Counseling day 1

10.16.13
 
     The counselor I had set up the meeting with was a friend of a friend who had also lost a baby. I didn't know the details of her situation, and to be honest, I wasn't even really good friends with the one who had recommended her. But I looked at her website and figured, what the heck let's just do it.
 
      I went back and forth about counseling and whether I really needed it. Some days were really, really good and I was upbeat and faithful about everything. Other days, I was in a pit. I would cry and ask the why questions. There was one time when something triggered a crying fit and I just went and held Kaitlyn's little urn and cried desperately over her. Alex, of course, came over and hugged me and asked what I was upset about and I couldn't even vocalize what had set me off except to say "I miss her, I miss her." There were some dumb things that had set me off along the way- one time I was flipping channels and wound up on an episode of Keeping up with the Kardasians (which I use to like watching just because their family drama is such a train wreck) and there is flipping Kim Kardasian laying on her back with her big ol' pregnant belly pointing to a spot and saying "Look there's the baby kicking." I wanted to break my TV so badly. What the hell, God? Kim Kardasian gets a healthy baby? REALLY? That crying fit was pretty bad, and another one was over a dang diaper commercial (they play more of them during the day than they do at night, probably to target all the stay-at-homers heartstrings). The commercial had showed a baby on its back (I don't know if it was a boy or girl, so excuse my insensitivity to gender) and had ended with a close up of the baby's hands and fingernails. Oh I cried so hard at that. So. Hard. I wanted to be able to just hold Kaitlyn again and feel her sweet little hands. I wanted to feel something I hadn't got to- feel her hand wrap around my finger and squeeze to say "Hi Mom!"

