The loss of 2 children in one year can take a toll on anyones emotional and physical well-being and can obviously wreck havoc in anotherwise stable and happy marriage. I am proud to say that although my husband and I have had our arguements we are fighting this battle together and we both know that no matter what our precious walking Miracle Emilie will have her parents happy and together. So please join me in my journey to add to my family; life has a funny way of working out if we just believe.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Strength

I've been reading through my old blog and between new posts I will pop in a few of the ones that helped me along my journey.

Orginially published on April 8th 2009 in my old blog (less than 1 month after loosing my precious Isabelle) on the infertility website I was part of. I however wanted to repost it here as a reminder for me and for others that we can start to learn to heal slowly but surely.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥


We've all heard the old saying "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Personally, in the moment of a difficult situation I know I would have loved to have slapped the person who came up with that line. However when I sit back and dissect the sentence I realize that it is as close to reality as any group of words can be.

With everything that my little family has gone through over the last couple of years I wondered why is it that although I am devastated by the loss of my little girl I am able to keep going forward. I know that I am emotionally exhausted and I have moments where tears roll down my face so fast that a towel is needed to wipe up the little puddle but why am I still able to stand on my own two feet and begin to take pleasure in life again.

So I looked at this sentence again and under the assumption that this has to do with emotional strength rather than physical strength I thought the following;

"What doesn't kill you.."; I am still alive and so something must have been gained from this experience because if it had killed me, well for one I wouldn't have had to heard this for the umpteenth time but more importantly I wouldn't have had to use my thoughts and emotions to push forward.

"...makes you stronger."; My thoughts and emotions can they be compared to resistance bands and barbells as tools to develop emotional strength instead of physical strength?

We all know that the more we exercise our body the more physical strength we obtain. So I wondered; can our emotional strength also be developed? And if so how?

The tools we carry in our minds to get through our lives are usually based on experience. However usually when the above saying is heard it because we have been hit with a new situation and our mind starts to wonder how we will get through this new loss/failure. Our mind starts to work so fast that somehow it manages to ask a million and one questions that we do not have answers to and one tends to think about how we are going to get over/through this newest obstacle. I think that it is here than one can begin to exercise of the emotional mind.

It is at this point that we make our choice to either strengthen our emotional mind or let it remain a soft pile of grey matter. In reality we have 2 choices; 1) We can say "Poor me...there is no way I can make it through this newest disappointment/loss/failure. I simply can not handle this" or 2) We can say "This is devastating but I can handle this" and find our personal ways to handle it and develop our own personal tools to strengthen our emotional mind. I believe that I have always chosen #2.

After my husband's cancer diagnosis in January 2007 I started telling friends the following; What am I going to do? Sit at home crying and saying poor me which really won't get me anywhere or won't help anybody or 2) I can look at my life and realize that yes this sucks but I have a chance to use this experience to help myself grow and perhaps help others. I choose the latter.

Through counseling, my own self stubbornness, my needing to talk and my experience I think I have developed the tools and emotional strength I need to get through this newest devastation.

Through counseling I have learnt; i) that feelings and thoughts I have had are normal and important, ii) that some of those feelings and thoughts are important to hold on to and others should slowly be set free, and iii) that this experience will allow me to focus my life on what is truly important to me.

Through my own self stubbornness I have learnt that I am a fighter and nothing is ever good enough.

Through my needing to talk I have learnt; i) that I am not alone, ii) that people have experienced worse than me and iii) support from friends is the most important.

Through my experience I have learnt that NO experience is insurmountable if I allow myself to use the pain, the sadness and the fear from past experience to develop the tools to exercise my emotional brain...What hasn't killed me has made me stronger.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Walk a mile in their shoes

From early on in our lives we are taught to compare and contrast; what is the same about these 2 objects? What is different? I even see my own 4 year old daughter doing it now. So I ask myself is it normal that we compare and contrast our lives with others?

Last week-end I was talking with an acquaintance; someone I may have seen about the same number of times as I have fingers on one hand. She does however know my story from a mutual friend. She was asking how JF and I were doing and seemed genuinely interested. We talked about how life throws us curve balls and that how we handle them makes all the difference and then she said "Life never turns out as we had expected. Like you never imagined loosing a child I never thought I'd get divorced". As soon as my brain processed it I was angered. I felt my blood boiling; did she seriously just compare, what has been dubbed "a person's ultimate nightmare", the loss of a child to a divorce? Needless to say my brain at that moment went into overdrive and I thought who in the right mind thinks they are going to loose their child? And yes I am fortunate to have a husband that still works at our marriage everyday with all that we have been through so I don't understand the emotions or the heartache of the end of a marriage but I have been through a long-term relationship break-up and I can tell you first hand that personally I would choose a break-up over loosing a child.

A few days later it got me thinking; was I right in getting so angry? From the day I saw my Miracle Fighter Isabelle draw her last breath, unless I lock myself away in my home, I will always talk with people who are going through their own heartaches and losses. Who is to say that their pain isn't as real as mine. It all boils down to a loss and with any loss comes the end end of the chance of creating memories. We look back at the moments we had, the laughter and smiles we shared and just knowing that will not happen again is painful and so we embark on the journey of grieving for the loss (whether it be the death of a person or the end of the dream of "happily ever after"). So in reality their pain is just as real as mine but just different and as old proverb goes "Before criticizing a man, walk a mile in his shoes" - perhaps I should have done that before letting my emotions get the better of me.


Thanks for reading.
Karolyn