Moving On

This is likely to be my last post in a while. The cemetery rang to let us know that our plaque, to our two boys, was ready. We went to visit it, and it’s perfect. Granite with gold lettering, it shows their names, dates of birth, and how old they were when they were born. The time was right to scatter our second son’s ashes, which we did on the lawn in front of the memorial plaque. Now they are both together, and it feels like we’ve come to the end of this particular chapter in our lives.   

I want to move on now. I know I can’t speed things up, but I also know I don’t want to feel like this my whole life. My major remaining issue, which is really going to ruin my life if it doesn’t resolve soon, is the bitterness, jealousy and, I’m sorry to say this, the utter rage I feel towards family and friends who’ve had babies since we’ve been trying. The way I feel about my two boys, when I’m on my own or with adults, is an aching sadness. But when I’m confronted with the children of friends and family, as I’ve mentioned in the past, then the pain becomes poleaxing.

But I don’t want to always feel this way. I want to be a favourite, spoiling auntie, if only I can get over these feelings. When – if – I get to that point I’ll post again, as it will be interesting to know how long it takes.

Before I sign off, I wanted to make a note of a few things that I hadn’t mentioned in past posts. Firstly, it took me a whole year before I even showed my mother the photos of our first baby. And only after we had counselling for our infertility issues and I couldn’t hold back on my sorrow any longer.  But even then I couldn’t be completely honest with them. It took the arrival of our second baby and to be confronted with organising a funeral service for both of them for me to admit to my parents that we’d named our first son. That communication was terrible, and it’s my fault; I don’t know why it was so difficult, but it was.

Secondly, I’m still not back at work. I had our last baby end May, and it’s now almost November. I will go back to work though, scaling up my hours and days until I’m back full time. I’m not on anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication or sleeping pills, but I would be if I hadn’t had this time off to digest what has happened to us. And also, I have had a lot of skilled counselling, which has proved invaluable and a big reason why I seem to have preserved a semblance of sanity.  There is a dearth of experienced professional psychological help in this area, but if you can find it, I recommend it to anyone.