Seeking Counseling After the Loss of a Child and/or Start of an ...

Today we went to see a therapist who specializes in children?s therapy about our daughter Bella. Since I went through a really rough pregnancy and then a very traumatic loss of the boys, she?s exhibited behavior that I know comes from the feelings of having life continually altered in a big way.

While I was there, Sam and I mentioned we were looking for a therapist that specialized in our kind of loss, grief, and trauma. She also works with women and families that lose babies or young children, and she is the only one in all of our city at the moment that does so.

We have many reasons to see a therapist because of what happened, but our most compelling two at the moment are to be healthy parents who can express emotions in a real, but positive, sense ? and to prepare for our adopted child.

We know bringing home a child from another country, who has experienced the loss of a birth mother/father as well as been in the care of more than one person before a foster home will have their own emotional needs that must be met. Sam and I understand deeply that our loss needs to be addressed and managed before we can help a child who will need the healthiest family possible in his or her growing and healing process.

Can I tell you all something? This would be a lot easier right now to just act like we?re ok. That my Zoloft is working wonders and that?s all I need, that Sam has been through war and PTSD so he?s equipped to handle this, that Bella is in the terrible twos soon-to-be threes. But that?s not it. This process of grief and loss is getting more manageable, but it?s never going to be gone. Like the therapist said today, ?You will grieve forever because they were your sons.?

I really thought one day I?d just ? be all better. But I need to find my new normal, and I?m finally realizing what that phrase really means.

Even if our homestudy is turned down, we still have to do this. Sitting there today, I cried through the entire story of what had happened, and at the end felt such a sense of peace and relief in talking about it. Then to have someone on the other end who understood, who offered to help? That was amazing.

We are believers in therapy and all it offers. We?ve turned to it for our marriage, and for Sam?s alcoholism. Now we?ll use it to heal from the children we lost, help the one we have, and prepare for the ones to come.

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Diana blogs on raising a toddler daughter, the loss of her twin boys, and their families? Korean adoption on the aptly named Hormonal Imbalances.?Smaller glimpses into her day are on Twitter,?Facebook, and?Pinterest.

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Source: http://blogs.babble.com/being-pregnant/2012/08/30/therapy-after-losing-a-baby-and-before-adopting/

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