        Anyways, I decided that I should be serious about going to counseling when the army decided it was going to make Alex go to counseling. I felt like Alex was doing wonderfully considering what he had just been through, so if he was being forced into counseling then I definitely needed to go.
        My counselor's name is Kate, and my mom volunteered to drive me over to my first appointment since Kate's office is about 30 minutes away. I think Mom was just worried about me having an emotional breakdown on the road. I was really nervous about the session because I didn't know what to expect. Kate's office is on the second floor of a condo-like office, meaning that the stairs up to the counselor's offices are inside the building. She came downstairs and asked, "Are you Amy?" and I said, "Yes ma'am" and she said "Come with me!" up the stairs and said as an afterthought, "And don't call me ma'am." I laughed and told her that was just my good West Texas upbringing coming out, and that I do it to everyone (I had one doctor who kinda got on my case about "sir"-ing him all the time when I first started working in Dallas). Kate is this little petite thing with fiery red hair, and she told me in that first meeting, "I'm very direct, and sometimes that's not what people need. So just know that going in that if you don't feel like I'm a good fit for you, you don't have to keep coming just because we have a mutual friend." We are going to get along just fine, Kate. She kind of went over the basics of what sessions would be like (how long, how much, all that good stuff) and then we got started. Or rather, she got started.
      I couldn't talk about anything just yet, and I didn't know where to start, so I just asked her to tell me her story. She started telling me about her baby girl that they had named Piper, and how she had lost Piper and nearly herself. (**disclaimer, I checked with Kate that it was ok that I share this with everyone, and this is only a small snippet of her story as it coincides with mine)
      Kate was 34 weeks along with Piper when she had a week that she just felt bad. She had gone into the doctor a few times that week, and over the course of the week her health had deteriorated. She knew something was wrong and went to the hospital at the end of the week to be told that Piper was in distress and she needed to have a c-section quickly. Kate had a very abnormal c-section because she has an artery where you shouldn't have an artery, so while they are trying to work on Piper they also are trying to save Kate from bleeding out (my response to this was: your poor husband. I can't imagine how scared he was watching all of this.). I can't remember if Piper ever took a breath in this world, but in the end she passed away and Kate was left with the mountain of healing that I faced when Kaitlyn passed. Kate's story happened in August two years before Kaitlyn's story, so it was really helpful to me to have someone who's timeline parallels with ours (holidays right around the corner and all).
     Two things really stuck out to me from our first meeting. The first is that even though Kate's tragedy is not that far away from our own, she already has a beautiful second daughter that is a year old.
      Side track: Alex and I have already started talking about trying again, and I have already heard a lot of people's opinions. First and foremost, we know we are suppose to be parents. I don't know how to explain the fact that God hasn't let us be parents yet, but I also know that He has put it in our hearts to keep trying. We are in no way trying to replace Kaitlyn, that's simply not possible because we knew her personality, and we knew her as our daughter. Kaitlyn wouldn't have wanted us to wait forever to try again because she knows what great parents we will be to the next one God gives us. I have had some people tell me that I'm not ready yet, and I have to tell you that is simply not true. I was ready to be a Mom a year ago, and I was definitely ready to be a Mom on Sept 18th when that dream was shattered. The desire to be a Mom and to see Alex be a Dad to our child is still within me, and I believe that God will fulfill that desire. (Psalm 37:4, "Delight in the Lord your God and He will give you the desires of your heart.") Another thing that has been said to me is that we need to wait and do it "in God's timing", as if there is any other way that we could get pregnant as believers seeking His will. Anyways, as Alex and I have talked about getting pregnant the second time, we've also talked about the fact that I will most likely be a complete nervous wreck when that happens. I'm not sure what I am suppose to expect, but I anticipate having all kinds of feelings over the course of that pregnancy, and that I will need to hear the heartbeat a lot more frequently than once a month at the doctor's office. We already looked at how much a little home Doppler is (not as much as you'd think- amazon rocks), and talked about how that would help me not be a basket case on the day-to-day basis.
    Back to Kate: She is telling me her story of her surgery and I am basically sitting on the couch bawling my eyes out the whole time. It is good for me to hear other people's stories, but even though the stories are all so different we all understand that stomach-dropping pain of losing a baby. I just listened to her, and interjected questions when I could muster them. I asked her about her second pregnancy, and if she was a basket case the whole time. She smiled at me and said, "It was more peaceful than the first one." If you want to see a woman of faith, meet this lady. What a complete inspiration to me to call on God for His peace beyond understanding when we get to do this again (Philippians 4:7 "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus"). I managed to tell Kate what part I could of our story (I always, always cry when I say we were 39 weeks along... We were so close to being "term" and having a "normal" baby) and she asked what had brought me into the hospital that day in the first place. This is where our story is unique from everyone else's that I've talked to: the fact that we were headed to the hospital to have a c-section in the first place and that, once again, the car seat was literally in the back of the car. We had her outfit (thank goodness!), all kinds of receiving blankets and random things that those bump.com lists tell you to pack for the hospital. We were ready to bring Kaitlyn home. We were ready to be parents.
    One of the things I really struggled with and was able to verbalize to Kate was that I don't feel like a Mom. Okay, don't text me when you read this and give me the lines of "Of course you're a Mom!" "How could you not think you're a Mom?" "You were a great Mom to Kaitlyn" and all that. What I'm saying is that I never changed her diaper. I never heard her cry. I never had to swat her little hand and tell her not to touch the stove. All the things that people write in sappy Mother's Day cards didn't happen with me. I carried Kaitlyn and took care of her the best way I knew how, yes, but I would never presume to be called a Mom. People walking down the street that see me would not say, "Look there's a Mom!" All I have to prove that any of this happened is a cute little pink smiley scar across my stomach. Kate listened to my hesitation with the word Mom and she just smiled at me and said, "We are going to work on that."

     At the end of our session, after I had used about half of her box of Kleenex, it was time for me to leave. I told Kate thank you for sharing so much of her story with me (she definitely didn't have to do that as my "therapist"- I don't like that word, either, so I call her my counselor instead), and she told me it was her pleasure. She told me that when Piper died and she was going through her devastation, there were other women that told her their stories and provided such hope for her. That day, Kate ended our session with, "Now, I get to be that hope for you."