Any suggestions for 6 Month Anniversary?

Hi sweet friends,

Tomorrow is the 6 month anniversary of my SAH and it is feeling like a big deal for me as it approaches. I really had wanted to have more children, but really couldn't take the pain and found my quality of life had absolutely deteriorated, and felt like I really had to have the hyst or I couldn't go on. The SAH has relieved so much of my pain, but it is so bittersweet for me to look back on this choice.

I was wondering if any of you have any suggestions for celebration/mourning or even little rituals? I found that doing something special to remember my miscarriage has really helped me.

Thanks,
with Llve and light
Loretta

Hi Loretta I sure know what you mean. I 'celebrated' my 6 month hysterversary by going out to lunch with one of my Hyster Sisters whom I met through this site... it was the perfect thing to do! We had a wonderful time and reflected on both of our decisions and how our lives had been affected (both plus and minus) by our hysts.

-Linda

Say 12:15ish?

Thanks for the suggestion, Linda . I may try to do some writing. I really don't have any friends here in my town who have been through this, but I do have some wonderful friends.

Loretta

loretta,

i lost my baby and had my hysterectomy 6 1/2 mos ago. still mourning over the double whammy. it has all been a whirlwind.
i celebrate a little every time one of my friends moans about cramping and their periods. that is one thing that won't stop us any more. although sometimes i feel i have gone from tampons to diapers in one fell swoop it does get better every day. enjoy your summer. nothing can keep you out of the fun this year. make it yours- happy 6 month anniversary and happy life

marsha

It has been 6 months for me too! I am very glad that I did it when I did because I started graduate school in May. I could not have made it through 3 classes and work with all that pain!!!! I still get tired easier than I did before. On Wednesday I went to bed at 7:00P.M. WHEW! Will I ever get all of my energy back?

I also lost a baby 14 years ago. Her due date was July 3. I still feel VERY SAD all these years later. I never talk to my husband about it because I don't think he feels the same way I do. However, I think of that day as her birthday and keep it to myself.

kt
it is so horrible not to be able to talk with our men about these things. i do know we women carry the feelings of our loss as a heavier burden but my man still mourns the two babies we do not have in our lives just not like i do. most times i get so wrapped up in my own pain i just assume he doesn't feel anything or even think about it. i also get hesitant to bring it up to him because i want to be stronger than i guess i am and don't want to appear like i am dwelling on things i can not change. people don't understand this loss unless they have gone thru it. my best friend thinks i am nuts to mourn a life that never really came into this world. i just don't talk about it around her or let her around me if i am having a "bad" day. she doesn't understand how much i loved those lives in me and what they meant and that, yes, they even have names. i do encourage you to talk to your husband. i can guarantee he feels that pain but probably doesn't want to bring the hurt up thinking it will hurt you. you must remember men do not think like we do. they are much simpler and really struggle to communicate emotions. talk to him. he probably feels as alone as you do alot more often than you think. i know this is a hard week for you. grab your husband's hand, go for a walk, and bring tissue. i shall send you good thoughts
marsha

Dear kt and marsha,

I think remembering your baby's birthdays is a beautiful thing, and while it is sad, it is also a beautiful time to honor the time they shared with you. I had such a beautiful experience with the baby I miscarried ... I knew almost from the beginning that I was pregnant, and then I felt her "light" with me. I would wake early in the mornings, just so I could be close to God in my meditations with her. And then one day, I felt her say good-bye. And I said "NO!" and she said (or I felt her saying) I have to go. But it was also very light and loving. I felt like there was this very wise (wiser than me) soul with me, for only a little while, to grace my life. I guess since I have never questioned when life really begins -- I believe there are mysteries we just are not meant to understand -- and also it has helped me, with that miscarriage, to know that it was meant to be. This is a safe place, if you want to tell your baby's story, kt, and your story with her, on her birthday. I will be with you July 3rd in my thoughts and prayers, and here on this site.

I am having a hard time right now seeing the "purpose" behind the post-partum infection, severe pain experience that led to my hysterectomy. I started naming all the children I wanted to have, but am no longer able to bring into the world, but that makes me feel sort of silly, so I stopped. But I feel like I am mourning so many, and even (not to offend anyone here!) questioning why God would take them away from me, because I would have loved them so much, and so well, and I feel like nothing will ever be as wonderful in my life ... (OK, many many tears just fell)

I think you both, and so many, many of the hystersisters, are so courageous to have such motivation to move forward in such enthusiasm with your lives. It is a real model for me to look up to, of grace and faith in adversity.

