In 1998 I was blessed to become pregnant with my first child, my son, Jack.
Hello uncertainty.
At 14 weeks, after the urine test that examined the proteins in my urine, I received a call.
An ultrasound was needed. I remember sitting in the dark and cold of that room, alone with the ultrasound tech. My body had to be still, but my mind was racing. You know they can’t tell you what they’re looking for or at, so it was quiet after the polite chit-chat. I anxiously waited for the doctor to look at the footage and then turn to me to let me know there was a problem.
My first-born’s intestines were hanging outside of his body.
Hello fear and uncertainty.
It’s strange enough being pregnant for the first time. So many things change during pregnancy: hormones are crazy, the body changes shape, and movements are new. And, so much is already uncertain because it was my first pregnancy. Now, I was given the chance to handle this additional stress and questions: What caused it? Is it my fault? Will he live? Will I live?
Not to bog us all down in medical mysteries, it was determined to be one of two things: omphalocele (a genetic disorder with the possibility of multiple issues) or gastroschisis (a non-genetic disorder with, hopefully, less negative outcomes.)
I was 26 years old and I was scared. And my family was scared. Questions, doubts and possible scenarios played out in my head the rest of those weeks.
Physically, I felt great. I enjoyed being pregnant and feeling him move, but there was no joyous anticipation that typically surrounds the birth of a child. Instead there was a heaviness of heart, body and mind. The uncertainty weighed on my shoulders and darkened my heart. Instead of looking forward with eager anticipation, there was flatness and even dread. No big dreams of what he might grow up to be, no happy ponderings of his future beyond birth.
There were only the questions of: Will he live? How bad will it be if he does live? What will happen?
To navigate this uncertainty I used the tools at hand. Being raised Roman Catholic, Jack was added to several prayer chains and a novena practice came to me. It was the novena of Mary, the Lady of Sorrows. There’s a booklet with prayers and reflections of all the sorrowful things Mary endured as the mother of Jesus:
- 1– The prophecy of Simeon
- 2– The flight to Egypt
- 3– The loss of the child Jesus at the Temple
- 4– The meeting of Jesus and Mary on the Way of the Cross
- 5– The Crucifixion
- 6– The taking down of Jesus’s body
- 7– The burial of Jesus
This is what I did to find solace. There is depth and beauty to be found in the Sorrows. Seeing these events from Mary’s perspective did help me.
In those times of prayer, I did ask that whatever the outcome, I would be ok with it. If Jack thrived, if there were issues that accompanied life, and even if he died. I asked to be able to handle it no matter what it was.
I did not ask for joy and positive possibility. I couldn’t find that in me, and I wanted to be prepared for the worst.
I wasn’t prepared for the best.
Jack was born by cesarean section on a beautiful Friday morning with his grandparents and all his aunts and uncles waiting in the waiting room. (He’s the only one in our family that had the privilege of everyone present for his birth.)
I got to peek at him in the incubator before he was taken for his own surgery. Luckily his gastroschisis was repaired. The doctors were able to insert his intestines back into his belly and apply a patch. He was kept in a medically induced coma for about a week, and stayed in the NICU for a month.
When I got to see him in the NICU, his healthy eight pound body looked huge next to the precious little premature babies that were also in residence. He was healthy. It was then that the happiness and dreaming began, after seeing and knowing he was healthy and would survive without immediate complications.
While the tools I had at hand did help me, I do regret that my body was not able to feed his sense of thriving and joy while he was growing inside me. He was formed healthily regardless of the stress hormones that my thoughts induced my body to make.
I wish I had had the knowledge, language, and support of a BodyMind coach who would have helped me feel the possible expectation of a healthy birth.
I wish I had been able to provide those feel good hormones to Jack.
I wonder what the outcome would have been if I had been able to tap into that as well.
Jack is currently 22 and doing well. He only had one incident involving his intestines and his body resolved it without surgery. When Jack was 4 or 5, my brother asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. His answer wasn’t the typical job description little ones give as a response. Instead, he said,
“I just want to be me. To be Jack.”
And maybe that is the other gift in the shit of that whole experience — he is wholly himself, not one that was conditioned to “succeed” from the womb.
I’m so glad to be aware of and be a part of this BodyMind Living community. I have learned so much about the connection between our bodies and our brains.
As I’ve learned more about the body’s three brains (cranial, heart, and gut brains), I can see how I did use that connection to cope. I did use mindset to help me to mentally be ok.
Yet, I would have enjoyed really feeling my own body and its wholeness and health to help me trust the process even more.
I’m so glad you’ve found this now, wherever you are in your journey.
May you reach out for the support you need that you can find right here.
I wanted to be prepared for the worst… I wasn’t prepared for the best.
