Baby, Baby, Baby
This week I was told I would probably never be able to conceive another baby. My heart shattered to a million pieces as the reality of feeling betrayed by my body rose up once more.
I was sixteen the first time I miscarried a baby. Truthfully it would be another two years before I would even know. I had been riding a pregnant mare and when she urinated it loosened the saddle enough to slip it and me under her belly – a move I thought only possible in Hollywood…. I made a choice to push myself outward from the underside of the horse to ensure I would not trip her up and possibly cause her to miscarry the colt she was carrying. While I rolled down the bank hitting rocks, stumps and other sharp objects, I did not know that I had actually chosen to terminate my own pregnancy.
I did not bleed much, not even a really period. I am told I conceived my son either that night or with 24 hours of rolling down the bank.
I was seven months pregnant with my son when I woke covered in blood and with a blood clot type thing in my bed. I panicked as my mother rushed me to the hospital. At that time it was decided by my Doctor and the hospital staff not to tell me that I had completed a miscarriage. My Doctor would tell me after I delivered my baby and I would know the blessing he was.
When I was eighteen I again became pregnant. I knew the moment it happened. I was filled with such love, joy and excitement. When I went for the confirmation test at the walk -in clinic I was so excited to know that my son would soon have a sister or brother. I called my boyfriend immediately. I then sat at a bus stop talking with a friend when suddenly I felt a pain I had never felt before. I started bleeding, I had lost my baby and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
It was then my doctor slipped out that this was my second miscarriage. I questioned him and he explained that I had released a baby at seven months when I went to the hospital bleeding. That my son had gotten big enough to push out the remains of a child I had conceived around the same time as him, probably just prior to him.
I would downward spiral in my life for a year and a bit. I drank to cover my pain. I could barely hold my son. I was a mess. I then asked for my tubes to be tied. I never again wanted to feel the pain of losing an child.
The next time I got pregnant I terminated the baby before I could miscarry it. I could not handle the thought of again losing a child I loved.
It would be six years that I waited to have my tubes tied. My doctor had some concerns with my menstruating cycle and ran some tests which showed damage to my fallopian tubes which concerned him as to whether or not I would ever be able to release an egg without damaging the egg, thus causing another miscarriage should I become pregnant.
I was told that should I try to become pregnant I would need to do it immediately and that there was only a 35% chance of carrying to term. I could not live with those odds and agreed to have my tubes tied. The surgery was booked for less than a week later.
It has been 11 years since I have had my tubes tied and I have been on an amazing journey, one that has shown me and allowed me to experience the birthing of my daughter through a meditative state. It would be the first time in nine years that I would want to be pregnant and birth a child. I made the decision to hold off until 2013. This just felt like the right decision in my body.
I have never forgotten the moment of birthing in meditation and made the decision to sit and speak with my Doctor and learn what the procedure would be to have my previous surgery reversed.
He told me that based on my old medical records he would not be able to have the surgery reversed as I did not have my tubes simply clamped, they had been cut, clamped and burned to ensure they would not come undone and produce a pregnancy. I asked him about the chances of harvesting my eggs and having them planted through intravenous. I was told that this was possible however the likelihood of my body being able to carry a child to term is questionable. I thanked my Doctor and left his office.
I took time in my car to allow myself the honor of crying. To release the pain I was feeling and the grief that as a woman I am unable to have another child, regardless of how much I may want one or think I would to be pregnant.
I woke this morning with an understanding that I will be birthing my child in 2013. I understood that my Doctor does not know my body and does not know what I can and can do with it. I have some things I need to do in order to ready my body for a child to be planted however it is in my journey to have another child. So in the mean time I am learning how to control thyroid without drugs, working towards building my iron stores and most importantly using meditation and visualization to see, feel and experience myself birthing a healthy child with ease and grace.