Speaker 1: I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should
Speaker 1: Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice
Speaker 1: column for the Atlantic. And I'm Guy Winch. I'm the
Speaker 1: author of Emotional First Aid and I write the Dear
Speaker 1: Guy advice column f TED. And this is Dear Therapists.
Speaker 1: This week we're going to check in on a guest
Speaker 1: from season two to hear how they're doing a year later. First,
Speaker 1: a quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only.
Speaker 1: It does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and is
Speaker 1: not a substitute for professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Speaker 1: In the sessions you'll hear, all names have been changed
Speaker 1: for the privacy of our guests. So today we're going
Speaker 1: to check in with Diane. Her episode was called Diane's
Speaker 1: Infertility Struggle, and she was struggling with recurrent pregnancy loss
Speaker 1: and really wanting another child. She did have one daughter,
Speaker 1: and there was the series of losses and with those
Speaker 1: losses also some truly traumatic experiences. And what's really difficult
Speaker 1: for her is that people around her, including in her family,
Speaker 1: are having second and third children, and it is so
Speaker 1: painful for her when she keeps losing these pregnancies. Let's
Speaker 1: get a reminder of how the session went. So it's
Speaker 1: really hard because I had to go through Christmas and
Speaker 1: everything like not telling anybody. And so we went for
Speaker 1: the ultrasound on Nearar's Eve and they just said, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you know, the baby stepped growing, and you know, I
Speaker 1: was devastated and I cried and my husband he looked
Speaker 1: like he was really upset, and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, he's finally showing emotion. The doctor left the
Speaker 1: room or whatever, but he literally said to me, you
Speaker 1: have one at home, right and I said yes, and
Speaker 1: he goes, you'll have three kids before you know it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what, this is so invalidating and
Speaker 1: so upsetting. And then then you know, they go and
Speaker 1: let yourself out the back door, because nobody wants a
Speaker 1: crying person to walk through the waiting room. You're listening
Speaker 1: to dea. Therapists will be back after a short break,
Speaker 1: and now let's hear how things are going for Diane.
Speaker 1: A year later, a few months after recording my episode,
Speaker 1: I was so excited to discover that I was pregnant.
Speaker 1: It finally felt like the supplements and acupuncture had worked.
Speaker 1: I cautiously told my husband the good news, and he
Speaker 1: was immediately excited and insisted on talking about names right away.
Speaker 1: I was scared to get too excited, but I was
Speaker 1: still hopeful with my history of loss. I went in
Speaker 1: a couple of days later for blood work and it
Speaker 1: was low, but still in the normal range. Two days later,
Speaker 1: I started cramping and my second h c G level
Speaker 1: came back that night, indicating impending miscarriage. We were devastated.
Speaker 1: I found out about this from checking my chart online.
Speaker 1: I never once received a call from my doctor. The
Speaker 1: very next morning, I started heavy cramping and miscarried. It
Speaker 1: was truly horrific. I was literally miscarrying while my six
Speaker 1: year old daughter was having a tantrum and wanted to
Speaker 1: come in the bathroom to see me. My husband had
Speaker 1: to hold her in the hallway to keep her from
Speaker 1: busting in. I heard her crying and screaming while I
Speaker 1: started sobbing for the fourth child I had lost. Anyone
Speaker 1: who's experienced a miscarriage knows how incredibly painful it is. Physically.
Speaker 1: All I wanted to do was just lay on the
Speaker 1: couch and rest and grieve, but It also happened to
Speaker 1: me my daughter's first ever dance recital, so I had
Speaker 1: to put her outfit on, do her hair, put a
Speaker 1: smile on, and go sit in an auditorium and watched
Speaker 1: three hours of dance. In some ways, I was grateful
Speaker 1: for the distraction, and it sort of resulted in me
Speaker 1: mentally dismissing it as not that big of a deal.
Speaker 1: Life had to go on, but it really was, and
Speaker 1: when the numbness wore off, I got into a really
Speaker 1: bad place. I lost a major friend group of other moms.
