The Funeral's Over

How did I cope after this event in my life? - well not very well - I was bewildered at the immense emotions that arose for me.

My husband was home for a few weeks and we spent many hours together - me crying - with him hugging me.  I guess he wondered how he could help me.  I am grateful for the time that he spent with me but I do feel he did not understand the immense pain that I was feeling at that time. 

My parents suggested we go out for lunch together - to this day I wonder why - was it to make up for not being at the funeral?  I went to please them but really did not want to go.  I felt like a zombie!!

I would wake at night - unable to sleep - wanting my baby with me.  I was unable to do much during the day - little housework got done, I often was not able to have tea ready for the family and just did the bare essentials that I needed to do.

My husband and I went for many walks together especially in the evening time.  This helped me to cope.

I had many mixed emotions - guilt, shame, fear, anger, etc.  They seemed to be all mixed up together and I really could not define one from the other.

I felt alone and that many people expected me to just snap back and be myself again - that was not to be - Ben had a big impact on my life and I was a changed person.   I valued life more - my children became more precious and I wanted another baby!  I knew that I could never ever replace Ben but I needed to know that I could have a healthy live baby and just maybe this may ease the pain that my heart was feeling at this point in time.

I was also so very scared of forgetting Ben although it was many months before I realised that this was not going to happen.

It was so hard taking my 5 year old to school each day - there were other mothers there who were pregnant and due to have their baby's - some would talk to me and others just seemed to walk the other way.

I also cared for other children and continued to do this after Ben had died.  It was hard especially as some of them were under one year.  

Life just was not moving  ------- I was getting quite depressed and only focused on how I could have another pregnancy and a baby.

Eventually went to see my GP who prescribed some antidepressants - only problem with taking these was that everyone thought I was not 'normal'.  I decided that this road was not for me and struggled on without taking tablets.

Peter and I went for more and more walks together.   It was good to be together even though we rarely talked about Ben - we did talk about another pregnancy and how I was going to achieve this.