And this too!

And this too!

 This vision of me sitting in an open field came to me again last evening when I became overwhelmed by intense feelings of fear, helplessness and remorse for not taking my daughter's fears and concerns to heart...for passing off her worry that her baby did not seem to be moving enough inside her and that she was not getting the required number of kicks  when she did check.  I never counted baby kicks when I was pregnant...if I did, I would be crazier than I am now and that is pretty crazy. To alleviate her fears and concerns I kept saying...don't worry about the number of kicks, just trust that this miracle of life knows what it is doing. To reassure her further, I said I will look more into this "kick per hour" thing and get back to her.  

Well...I was not concerned so it took me a few days to do so.  When I did, I realized it was a new thing OBGYN's are reccommending for their patients and that any decrease in movement noted by a mother after 28 weeks should be investigated right away.  My heart fell to my feet...my daughter was somehow soothed by my lack of worry but my lack of worry might  have been detrimental to the her and the baby's well being.  I called her, and told her in a way I hoped would not cause further worry to call the maternity floor and talk to a nurse there about her concerns over lack of movement. She did, and they told her to come in. When she got there, they had a challenging time getting a consistent heart beat.  They had to call the doctor in and start an IV...

 I spent an hour at home  with this intense feeling of fear, worry, guilt and confusion. My mind automatically took me to the worse case scenario and I began to experience anticipatory grief  and on top of that self blame...it would be my fault, my daughter's suffering would be my fault. I imagined what my daughter would suffer if there was something wrong, after losing a baby just months ago. I crumbled.  I closed up right away and began to pace and wring my hands.  There was so much pain...I was a mess. I wanted to run from it! 

And then through it all I seen the vision of me sitting in meditation posture in the middle of an open field, open and willing to accept without running away whatever unfolded in front of me and heard myself saying, "And this too! This too is Life."  

I sat down to meditate further on this...and though it was so hard to sit with the unknowing, the worry, the fear and the self blame...I did and the tears, big, beautiful, bold tears, just started to come out of me ...and it was, as strange as it sounds, absolutely beautiful.  I settled into this field of awareness...open and receptive to all that might be without knowing what could or would happen..."And this too!" ws my mantra ...wondering what the "this" was going to be in any moment. The pain did not go away but I accepted it. 

When I finished my meditation...I was so calm, so peaceful and I waited for the time I could call her back. When the time came I calmly did..not knowing what I might hear...What I heard was relief in her voice . They were getting a consistent heart beat and because of all the probing the baby was now moving quite a bit. The tears started again. "And this too!" I said out loud.  "And this too!This too is Life." 

Wow!  Thought I would share that.

All is well.