My Miracle Baby (edited 10/8/14)

Have you heard the famous Eleanor Roosevelt phrase, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do?” There is one time in particular in my life when I felt that thought run through me in a terrifyingly “I can’t survive this” kind of way.

Well, let me tell you, there is a BIG upside to doing the thing you think you cannot do.


Before I share what that was, I need to give you a little history…


A month earlier I had had a miscarriage. It was my fourth pregnancy and would have been my third child. As if the miscarriage itself, which took over a week to complete, was not painful enough, when I woke up in the recovery room at the end of that long week, I was suddenly transported back in my mind to the clinic where I’d had an abortion eleven years earlier.

At that time of my miscarriage, my husband was going to seminary school at nights to become a Catholic deacon, and the pressure I felt from my religious upbringing and his new vocation created incredible tension and anxiety in me and between us, to keep my secret. Although I did not know it at the time, our abortion was a reason that could have precluded his ordination. He was disconnected from our marriage in every way. I was in overwhelm and alone in parenting our two young children and now I had two dead babies I needed to grieve for, but could not. When I left for a healing retreat a month after my miscarriage, my husband sent me off with very clear instructions – “Do whatever you need to do to fix yourself and pull this family back together.” I was breathing and barely alive, but spiritually and energetically I was close to dying. 

At that retreat, I had to acknowledge that if I was going to survive, I would need to tell my story. I would need to say what I did out loud. And then, when that was done, I would need to acknowledge my unborn children and bring closure in a ritual similar to a funeral.

I had to choose. It was my life or death. Could I do the thing that I thought I could not do? 


To my great surprise and utter relief, I discovered that releasing the story and its attendant emotions brought me peace, relief and a new support network I never knew existed. My shadow side was exposed; my dark side was bared for the other women at our retreat to see. This opened a door to a non-judgmental love I had not experienced in a long time. Contrary to my thinking, my vulnerability and full disclosure did not make them hate me – just the opposite. I was welcomed into a hospitable and loving community unlike any I had ever known.

Two and a half months later, after doing these things I did not think I could do, I found out I was pregnant with my third child. 

At age 41, he was my miracle baby and a symbol of healing for all the inner work I had done at that retreat. I learned that good things have room to grow when the toxic emotions are released. I had created space for a new beginning, for both of my baby and myself. 

That little guy was born on October 12, 2004. In five days, he will be ten years old. Thank you my “I love you more” guy for all the lessons you have brought to me. Mama Chop loves you to the moon and back again.


Namaste.

 

PS: Next Tuesday at 6 pm PST I have the honor and privilege of being interviewed by Mama Char on her show, The Quirky World of Mama Char on Blog Talk radio. I will post the link on when it will air.


And…my new website is almost complete! Hurray! I hope you will catch my blog next week at www.unborn angels.com/blog.


Thank you!

 

The Twins, A Lesson in Ackowledging Repressed Feelings

I do not remember birthdays very well. Anniversaries even less. But there is one birthday/anniversary that I always remember.

The twins across the street were born five months after my husband and I moved into our first home. We left a gift on their doorstep shortly after their birth, but since it was January, snowy, and both parents worked, we rationalized that a visit should wait. It did not occur to me at the time that my baby would have been born that same month, if I had not had an abortion seven months earlier.


I had repressed my experience immediately. But somewhere in my mind I knew, because I put off meeting the twins for a number of months. It was virtually unavoidable come spring, when everyone was outside, anxious to be in the fresh air after the harsh, cold winter. 

For the next four years, my husband and I were cordial, but not much more. These same neighbors invited us over for drinks and dessert upon occasion, doing their best to build community in the neighborhood. It wasn’t until we decided to have our own children that I finally opened up to the friendship offered by our neighbors.

In 1997, I had a daughter, then in 1998, a son, four and six years younger, respectively, than the twins. But the age difference did not matter. The twins were like siblings to my kids and we became very close over the grade school years. 

A beautiful relationship evolved between our families, and one that would become bittersweet for me over time as I began to allow the repressed pieces of my life to come into the light.

A miscarriage in 2003 rocked my world, reminding me of the abortion I had eleven years earlier, before I was a friend to the twins and a mother to my own children. As a devout Catholic, I was shaken to my core thinking about what I had done. And looking at my own children, knowing the miracle and beauty of them did not make it any easier. In acknowledging the totality of that choice, I realized for the first time that the twins were born in the same month as my baby would have been born. 

I wondered at the coincidence of being neighbors with these children, who were living and breathing in this physical world the way my own daughter might have been if she had been born. This knowledge was tremendously painful, and the following two years, especially, on the twins’ birthdays, it was hard to accept. 

The third year, something shifted.

 

 

Instead of living in the past, wondering what my own child might be doing, my perspective changed. I saw that God in His truly infinite wisdom had given me a chance to know extraordinary young people at a time I did not believe I deserved it, while simultaneously allowing my children to know the love of “older siblings”. 

It blows my mind to see how something once so painful to me could be made right, all the while, unbeknownst to those taking part.

The twins are at college, and we have moved away. But their family will always hold a special place in my heart and the hearts of my children. 

That is the miracle that I live with now.

Women who have chosen abortions are as worthy of these miracles as anyone else. All it takes is a step back to look at life through a new lense.

Do you have an annviersary story? Or a new perspective? Where are the miracles in your life that you have missed?

Namaste.