Everybody Needs Counseling….

Gonna warn you…this post contains some content that isn’t exactly rated PG.  If you’re under the age of 18….just know, you’ve been warned.  This is real life.

Time to break the silence around here.  Sorry about that.  This year on the blog has had longer periods of silence, and honestly I’m ok with that.  It’s been a full year.

So pretty much, if I’m being honest, the silence boils down to feeling kinda sad here lately.  I wish I could tell you that the events of this March have long but left my emotional being, but they haven’t.  And while the rawness of the loss is mostly gone, the lingering pains still crop up.  Still paying medical bills months later from 2 D&C procedures is a bitch.  At least I finally fit in all of my pre-pregnancy  regular clothes.  I have friends who have turned up pregnant over the past couple of months, and while I’m truly happy for them, the “surprise” pregnancies fall hard on this aching heart.  I should have been having a baby this time next week.  Instead I just have an appointment with the OB just to figure out…what’s next for me?

There’s wreckage left from all of the loss too.  It’s not just an empty womb and empty bank account, it’s tons of other stuff too.  Emoting my way through all of this has been hard, and for my husband who is a logical thinker, we often find ourselves on different planes.  It creates tension in a marriage when you lose 4 babies in 5 years…even if your marriage is a good one.  Sex gets out of whack when you are pregnant in November and then miscarry shortly after.  Then if you turn up pregnant and puking right after that for months on end, it’s not like the ol’ libido is really in full swing.  Add to that 2 anesthesia induced surgical procedures and 3 weeks of complications to that, and you get where I’m going here….months of a screwed up sex life.  Any married person will tell you….that stuff is important for both of you.  So then, needs aren’t met and frustrations with one another ensue.  And not just about sex, but about how to relate, how to grieve, how to move forward.  So many questions…so much to figure out…so few answers.

So, in the spirit of authenticity, I’m now telling you that I’ve been going to a counselor.  And it has been SOOO good for me.  I realized that as the mourning still continues, and my own frustration with needing to cope needs to be in a healthy place.  Truth is that sometimes we just need someone else to weigh in and pray through things with us.  My husband and I are going to spend a week in a counseling program in Colorado this fall focusing on our marriage.  My mom asked why we were doing this if we’re not in crisis mode, and my reply, “Wouldn’t it be better to do this when you just know things aren’t as you want them to be, rather than waiting til you get to crisis mode?”  Um…yes….that.

So here’s what I want to say about all of this.  In my humble opinion, from time to time, baby loss to life crisis to a state of the down-in-the-dumps….I think everybody can use a little counseling!  No person is perfect and no parents are perfect, and the truth is that we all walk around carrying a set of “issues.”  Some may seem heavier than others, but we all know, we’ve got at least a carry-on sized bag of emotional luggage we tote around with us.  Sometimes we may be able to work through things ourselves, but I’ll be honest and say that the times I’ve gone for really intensive prayer counseling are the times I’ve seen the most breakthrough.

I also personally don’t think that all counseling is created equally.  Some seem to pull out your issues and give you a pack of bandaids to put over them…never really getting to the heart of the matter in the end beyond just exposure of it.  The kind of counseling I’ve been doing, and highly recommend, is sort of similar to what’s called Theophostic Prayer Counseling.  There are other effective programs out there, but for me, getting to the root of feelings I have and then praying through them has been phenomenal.

It’s been a hard year.  Really good in some ways, and there has definitely been some neat fruit in my life from all of the hardship, but for right now as I creep up on the due date of that baby we lost I find myself emoting a bit more than normal as well.

Next Tuesday is my birthday and Friday was the date we’d picked for my csection.  Mixed emotions within the week for sure.

And because I would rather spend time on a celebration than a mourning, I’m going to have some fun on the blog this coming week.  I have a handful of artisans I love that I’ll be telling you about, as well as giving some of their product away, throughout the week.  And if you’re local, I’m going to give away some interior design time with me as well.  So while this year has had it’s share of mess, I’m determined to start my 35th year (I’ll be turning 34 on Tuesday) with focusing on turning that mess into something beautiful.

There is a really neat story that I’ve been wanting to tell you all about that too, so stay tuned for that before we kick of next week with fun and giveaways.  I’d sure appreciate you all spreading the word about this coming week of Life For Dessert Birthday Fun to help me and to share about these people I just adore both personally and creatively!  Can’t wait to share them all with you next week!

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