Trust
What happens when you feel betrayed by your body, science, and the universe all at the same time? It is earth-shattering. You don’t know what to believe anymore.
“Trust your body. Your body knows how to give birth.”
“You had a text book pregnancy. Passed every health check. Everything is going to be okay.”
“The universe wants you to be happy and conspires with you to make your dreams come true.”
No. Nope. And definitely not.
As I started to emerge from my grief wrapped cocoon, I began to notice myself questioning everything. What if I didn’t wait as long during second stage of labor to opt for a c-section, would Maisie be alive today? Did we miss something in all of the prenatal tests and appointments? How could Maisie not be among the 99.6% to survive neonatal demise? Why would the universe conspire against me and take my firstborn?
My trust was obliterated.
I didn’t believe in stats, the universe or my body. I felt like I had nothing to stand on. What was up, was down. This place of ambiguity turned out to be a place of fear. And from this fear, I grew anxious.
I had bouts of panic. I tried to control the littlest things. I operated from a place of irrational urgency.
How do I move through this?
I had to find a place where my trust was not broken. And that place is love. The love we feel for our daughter. The love that I feel for my husband, and the love that I feel from my husband.
Through the tragedy and trauma, my husband remains steadfast. His love for me and Maisie is so deeply felt. What I admire most about him is his ability to hold both hope and loss at the same time. His love and optimism serves as my anchor. And from this place, I begin to crawl back.
Rooted in love, I am building a healing path forward that includes couples grief counseling, therapy, bodywork, anxiety medication, yoga, community, memorials and rituals. When I can lovingly tend to my mind, body and soul, I can move from a place of fear and mistrust, to a place where I feel grounded. It’s here where my inner knowing or wisdom lives. And I know now that my body, or science or the universe didn’t betray me. That was the fear talking.
The truth is, life is simply imperfect. Just because something - even as grand as creating life itself - didn’t go the way I expected, it doesn’t mean the world turned against me. It’s easy and quite understandable to feel that it did. But it creates unnecessary suffering. It takes practice to accept the fact that life is wonderful and wicked. And it takes love to anchor me through it all.