What this looks like

1.15.14

      On Wednesday afternoon, I went to see Kate again. I had sent her an email the previous week when I got the call from Treasure You that I was a winner just letting her know that God is faithful. Her response was, "OMG God is so good!"

       When I got to her office, we talked a little bit about the call and about what winning the contest meant for me. It meant that I was going to have to go on live TV and talk about Kaitlyn, something I had never, ever thought would come true.
        "I've been thinking about what questions they might ask me," I told Kate. "And if I were them, I would ask something along the lines of 'Why did you enter the contest? What was the purpose?' And I think my answer is twofold:
         First, I entered the contest to show what God has done for us: that He has truly lifted me up to tell our story and show His mercy and grace.
        Second, I want to talk about Kaitlyn because people don't get to talk about stillbirths. Nobody talks about it. I want people to be able to talk about it if they need to, and not be ashamed that they are broken."
         Kate looked at me for a second and then she said, "Amy, if you say that, you are giving millions of women permission to grieve."
         It was one of those moments again, one of those heightened-awareness times where I feel like God is speaking to me, or that God spoke to me, right out of Kate's mouth.
         For some time, I have been wondering what counseling is doing for me. At the beginning, I needed to sit and talk and process, and Alex didn't live with me (remember, he's active duty military and not stationed anywhere near Dallas) so I needed a sounding board. I needed Godly counsel. So God gave me Kate. But about a month before this, I started running out of things to talk about. I rarely would go to her office with a set agenda about things I needed to talk about like I did in the beginning. I use to have notes of incidents or questions or thoughts that I needed to talk through and get perspective one, and in the last month or so my list kept getting shorter. The result was that sometimes I was just quiet and Kate would ask questions to try to help me talk.
         Honestly, it was probably since about week 12 that I started to lose steam in my counseling. Once that milestone passed, I'm not really sure why, but I stopped counting the weeks since Kaitlyn passed. I couldn't tell you right now how many weeks or days it has been. And I don't think that's selfish or a disservice to her, I think that she wants me to heal the best I can. There will always be a hole in my heart for what could have been, there will always be a piece of me in Heaven. But I don't think Kaitlyn would want me to be stuck in the same place for the rest of my life.
         "I'm not sure what this looks like..." I started, hesitantly, making a motion with my hand between me and Kate. "I'm not sure what counseling looks like for me in the future."
          Kate's eyes- I kid you not- lit up. "Don't just keep coming to see me as a form of codependency," she said. (What in the hell kind of counselor says that?) "The point is not for you to be in counseling for the rest of your life. I don't want you to see me once a week forever. But I want you to know that I'm here for you whenever you need me."
           I nodded tentatively and said, "I need the appointment for next week, I need a prep for my business trip where I'll see a ton of people I haven't seen since I had Kaitlyn and I need help mentally preparing for that... But, after that, I may not come see you for a while. I think you've equipped me with some really good thoughts and help, and I know I'll probably need to come see you a few times when we get pregnant again, but I think I'm doing okay."
          "I'm really proud of you," she said.

And with that, we had an end date for our time together for the foreseeable future.