Kimber's Five

This is the second part to my "Mental health support" post. This one is about what I have done to create an environment for myself that prioritized my mental health. At some point when my mental health was at an all-time low, I thought about all of the things that were bothering me and adding to my depression. I put things in columns: one column was things I can change and the other was things I couldn't change. The list helped me realize that I cannot change all the bad things happening to our family and I can't change how people feel about me. However, I can change the support around me and I can change how I feel about all things that happened. I went home to be with my family and friends during my husband's deployment and to give myself a chance to process the past couple years. Getting myself out of the situation also gave me a chance to think about what I liked about being at home with support and all the ways life was less hard when I wasn't goin...

We are finally done having children. I have had 6 pregnancies-- 7 if you count the chemical pregnancy. Two of them were multiple pregnancies-- a set of identical twins that are now 7 years old and a set of triplets that we lost in pregnancy {would be 5 years old now}. I also lost a singleton in pregnancy {would be almost 11 years old now now}. I have 5 living children and 4 in heaven-- 9 total. I had retained placenta and hemorrhaged 2 weeks after giving birth to baby #5. I spent most of my last pregnancy on bedrest or "taking it easy," from 27 weeks on to when I delivered her. After she was born I battled post-partum complications and spent a lot of time taking it easy then. My post-partum complications were surgically repaired 7 months after baby #5 was born and required a partial hysterectomy. I have birthed and breastfed {for various amounts of time} 5 children. I have had 3 D&Cs. My body might no longer be needed for growth, life, and sustenance of my children, ...