Thanks so much,
with love,
Loretta

Loretta-

thank you. i just finally got back on-line and read your note.
i smiled and then i really realized i smiled and that was probably the first time i have been able to do that since this nightmare began. i don't foresee getting over the anger, it is just to monumentous. i hope i do. my man, who swore we could get through anything at the time, is just now being a jerk about it. i hope he is just going through his mourning period but he is blaming me and i can't handle that. it has blind sided me. enough is enough. i don't buy the "god only gives us what we can handle" line because i have seen too many broken people. i am afraid of becoming one of them. anyway, thank you for your compassion. you have a talent with communication. oh- i heard the voice too. i never heard a good bye though, we tried clinging on to life together and neither of us was strong enough. i heard a wail.

much faith and love to you and all the sisters,
marsha

Oh, Marsha, I'm sorry your man is being a jerk. Mine is driving me crazy too. It seems like anything and everything, including the price of gold and the stock market, is my fault. I wish I had the kind of power he credits me with, 'cause I would be doing something else besides mourning these losses right now.

I have come to a place where I point out the times when he is blaming me for something that couldn't possibly be my fault -- I point out the smaller things -- so hopefully it will be a pattern that he will apply to the larger things that we deal with. But we are not there yet. I wish you better luck with this than we have had. I really think it is their way of separating themselves from us -- they put themselves in opposition to us, by their hardness and unkindness. I don't understand the why of it, though.

I have been hoping it was (on my husband's end) because he was afraid, maybe because he loved me too much? But he has let it out in counseling that it really is just that he would rather not have to deal with it at all, so I am thinking, as much as it hurts me, that it really is a lack of love for me and selfishness on his part. I know they, too, experience the loss, and my husband has had to adapt his life to having a wife with alot of pain and medical issues, but, well they did say for better or worse, in sickness and in health. My husband said he was leaving the day I got out of the hospital. Sometimes I still wish he had, not because I don't love him, but because it is really hard to love yourself when someone is criticizing you from the outside. I find this makes my own struggle to get my life in order after so much pain and come to terms with all these losses so very very much harder.

It sounds like you are moving forward through the stages of grieving pretty well if you are to the point of being angry? Mostly I just want to be alone and am very sad. I think my therapist keeps looking for anger, and I am disappointing her. I think I am just getting past the shock and trauma of my experience, and mine did not happen with the same suddenness that you experienced. I am so sorry for your loss, Marsha. I will pray for your baby, that she has found peace in God's arms (I know this is so), and for you that you know this. You were with her when she was crying, and heard her, and comforted her, and will always be her mother.

With love,
Loretta

loretta-
while i type with one hand and hoping the polish dries on the other i am also gritting my teeth, once again in my infamous anger, at the b.s. you are narcissastically being subjected to. girlfiend- the last 5 years i have lost my oldest son in an auto accident, both parents, two unborn babies a drunkard (that was my choice), and my grip on sanity. i seem to be on the hamster wheel of how to choose bullies to devote my heart to. i heard that same bell ringing when i read your note. i am angry most of the time or deeply sad but anger works better. i don't like it because it eats at me but.... when i cry i tend to project being pathetic and that is a weakness that others prey on. i will not let my man treat me like road kill. no more. no way.
people that behave this way are narcissistic bullies. any attempts at helping them develop healthy self esteem will be severly challenged. they rely on our decency and self restraint to continue their psychological dominance. not in my life anymore. if someone is rude insultive to me regardless of where we are or who is there i will not acquiesce. no more inner silent, boiling fury or throw- myself -in- front -of- a- moving -car humiliation. as much as it went against my ettiquette and, yes, decency, i stand firm as a wall and, while he uses the term b*tch, i use the words proud and strong. i usually do not feel that way inside and it is all in the bluff by slowly i am believing in myself again. the main thing is to bluff yourself until we believe it. the goddess theory by me. i use my anger alot as a tool but i have had alot of practice. inside i am suicidal as most of us but only you all and i know that. in my perfect world my man and i will work through things and live a successfull, healthy life but if not, i am not going to waste anymore time growing older and getting more wrinkles from crying all the time. plus i would rather leave him with him thinking i was b*tch from you-know where than be a door mat for him and be even more miserable. me- i am sick of this overwhelming sadness and the unfairness, and the anger too. i want me back but it seems the road is longer than i thought.

marsha