Speaker 1: I just didn't want to hear talks of pregnancy or
Speaker 1: sibling interactions, and it was almost too much for these
Speaker 1: friends that their lives were triggering me in this depth
Speaker 1: of despair. It re emphasized for me just how isolating
Speaker 1: pregnancy loss is. After that experience, I also ended up
Speaker 1: switching hospital systems and doctors after them never calling me
Speaker 1: to ask me how I was, or even to just
Speaker 1: give me the number. Had I not seen my chart
Speaker 1: on that Friday night, I wouldn't have been prepared for
Speaker 1: what started happening on Saturday. My new oh b G
Speaker 1: I N, who came recommended from several friends, discovered that
Speaker 1: I had a gene mutation that results in certain deficiencies
Speaker 1: of like B six and B twelve, and so since
Speaker 1: I've started taking extra vitamins to support this deficiency, at
Speaker 1: least it provides some hope for the near future. I
Speaker 1: am grateful that I was able to find an amazing
Speaker 1: therapist who specializes in grief, and so for the past
Speaker 1: seven months I've been seeing her. Also, both my nieces
Speaker 1: have since been born, the one who was in town,
Speaker 1: we see a lot, and I have definitely appreciated enjoying
Speaker 1: the cute baby moments without having to deal with the
Speaker 1: messy diapers or being up at night with her, and
Speaker 1: so I feel like I've had some more glimpses of
Speaker 1: the positives of only having one child. My daughter still
Speaker 1: talks about having siblings all the time. She's even had
Speaker 1: a few really heavy sobs about how she just wants
Speaker 1: to have you know, siblings with her at our house.
Speaker 1: She even asked me one night, how come you know
Speaker 1: Aunt X and why can have babies in their tummies
Speaker 1: but you can't. So sometimes I cry with her about it,
Speaker 1: and other days I just point out the benefits of
Speaker 1: her being the only kid in our family. But my
Speaker 1: daughter recently had a school assignment where she had to
Speaker 1: write I am lucky because and she wrote I am
Speaker 1: lucky because I'm an only child. So that was nice
Speaker 1: to see a little hard to see, but also kind
Speaker 1: of nice that she, you know, found a good in
Speaker 1: it as well. I was really nervous to really listen
Speaker 1: to my episode, but when I did, I realized it
Speaker 1: was one of the first times all of my intricate
Speaker 1: feelings about loss and just an a acting with the
Speaker 1: world as somebody who's experienced this, we're truly validated. Everything
Speaker 1: that I struggled with Lorie and Guys said was normal
Speaker 1: for someone grieving, and that was so important for me
Speaker 1: to hear at the time, because I just kept feeling
Speaker 1: like something was wrong with me, that I was experiencing
Speaker 1: all of these things. So I was so grateful to
Speaker 1: feel heard and validated. As a result of my conversation
Speaker 1: with Lorie and Guy, my communication with my husband is better.
Speaker 1: I think this is probably one of the biggest things.
Speaker 1: I just didn't realize how poor it was, and I
Speaker 1: feel like we've been more open about things and have
Speaker 1: been able to have better conversations. Another important insight that
Speaker 1: I gained was realizing how much my anxiety impacts my
Speaker 1: day to day. So similar to how Guy kind of
Speaker 1: pointed out that it was an underlying issue in my therapy,
Speaker 1: has also pointed it out for different things that I
Speaker 1: never would have really attributed to anxiety. So I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for that to be able to find new ways to
Speaker 1: cope with it. Just generally, I'm grateful that I was
Speaker 1: able to talk to Laurian Guy. It helped me realize
Speaker 1: that one, my feelings are very valid and there was
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with me. Too, that an anxiety was a
Speaker 1: big part of my life and and still is. Three
Speaker 1: that I needed to really improve communication with my husband,
Speaker 1: and so I'm grateful that I've been able to do that,
Speaker 1: and for just how beneficial a counseling session is and was,
Speaker 1: and realizing how much better I felt after talking to
Speaker 1: Laurie and Guy. I realized I really did want to
Speaker 1: continue this weekly and so I'm grateful to have a
Speaker 1: great therapist and to be able to have regular conversations.
Speaker 1: So thank you again so much. I'm so glad I
Speaker 1: was able to talk to you both. So I keep
Speaker 1: thinking about the experience she described of miscaring while her
Speaker 1: daughter was right outside the room and wanted to come in,
Speaker 1: and then how she went to that recital. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that we talked about with her last
Speaker 1: year was how invisible this kind of loss is and
Speaker 1: how isolating pregnancy loss is. A lot of people don't
Speaker 1: understand the depth of the grief that you have because
Speaker 1: people don't see it. You know, you lose a child,
Speaker 1: people say, oh, the child was here, the child's not here.
Speaker 1: But you lose a pregnancy, and you really suffer alone
Speaker 1: most of the time, and then when you go out
Speaker 1: in the world, there are those constant reminders of seeing
Speaker 1: relatives or just another woman in Target or the grocery
Speaker 1: store and she's pregnant, and it ruins your whole day.
