Yes. I think I've been absolutely lucky and really fortunate that the hospital where I had the termination offers a service which is specifically, it's, you know, for situations like this. So there are two people that offer this service and I think they're basically brilliant. And the good thing is that it's indefinite. You decide how long you want to go, or how often you want to go, or when you want to stop going, and you can go for years if you feel that, if you feel that need. And I think it's a bit of a rarity really in hospitals.
You say “the service”, I wonder if you could explain what it consists of?
Well, you go and see, it's counselling and so all you do, you just go. I mean some people find it a bit hard because it's in the actual same hospital, but I, for some reason, I never quite you know, I didn't really find that particularly hard. And it's on a different floor anyway from the labour ward. And it's this woman that obviously sort of specialised. She was actually, the counsellor I'd been talking to used to be a midwife, so that thing I think helps a lot. And she's been doing this job for, I don't know, over 10 years anyway, so she really has experience of this kind of situation.
And my, I suppose the, you know, what happens during a session has changed dramatically from the very first times where basically, you know, all I was doing was cry, probably for the, the best of an hour. And now we, you know, we seem to think or to talk about general things and how I'm feeling and sometimes the conversation sort of drifts off into, I don't know...
Related areas.
Yes, other things. But I think it's very important to have a space where you can talk to someone else that's not related to you. Because I found, personally I found it quite hard to talk to people, family members or even friends because they obviously, they themselves are, have been affected by it, so in a way you don't want to burden them with more of your grief. So you tend to, you know, either keep it to yourself or just talk to strangers.
A lot easier, it's a lot easier to talk to strangers about it, or people in the same situation that have support groups. So, and that has been in-, you know, invaluable help as well. But I think, I mean counselling for me has been incredibly useful. And some people find that they prefer to go with partners, with their partners, but I've always found that I wanted my own space where I could express whatever I felt I wanted to express without having, or without fearing to upset some else. |
