Reconciliation

This fall I'm joining two fantastic yoga teachers, Elise Collins and Katie Louderback to teach the Essential Fertility 9/11 & Essential Pre-natal 10/9 Workshops at Yoga Tree. After working with women for years around the energetics and emotions of fertility and their prenatal months, I realized that many of the same issues of reconciling with our bodies continued to arise. While Elise and Katie have children of their own, my body took a different turn a few years ago and it is with great honor that I bring this experience to workshops and my work with women.


In the winter of 2008, my beau and I were enjoying the new year along with our 7-month relationship. We had just celebrated our first Christmas together along with his 2 1/2 year-old daughter. Finally growing our landlegs after blissful trips away and weekends with our little trio, we began sinking into a more comfortable place while holding the boundaries of our respective residences in place.


That January's new moon came and went, but this time did not bring the cleanse of my menstrual cycle. A few days later I found I was pregnant. Elation and uncertainty swirled around us as we made our way into very honest conversations with each other, ourselves, family and close friends. He, divorced for only a year with a new daughter and I in my late 30s, blossoming career and cherished independence. What to do? Do we move forward together? Loved each other..check! Aligned in our lifestyles..hmmm...check. Aligned in our style of parenting...check. Thought we might like to be together long-term..check. Loved each other...check! After a week of checks and balances we decided to move forward. In fact the moment those two words.."I'm pregnant" left my mouth, he was on Craigslist looking for a home for all of us. In fact the idea of having a child together was much more of a reality for us than terminating a pregnancy. Only 5 weeks along, the words "I'm pregnant" morphed from a small audible whisper to a guilty pleasure shared with only a few people to adhere to the taboo of telling the world before it's time.


I spent the days eating carefully, carefully studying everything there was to know about my body and what was happening, meditating, sending Reiki to the tiny being..and actually feeling them sending something back..kind of like the first time Horton heard a Who. The message from the Seuss story resounded through my head, ‘‘even though you can’t see or hear them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small’’ And so, I carried. Checking in, giving them space, consulting intuitives, consulting baby names, creating baby names. Receiving abundant support from our families, holistic practitioners, friends, universe, my cat. All the while moving forward..or rather being whisked forward into the new idea of living with my beau, his daughter, having a child and having it all work. And so, I maintained.


We found a sweet place in Sausalito with a patio overlooking the Bay, draped in antique roses and owned by the world's most gracious Irishman. We signed the handwritten lease with a move-in date set for 3 weeks out. One week later I began spotting. One week after that I had a miscarriage. As I write this tears still surprisingly arrive and my heart breaks every time I think of it. It was a scary time, a lonely time, an all out dreadful time. And because society has such a varied response, I didn't know if I should curl up and die or if I should just continue to 'maintain'. And so, I resided in a limbo space between. 


A week lumbered by and my hCG levels continued to drop along with my soul. My litigiously shy OB/GYN, erring on the side of caution against malpractice, assured me there was no need for a D&C. Having had enough of the numbers and enough of needles taking my blood, I stopped going for tests, trusting my acupuncturist and that everything would balance out. Three weeks later my body seemed like it was coming back into some  normalcy. My energy felt more balanced. While my mood improved..much was set aside to step into a brand new living situation. We had signed a year's lease and moved forward into moving in together which was a whole other impossible scenario.


I continued my work with clients and practiced Reiki, the only thing which brought peace and sanity at the time. Two months later I was getting on with my life more physically than emotionally, knowing the latter would have its time. One morning while I was working I began to feel intense cramping and pain which literally brought me to my knees. Thinking it would subside I took a break and ironically laid in the Happy Baby yoga position. The pain continued into the afternoon and upon reaching my OB/GYN she told me to get another hCG test to see if my hormone levels had sufficiently dropped. The next morning I did and upon seeing an additional ultrasound, she resolved that I was having an incomplete miscarriage. I had never fully miscarried and now two and half months later I was going through the hell all over again.


I wish I could say I had immeasurable support around me during the time of my miscarriage, but honestly I did  not. Primarily because I chose not to share with many people, but even family and friends who knew, simply thought of miscarriage as an unlucky thing that just happens during the first trimester. My beau had been so busy with an out of town business deal that called him away often and I threw myself into caring for his daughter when we had her 50% of the time. Changing diapers, potty-training, reading stories, cooking meals..all during a time when my own chance at a baby was disintegrating. 


It was one of the few times in my life where I felt such intense sadness, heartbreak, resentment, frustration, despair and feeling so completely misunderstood. A quiet rage uncoiled in my body with no place to escape. Physically, my body was exhausted with upheaval. I also understood there was an opportunity, a necessity, to reconcile with my body, the skin and bones which had kept me safe, healthy, functioning and now enveloped me in fetal position. I gave it time to rest, to feel emotion, to finally express emotion. Little angels in the way of dreams, neighbors, teachers, students, friends came in one by one. I was healing my physical body, but coming to terms with all the esoteric why?s My body was my own, and I had no choice but to forgive it for not being in perfect synchronicity with me. I had to catch up to the idea of being pregnant and then just as quickly had to catch up to the idea of not.


Since that time much healing has been done. Emotionally, physically, energetically. I've discovered many answers to the many 'why?s' with still some unknowns. I'm happy to say we are a family of three by choice. I'm perfectly healthy to have a child of my own, but now at 41 I have other plans for my life. My creative efforts go into other forms.  I place hands on the bellies of other women feeling their spaciousness or an occasional kick and I smile at that sacred place with a shared empathy of where they've been, where they are and may go. Our womb is a place of physical and energetic creation. Our place of vibrance and intuition. It is a place to trust even in the face of betrayal. Using our hearts, it is the place where we must continue to reconcile throughout its metamorphosis.


As always, I love your comments! In lieu of a reading list I am including a link with an interview with psychotherapist Claudine Solin Radford about her work with pregnancy loss. Preterm and Neonatal Loss Claudine sees clients and shares her extraordinary work here in San Francisco at Acupuncture Kitchen .