuitofourfairytale.blogspot.com/2010/05/happy-1st-heaven-day-precious-one.html

as today is her first year angleversary for angel baby Christian .

I send you love Andrea and thank you for being such a wonderful person .Im so happy to know you and also want to thank you for making my journey through loss so much easier to cope with thanks to your support .

Love you !