"IT'S NOT THE LENGTH OF THE GESTATION, IT'S THE EXTENT OF THE ATTACHMENT."


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Grief and Moving On

Started feeling guilty so I thought it was time for another post.

I guess the reason for my absence is that I don't feel like I need to blog in order to deal with my feelings. Does that make sense? It used to be that I needed to blog about everything I was feeling or experiencing in order to process it all. And it surely helped that I shared it because I felt less alone. There were other people (you guys) that understood me.

Nowadays I'm not so overwhelmed by grief so my problems seem minor in comparison, but I'm also able to talk them over with a friend or my husband and feel okay. I guess that's what one would call "normal". Though I don't always feel normal I am able to deal with everyday life situations.

Sure I have grief/fertility/TTC news that I could write about on this blog but I think twice before I share. Often times I feel it's too personal when originally that thought never crossed my mind. Progression, maybe?

Mr. H and I are okay. We are still truckin' along. There is no exciting news to share, we're still trying to conceive every month though I try not to think about it too much. I had to quit charting my saliva "ferns", marking on the calendar when we were intimate, and tracking my cycles. It became overwhelming for both of us. Each failed month that goes by still causes us stress but we're coping.

It's still hard for me to read the pregnancy/fertility/baby blogs that I used to read. It's difficult for me to continue reading about everyone's struggles and successes. I know that may sound a little chicken shit but it's the truth. When I read new stories of loss I feel deeply saddened but I don't want to go back "there". When I read stories about those that are on the other side of loss and are pregnant or have children I feel like a failure. Half of the blogs that I used to read on a regular basis don't even post even more because they've moved on. Yeah, that's purely an assumption but it's how I feel. I still read though I don't always comment because I don't have the words.

I was talking to a friend the other night over coffee at the bookstore about surpassing the 5 stages of grief- Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Check, Check, Check, Check and Check. I didn't always know about the stages of grief, but I happened to run across something online talking about it and I thought "hey, I've conquered grief". At the time I couldn't remember all five stages so I wanted to look them up in grief books. My friend said that the because I wanted to look at grief books that I was not past the acceptance stage but still in depression. I know that's just her opinion but it's something that I can't quite shake. If she sees me as depressed, surely others do. I have a hard time accepting that. Yes, thinking about my losses still hurts and makes me sad. Add on top of that all the infertility issues and some days I feel like I'm going crazy. But I'm not stuck in the dark like I used to be. I see the light though sometimes it's a little gray and cloudy.

Guess that's all for now. Thanks for reading.