Back to group counseling

10.28.13

      The group that we had attended the Monday after K's birth only meets once a month at our hospital, and (hard to believe) it was already time for that group to meet again. First, I was nervous about going by myself. Alex had to be back at work, and I wasn't excited about going back to the hospital by myself but at the same time I wanted to go to the group. This dualing emotions has become pretty common these days (I want to go, but I don't want to go). I decided to suck it up and go.
      This time, there were considerably more people there. Including two leaders (one who had originated the group and Deb from the previous meeting), there were about 14 people there. There were three couples there, and again we went around and told our stories. The group is open to all couples who have had a loss, regardless of where they delivered. There was a couple that lost their little girl on Sept 8, and I forget how far along they were, but I think this was the first opportunity they had to talk about it because the mom just sat there and cried as her husband told the story.
      Another lady had lost her son 8 years ago, and she was just trying to prepare herself for the holidays. Again, she cried as she told the story.
      Then it was my turn, and I was so proud because I managed to get through the "We were 39 weeks along" without crying. That was usually the part of the story that I tended to cry at pretty regularly, because it just communicates so much of our story in such a short sentence. We typically tell our stories and then say "where we are" with the grieving process. I remember that I was really proud at that moment because I had gone in Kaitlyn's nursery that day and just sat for a minute and cried.
     Up until this point, the nursery was somewhere I did not go. I did not want to go in there because there were so many hopes and dreams represented in there: the car seat, the BOB stroller, the swing, the glider, and of course, all of her clothes. Anytime I went in there to deposit something, like the extra programs from the memorial service, I would stand there stunned for a minute or two before the waves of tears would just come rolling down my cheeks. I had painted little letters spelling out "Kaitlyn" on the far wall, and our intention was to fill that wall with pictures of our family since we don't have any relatives that live close. I imagined when K got old enough that I would hold her and point to pictures and say, "That's Aunt Ash, that's Aunt Sam, that's Aunt Holly, there's Nanny, there's G-Paw..." all the way down the 20 some-odd relatives we have. I imagined holding K on my hip and making sure she looked at all the pictures (I suppose she'd have to be nearly a year before I was able to make that happen).
     Anyways, up until this point the nursery door was always shut, and I never went fully into the room. I would just stand at the door until I couldn't handle it and then back out and shut the door back. I had made that room not a part of the house anymore.
     But that Monday, I had gotten brave. I knew that I was going to have to deal with the memories sooner or later, and that day was just as good as any other day, so I opened the door and walked straight in to the glider and sat down. I cried so hard as I looked around the room and mourned for all the hopes I had for those things. Kate had told me in one of our sessions that the motion of a rocker or a glider has been shown to actually heal parts of the brain that create (I don't know if that's the right word) PTSD symptoms. So I sat there and rocked, and cried, and rocked.

     Back at the meeting, everyone continued telling their stories. A few of the dads talked, and one of them said, "I am just so angry. I am so MAD. Why did this happen to us?" Another dad said, "I am angry with our doctor. Why didn't he deliver us sooner to prevent this? Why didn't I take her to the ER when she said she wasn't feeling well?" I realized at that point how grateful I was for my medical knowledge; it had helped me realize that even if I had come in the week before when I had a few "off" days, if Kaityln's heart wasn't beating then it wouldn't have mattered. Is there a chance that I could have saved her? Possibly. But if I'm playing devil's advocate here, there is just as much of a chance that I would have gone in and found out that K was no longer with us and then been faced with the option to carry her around until Alex got home, or to deliver then without Alex being there. Either of those options are equally horrific to me. There are some women that I've read about online who carry around their child who has already passed away while they wait for a surgery to be scheduled, and I just can't imagine what kind of awful mind game that must be. Can you imagine being in a grocery store and somebody commenting on your big belly and you know that your baby is not there? That just seems cruel, but it has happened to someone.
     When we finally got to the last girl, she said something about having a Molly Bear and how much that had helped her. I didn't know what this was, but apparently there is this organization called Molly Bears that they take bears that are donated and fill them with weights that make the bears weighted the exact same as your child. Why hadn't I heard of this before?! I am not going to lie, I wanted one really badly. The girl next to me told the group that the organization has an 18-month waiting period to get a bear, and that she was lucky and somebody "sponsored" her bear for her and she was going to get it in the next few months. Why did I not have one of these already?
      The nurse who had run the group last month, Deb, gave me a paper that had the website for ordering a Molly Bear on it. I ran home and couldn't wait to tell Alex about it. I was excited at the prospect of having something that weighed 7 lbs, 9 oz that I could hold in Kaitlyn's rocker and love on. I had struggled pretty badly over the last few weeks of just wanting to hold her again, and here was a great solution to that.

Or so I thought.