Speaker 1: She was talking about how important the emotional validation was
Speaker 1: for her, and I'm so glad that we were able
Speaker 1: to help her see that, yes, what she experiencing wasn't
Speaker 1: only normal, but it was important. It was important that
Speaker 1: she was grieving these losses. I agree, Laurie. And what
Speaker 1: really kind of pinched my heart a bit is that
Speaker 1: when she said that her conversation with us, despite her
Speaker 1: losses and despite talking about them with physicians and family,
Speaker 1: and her husband. It was the first time she felt
Speaker 1: that all her emotions were validated. What really struck me
Speaker 1: was how many women are out there that don't get that,
Speaker 1: that don't have that experience, that are truly struggling alone,
Speaker 1: and no one is really malidating all their experiences and
Speaker 1: their feelings and their losses. It is such a difficult
Speaker 1: thing to deal with, and we indeed got a huge
Speaker 1: response to this episode because it's so common, because it's
Speaker 1: so isolating, and and it's so painful on so many levels.
Speaker 1: There's the physical pain, as she said, the emotional pain
Speaker 1: they're recovering, nature of the uncertainty, the children you see
Speaker 1: around you, you're only child saying I want siblings, I
Speaker 1: want siblings, The impact on the couple's marriage. It just
Speaker 1: shows how important this topic is, and I am so
Speaker 1: glad we had the opportunity to speak with her. And
Speaker 1: when we think about the impact on the marriage, her
Speaker 1: husband was also going through his own way of dealing
Speaker 1: with the grief and the loss, and they hadn't really
Speaker 1: been talking about it openly. They were both kind of
Speaker 1: trying to protect both themselves and each other. And I
Speaker 1: think this communication piece is so important, not only with
Speaker 1: her husband, because now they can talk about not only
Speaker 1: their options, but what this experience is like for each
Speaker 1: of them as they go through what is truly a
Speaker 1: roller coaster, as anybody whose experienced fertility challenges will realize.
Speaker 1: But it's also good that she's able to talk to
Speaker 1: her daughter differently, because I think that there wasn't space
Speaker 1: before for her daughter to also grieve and have her sadness.
Speaker 1: And she said her daughter had some really big cries
Speaker 1: about not having a sibling, and I think it's great
Speaker 1: that she can sit with that, even though she has
Speaker 1: a lot of feelings herself around that, because it allowed
Speaker 1: for her daughter to then have some positive experiences of
Speaker 1: being an only child as well. If you can allow
Speaker 1: for the sadness, if you can allow for the loss,
Speaker 1: if you can give that space, then her daughter can
Speaker 1: also make some space for and there are some good
Speaker 1: parts to this too, and she can hold the both
Speaker 1: and which is what we were asking Diane to do
Speaker 1: as well. I agree with that. And lastly, it's so
Speaker 1: good to hear that she's paying more attention to her
Speaker 1: anxiety and that she's even able to catch anxious thoughts
Speaker 1: and label them as such and see them for what
Speaker 1: they are. And then I noticed that she's also doing
Speaker 1: a lot of reframing. For example, when she hangs out
Speaker 1: with her sister and the new baby. Yes, I'm sure
Speaker 1: it really hurts still, but she can see that I
Speaker 1: can enjoy nonetheless some of those cute baby moments even so,
Speaker 1: and that's really positive to hear, and that's not easy
Speaker 1: to do. And I think the takeaway here is that
Speaker 1: when you get validation for your internal experiences and emotions,
Speaker 1: both externally from people who matter, but also internally, when
Speaker 1: you're doing that for yourself, it really makes it a
Speaker 1: little bit easier to deal with the challenges and difficulties.
Speaker 1: And we know that this is going to be an
Speaker 1: ongoing struggle for her and it will still be painful,
Speaker 1: but because she's in touch with her feelings, she'll be
Speaker 1: able to express them and she'll be able to connect
Speaker 1: with the people around her and not feel so isolated.
Speaker 1: Next week, we're in session with sisters Sandra and Kim,
Speaker 1: who discover a family secret that their parents held for
Speaker 1: sixty years. I internally just felt like there's something that's
Speaker 1: not right here. We were asked our whole lives, if
Speaker 1: we have the same parents. If you're enjoying our podcast,
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't
Speaker 1: miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help people to find the show.
Speaker 1: If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Speaker 1: email us at Lorie and Guy at I heart media
Speaker 1: dot com. Our executive producer is Noel Brown. Were produced
Speaker 1: and edited by Josh Fisher, additional editing support by Helena Rosen,
Speaker 1: John Washington and Zachary Fisher. Are Interns are Ben Bernstein,
Speaker 1: Emily Guccierrez and Silver Lifton. And special thanks to our
Speaker 1: podcast fairy Godmother Katie Curic. You can't wait to see
Speaker 1: you at our next session. Dear Therapists is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio Fish Food