It's haunting me.
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| From WeHeartIt |
Last year, I knew the one year mark would be hard. How would the two year mark be?
This past year I've done things that I couldn't have imagined doing a year ago. I've shopped for a card for a friend's new baby. I've went shopping with a friend for clothes for her young kids. I've hung out with kids. I've smiled at kids at stores. I'm thinking about what to get friends' children for the Holidays. I can look at kid and family pictures on Facebook. My thoughts are no longer consumed/obsessed with my infertility as a result of my hysterectomy. I no longer need weekly therapy sessions to work out my feelings. I'm no longer plagued by weekly nightmares. I've made a lot of progress.
There are things that haven't changed in a year. I will still break down and cry over pregnancy announcements over Facebook (esp if accompanied by ultrasound pictures). I still get mad at stupid cute baby commercials. Sometimes (often, actually, but it does happen) I can't watch certain episodes of my favorite tv shows because of mentions of pregnancies and/or babies.
So I was hopeful that the two year mark would be better than the first.
This week I've had a couple of nightmares. One was about pregnancy loss, and the other was where I was undergoing IVF procedures.
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| From WeHeartIt |
I still have my little alter up. Besides that, all I have is my scars, my sadness, and my anger.
Instead of ever holding the love of my child in my heart, all I hold is sadness and anger.
Is that the only thing that I can hold onto? The only thing that I can feel to make my loss real?
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| From WeHeartIt |
But that's not right.
I'm reminded of a M*A*S*H quote. (You saw this coming, didn't you?)
In the episode "Letters," Hawkeye gets a letter from a young boy who hates all doctors in Korea, because a doctor treated his brother so he could return to fight, and then was killed. Hawkeye responds: "Dear Billy, don't take your love for your brother and turn it into hate. Hate causes wars and war is what killed your brother."
Right now I'm really hurting emotionally. I did lose something HUGE. That day changed my life forever. I have a right to feel angry and melancholy. But I can't let it consume me. I can't take the love I have/would have had for the kids that I can never have and turn it into something bitter, something ugly. Turn ME into something bitter.
I have made progress. I can't forget that. I have a right to feel my loss, esp right now. I need to feel it. However, there is so much more to me than this loss.
Like the love that fills me. The compassion, the empathy.
Which has increased since my hysterectomy.
I can't turn my love into hate.
Not over this.
I can hold onto my love as well as the sadness.
And love is stronger.
