Setting Goals

It's been two months since I last wrote a blog entry. Since then, our due date for our second baby has come and gone. August 23, 2018 should have been the day that we welcomed Paul Joseph into the world. I miscarried at 7 weeks, so of course we didn't know the gender of our baby, but we like to guess that this baby would have been a little boy since our first was a girl (Margaret Kay).

Anyway, at counseling, which I have been going to regularly since November, my counselor asked two questions, to determine if I needed more counseling:

1. Can you talk about your babies and miscarriages without emotions consuming you each and every time? He did say that crying and missing them is by no means inappropriate, but he did mention that being able to talk about them without breaking down is important for healing.

2. Do you feel guilt/personal responsibility over your miscarriages or the people that the miscarriages affected? For example, guilt that you did something wrong in your pregnancy to cause this to happen or guilt that you cannot give your husband a family right now/that your parents and in-laws are missing out on grandbabies right now and you're the reason, etc. I couldn't even explain my "yes" answers without dissolving into tears, so it was mutually agreed upon that more frequent counseling, particularly surrounding the miscarriages, is necessary. So, in addition to seeing my current counselor more often, I am also going to seek out specific counseling about miscarriages/pregnancy loss/child loss, etc.

All talk of my angels aside, health-wise, things are still very up in the air. I had the follow-up for my spinal tap (which I had a few days prior to my last blog) and the neurologist informed me that nothing was wrong...so although "something is totally wrong", nothing has been diagnosed. I was prescribed two medications that may help my symptoms; one is an experimental drug for chronic headaches and the other is a drug that is sometimes used to help the neurological symptoms that accompany Ataxia, which the neurologist suspects I probably have.

Following my most recent med-check appointment, I had the doctor's office fax my records to an Ataxia specialist in Philadelphia. I'm hoping I hear from their office soon, so I can start getting a diagnosis and treating what has been going on for the past several months-years.

Anyway, the topic of this post was goals...I guess I should probably talk about some that I've set for myself:

-Do 10-20 minutes of yoga each day

-Journal at least once per week

-Practice mindfulness and breathing techniques for 5 minutes each day

Okay, I'm gonna go for now. Love you all!