Sunday 15 October 2017

Baby loss, mental health and me.

This past week has been baby loss awareness week and Tuesday was World Mental Health day. It was also the week when I had confirmation that I have mild generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and began cognitive behaviour therapy to treat it. In addition, yesterday marks 2 years since my first embryo was implanted into my womb. In light of that it seems an appropriate time to write a post about how baby loss and mental health affects me in my day to day living.

It is a known fact to readers of this blog that I have had 2 miscarriages and am no stranger to baby loss. I actually consider myself to have lost 8 babies. When our embryos were created we had 8 little blobs in the freezer that each contained some of my genetic information and some of Neil's. We had 8 potential babies. We have now lost all 8 of those potential babies through various events. The first 2 were lost because they failed the genetic tests all our embryos were subjected to. They were abnormal due to my balanced chromosome translocation and did not have the right genetic material to be viable. We instructed the clinic to let them perish. The next potential baby was the embryo that was implanted into my womb 2 years ago yesterday. Despite promising signs during the 2 week wait the pregnancy test taken at the end of that wait was negative; baby had failed to implant. The next loss was the most challenging both physically and mentally. Two weeks after implantation the obligatory pregnancy test was positive. I was pregnant for the first time ever in my life. The story is recorded in previous posts in this blog so I won't repeat it here but the pregnancy ended in a missed miscarriage picked up at 8 weeks. The baby had died at 6 weeks and I had a surgically managed miscarriage when I was technically 10 weeks pregnant. Baby number 5 also gave me a positive pregnancy test. This one was also not meant to be and the tests became negative within a week. It was a miscarriage before 5 weeks and is classed as a chemical pregnancy. The last three babies we lost were all lost because I had a real sense from God that enough was enough and we made the difficult decision to donate our 3 remaining embryos to medical research (thus benefiting future parents and justifying their existence) and close the door on our IVF journey.

Those are the cold hard facts of my experience with baby loss but it is not that simple. It's now well over a year since my last miscarriage and 5 months since we donated our remaining 3 embryos to medical research. I have grieved a lot. However, I continue to grieve, I think I will continue to grieve as long as I live. Grief comes in waves. But it is easier to let other things come into my life. I will never forget my 8 babies even though I never met them. The grief of baby loss and infertility is an ever present feature in my life and the intensity comes and goes. I often find myself surrounded by babies and bumps, particularly at church and sometimes the jealousy and unfairness of it all overwhelms me. I am so excited and ready for the next step of adoption but I would be made of wood if I didn't feel the sting of loss. I am slowly getting to a place where I can feel happy for other families and my grief and pain is not so visible. With God's help I am now hopeful for a future where I will be Mummy and Neil will be Daddy. Baby loss has entered my life and changed it. A lot of the change has been painful and feels negative but there have been positive changes too. I feel like I have grown in my abilities to encourage and comfort other people generally but especially people who have had experience of baby loss and/or infertility. I also feel like I am more kind, empathetic and understanding for having gone through my experiences of baby loss.

One of the seemingly negative changes that has happened due to my baby loss experiences is that my anxiety has gotten to a stage that it is now classifiable as a medical condition; generalised anxiety disorder (GAD). Growing up I was always a very anxious person and had quite a few phobias. I was terrified of dogs and being sick. The phobia of being sick took over my life as a student and developed into a fear of food. I would control what I ate and how much I ate so that I didn't ever feel full which was akin to feeling sick to me. I would avoid situations such as eating in front of others or in a restaurant.Through a combination of prayer and me working hard to change my thinking I was able to break free from both phobias and all the anxiety and panic attacks that plagued me. As I have posted here before my struggles with infertility, failed IVF and baby loss have triggered my phobia of being sick and fear of food and left me with clinical depression. On three separate occasions my depression got so bad that I deliberately cut my wrists just to get some release and as a cry for help. I have been in some dark places. I have received counselling and prayer and am now in a much better place. As well as GAD I do currently have a diagnosis of mild depression but I feel like I am in control of that. I have realised that my anxiety is taking over my life and making it quite hard to function so have started cognitive behaviour therapy for it. It is an illness that needs treating, not just the way I am.

For me GAD means I have a ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach constantly. A lot of the time I can push it down to the bottom and function normally and people don't know that there's anything wrong. But sometimes it rises to the surface and I feel like I can't cope. I currently have panic attacks about once a fortnight and I often burst into tears without really feeling upset inside. I do have a list of recognised triggers for my panic attacks and crying episodes: being in a group of people or large crowd, being around pregnant people or young babies eating in front of people (not Neil) or out in a restaurant, feeling full, feeling sick and when my friends are talking to someone else (that is hard to admit as it makes me feel like a bad, jealous person but anxiety is irrational and distorts your thinking). Sometimes though the panic attacks and crying episodes come completely out of the blue with no obvious trigger. Also, the situations on my list of triggers do not trigger my anxiety every time I am in them although if I am feeling particularly bad I will try to avoid those things. I also often find myself going through the day with a real sense of dread and feeling like something awful is about to happen. It's not all doom and gloom and I am managing to function on a day to day basis and often feel happy and like I am enjoying life. I am so thankful that I am able to go to work and that actually work provides enough of a distraction that I often don't notice the ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. I have had one day recently where I burst into tears randomly at work and had to explain that no one had actually upset me it was just a symptom of my GAD. I have recently been asked to step up and teach one day a week at work and this is a challenge I am relishing and enjoying. It really helps take my mind off the anxiety but I am worried that the manager will see me crying if it happens again, think I'm not coping and take my teaching day away. That is the opposite of helpful. I'm probably worrying over nothing; that's GAD for you!

My life has been shaped by baby loss and that includes my mental health. I am now getting help for my mental health conditions and with God's help I will come out the other side a stronger, more rounded person. I hope that I can continue to help others and develop my giftings in encouragement, kindness and comfort, even from the middle of my mess.