Today is the anniversary of our second, and hopefully final, pregnancy loss.
I’ve been aware that it was coming up and I’ve felt a bit unsure of what to do with it. Do we mark it? Do we do nothing? What am I meant to be feeling?
I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it. I didn’t feel great earlier this year when the anniversary of our first loss came and went.
Quite honestly though today I’m just not feeling it on that level.
It makes me sad, yes…but I don’t feel the need to spend the day on the couch with pjs, chocolate, Sex and the City and my cats (my default I-need-to-wallow scenario!)
I’ve spent the week wondering if this makes me cold. Trying to tap into what the emotion is I felt I should be feeling... But I decided that is crazy.
TTC has so many emotional pitfalls already without trying to conjure up more drama and heartache!
I realised I am in such a different place to where I was 12 months ago. Six months ago even. And I wouldn’t trade places with that version of me for anything in the world!!
So I asked myself how I really feel about this anniversary. The answer was this:
- Reflective
- Ready
- Proud
Why do I feel this way??
I feel REFLECTIVE as this marker of a year has made me realise just how much has changed in the last 12 months.
Our second loss was grieved hard at the time.
It sent me on a downward spiral to rock bottom, and looking back up I knew I wanted to change everything about how I was facing my fertility challenges. And I have. Bit by bit, I’ve done it. My life is so much richer for it.
It didn’t feel good on the way, but it feels good now.
Its also been 12 months since I was last pregnant!! 12 months!! Which brings me to my next feeling…
I feel READY!
I’m ready to let go – not of the wonderful memory of being pregnant with those beautiful souls for the briefest of moments…instead of the disappointment, sadness and heartache that I have been carrying around since our fertility challenges started.
We all face hard things in life. Some are much harder than others. When we continue to carry them around its like bags of rocks around our necks.
This year I realised I could choose to let go of that – so I put down my backpack full of rocks and I feel so much lighter for it.
To do this I asked myself a simple question – for what purpose am I still holding onto the sadness, anger, disappointment?
It was not serving me, my family, our babies that we lost, or our future babies waiting to be created.
Once that choice was made it was much easier to do the work I needed to do with myself to be able to really let it go.
Letting go makes me feel ready to move forward – both in my fertility and motherhood quest, and in life in general.
I feel ready – in a positive, excited way – to be pregnant again!
I feel PROUD of so many things.
- Proud to be the wife and step-mum to two wonderful, irreplaceable men
- Proud to have started my business and blog to support other women TTC
- Proud of myself for surviving, growing and coming out stronger!
- Proud and blessed to have had the chance to hold those two beautiful babies in my body.
In the end Hubby and I spent the day doing something we both love – getting out into the countryside for a long walk together. It was perfect – I felt surrounded by nature, sunshine and life.
I chose to let the memory of our last pregnancy be that of the joy of being having been pregnant rather than misery of the loss.
How have you marked the anniversary of your pregnancy losses? How has the anniversary of a loss impacted you?