A Holistic Approach to Fertility

It’s quite hard to know when one is trying to get pregnant, where to focus attention and what to do, but I do believe that a holistic approach to fertility is the most beneficial. I found that once I realized that we weren’t getting pregnant as soon as we had hoped, I tended to over-medicalize the whole situation (occupational hazard I guess!). I went about getting lab work done and trying to evaluate why things weren’t happening – what hormone was out of balance? Was my husband’s fertility a factor? What was the problem?

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with any of that, but I found for me it has been helpful to try to approach this journey in a holistic way. By that I mean to look at it on a physical level, but also an emotional and spiritual level too.

I remembered a meditation that I had heard at a fertility acupuncturists office quite a while back. This was back when Dave and I were together but not married yet and I went to see an acupuncturist “just to make sure my hormones were in balance for trying in the future” – three sessions later, even with an IUD, shabingo, I was pregnant (complete blessing as it turns out, but not anticipated)! I wrote and told her that her treatments worked a little too well J. Anyway, the meditation spoke about the soul of the baby, and how it had to be the right time for them too, and they had to feel comfortable about coming into this world with the right parents and in the right situation. I hadn’t really heard that perspective before, and I’ve drawn on it a lot over the past few months. It’s helped me to remember that it’s not all about me and my timeline, there’s another being in the mix who also has to choose to come into this world. That is an element that I might be able to influence through meditation and connection with spirit, but I can’t control it through my will alone. Being a “doer” and a “get things done” person, I find that really hard. And yes, I’ll say it, I like to have control of things and processes- it’s served me well in a professional sense to be able to go after things that I really want and be goal oriented, but it doesn’t help this process at all, and this has been a lesson for me in letting go.

I have been reading a book called Spirit Babies, that talks about these spiritual babies that are out there but not in human form yet, and that meditation has continued to help me (it’s called Meditations for a Fertile Soul). I also had a consultation with Anna Verwaal who has a website called www.fromwombtoworld.com. She is very intuitive and can sense things that might be getting in the way of conception. She also helped to encourage me to look at the spiritual elements and keep that in the forefront rather than simply analyzing all the numbers.

The other aspect I have tried to look at is the emotional aspect. On the surface, when asked if there might be anything that I’m afraid of with another pregnancy or child, or if there might be any emotional blocks, I would say no. I really and truly want another baby, and so does my husband. I have brought another ND into my practice to make sure there’s a back up for maternity leave, and I have enough savings to give me at least four months off. I’ve tried to prepare and create a space for another baby to come into our lives. But still, I made an appointment with a massage therapist I know that I saw throughout my whole first pregnancy. She’s a master of prenatal massage, but also does cranio-sacral therapy. I thought of her because when Valentina was overdue, I saw her for a massage, and had this whole breakdown awakening on her table where Valentina communicated distinctly to me that she needed reassurance that Mummy and Daddy were happy before she could come into this world (call me loopy if you will, but it was as clear as day to me, and btw she was born the very next day).

So there I am on the table, and she’s doing craniosacral work with me. And yes, sure enough, these emotions start to bubble up, along with them some tears. It was around fears of having another girl, and that girl being in Valentina’s shadow. Valentina is well known around town – everyone loves her. She’s pretty, I dress her pretty cute, she’s always been ahead milestone-wise, and she’s all-in-all a very special girl. I’d hate to be following in her footsteps if I were baby #2. Of course this is all my own stuff as I had a very smart, high achieving older sister that I always felt overshadowed by. But so interesting that that was even there in the depths of my emotions. I’m not crystal clear if anything really could/ should be done about those feelings, or if simply recognizing them and allowing them to surface is enough to clear the space.

My nature is to keep coming back to the medical elements of this journey, and in choosing to pursue IUI, we’re definitely on that road. However, I will say that it’s been, and continues to be, tremendously helpful to me to keep the emotional and spiritual realms in view. Often I’ll have to keep pulling myself back to that, but I find when I do I feel a deeper sense of peace and a greater acceptance of things as they are.