Today, I'm continuing with my theme of burning. In my last post, The Phoenix Process, I talked about how I feel like I'm still in the process of burning. Here, you can see, I'm not afraid of a little fire.
This is one of my favorite photos of myself at work. We were doing a prescribed burn to improve the native ecosystem. What am I doing here? I'm watching the flames. I'm not just doing this because I am a pyromaniac or I am obsessed with fire, though I do enjoy lighting up. I don't smoke, but after working on a prescribed fire or wildfire, I do feel like I've smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes. What I mean is that I like to ignite prescribed fires. I gave up working on fires when I was trying to get pregnant. I figured that sucking in all that smoke wasn't healthy. By then, I was also over the novelty of working with fire.
In this photo, I am watching how the fire burns the plants so I can understand later how the plants regrow. Then, I will know for next time what kind of fire is best to get the kind of response we want. Yes, there are different kinds of fire and different ways to burn. Hmmm, I wonder if there is some kind of analogy here to The Phoenix Process? I'm sure there is.
It's been a rough week for me. I started out the week feeling pretty good. I felt I had found some meaning in our loss. I felt some hope in transformation through The Phoenix Process. Then, just when I thought I was doing better, reminders of our loss kept popping up. I haven't been getting much sleep because of these things bothering me. This morning's experience pushed me to act.
After a restless night, I woke up depressed. I allowed myself to grieve some more in bed, sobbing, and wondering how I would get through this. These feelings are intensified by the fact that I am ovulating. I can feel my uterus today, and it strangely feels similar to when I was pregnant. Yesterday morning, I woke with a clear message in my head: "I do not want children." Well, that's true, in that I didn't want children right at that moment. I wondered if it was really a true feeling, or a reaction to the trauma I experienced while pregnant. I went to the office and was completely engrossed in my work, when another reminder hit me like a 2x4 in the head. I walked in the bathroom, and one of the pregnant women in my office just came out of a stall with her very large belly exposed as I nearly ran into her. A cascade of emotions began flowing from my heart. First jealousy that she was having the baby girl I should be having. But no, I wasn't angry with her. It wasn't her fault, what happened to us. Then, wishing that we had never been put in the position we were in. Angry with our clinic. Regretting that we had been put in a shitty situation that I never wanted to be in. I spent the rest of the day mulling over the events between work commitments, and it continued into an emotional session with my therapist. My therapist described what happened to us in a metaphor, about all the efforts I had put into getting pregnant and what happened afterwards: "It's like you were driving 65 miles and hour, and you hit a brick wall that you didn't know was there. Now, you are left to pick up the pieces."
This morning, when I sensed into my uterus, I felt her love. I felt her love for a child. Since our loss, the couple of times I have ovulated, I've felt a renewed desire to have a child. Even if I am not ready to go there yet or I am considering quitting all efforts to get pregnant, ovulation pulls me back into wanting a child. This drive feels stronger than my will.
I was feeling all this love and desire for a child again, so I picked up a book I had been avoiding, Understanding Your Moods When You are Expecting, and dang it, if there wasn't a story that paralleled mine right on the pages I opened to. My heart stood still, ready to break all over again. Luckily, the story did not say what the outcome was, but it did confirm that I was not crazy.
I have been fairly cryptic about my pregnancy loss experience for many reasons. It was a complicated situation that not everyone would understand, but I believe would be a helpful story for those who are ready to hear it. Unfortunately, Blogger does not have password protected posts. Wordpress does have password protected posts. I tried to get comfortable again with Wordpress last night, but I really don't like it. Today, after reading this uncanny story similar to mine, I found the only way to protect my posts in Blogger is to create a separate private blog and link the posts. I am going to try it out today, on Independence Day.
"The truth shall set you free" American's have this thing about the truth. We value the truth. Our Constitution talks about our truths (guess I'm feeling a bit patriotic today). While I am a lover of truth, not everyone is. Sometimes, I feel like I'm having this conversation with the blogsophere, or maybe even myself, when I think about sharing what happened to us. It's one of the great scenes from an American movie classic, "A Few Good Men":
Col. Jessup (Jack Nicholson): "You want answers?" Lt. Kaffee (Tom Cruise): "I think I'm entitled." Jessup: "You want answers?" Kaffee: "I want the truth!" Jessup: "YOU can't handle the TRUTH!"
This scene from the movie will raise hairs on the back of your head. It's such a great performance by Jack Nicholson, that I couldn't resist including it here again. Americans, if you're not feeling patriotic today, this will surely make you question your country!
She's Got Ovaries In the book Broken Open that I talk about in my previous post, The Phoenix Process, the author, Elizabeth Lesser, writes about her extramarital affair that she had for a year before divorcing her husband. I thought that was pretty ballsy of her, or, as my friend likes to say, "she's got ovaries". The affair and her former lover was what prompted her decent to the fires of hell, metaphorically speaking, and she emerged like the phoenix from the ashes to transform her life that was true to her real self. When I first read it, I thought she was being awfully self-indulgent, but as I pushed my ego's judgment aside, I saw that she was making a point. That life might unfold in such a way that you find yourself doing things you that you never thought you would do, but that there is a method to the Universe's madness, or at least, I'd like to believe there is. She didn't have to divulge this controversial thing that she did in her life, but in her candor of her humanity, I got the point she was trying to make, probably much more so than if she just lectured about the process without the personal connection. I got it, and I respected her for her honesty and humility. Sometimes, it takes an experience like hers to really crack you open.
If you would like to read my story, e-mail me at phoebephoenixtales@gmail.com to request access to my private version of this blog. Please also write a line or two about why you would like to read my story. If I like what you say, or I know you are a regular reader from your comments, I'll grant you access. My story may be potentially disturbing to you, so consider that in your request. If you want to read my story for entertainment purposes only, then I'll have to decline your request. If you are a lover of the truth, then I welcome you. It goes something like this...
...and then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. -Anais Nin
I'm reading a book called Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser, recommended to me by another wonderful member of my Resolve support group. The opening to this book has the above poem, the same one that is on the cover of my personal journal. I bought the journal and started writing in it after my first IUI failed. At that point, I was very scared to do IVF. I thought the blossoming might be the risk to do IVF to have a child. I express what the journal means to me in my first entry, saying it's "my personal exploration journal, expressing itself through fertility."
"The Phoenix Process" is the book's term for going through any major life change, like divorce, illness, or death, and using it as a way of transforming your life. This book came to me after I started this blog. I feel like I am going through a Phoenix Process. I felt burned by IVF. Because of what I experienced, I feel a crack in my usual way of thinking. I have been broken.
The first crack was realizing that kids will not make me happy. This does not mean I will not have kids, but I do not want to have children from an egoic desire or instinctual drive. Is it possible to have children from an egoless state? Can there be any other purpose in having children other than the instinctual drive to procreate or the ego's desire to have children? Am I just looking for one more thing to fill the holes in my life and make myself "happy"?
I am now wondering if the "risk" to blossom is the risk to find my True Self, my True Nature? Is it the risk to throw all my dreams and desires away and live a life from True Nature and Being, rather than filling it with one more thing, like children?
I have the perspective of growing up in a household with many children and seeing that it did not make my mother happy. My mom always talks about how she wanted a dozen children, though she can barely stand to have us and her grandchildren around now. I honestly feel that my parents should have stopped at child #4. I'm #6 at the end of the line. Sometimes, I do not think I should have been born. My parents were burned out by the time they had me.
I have lived with a lot of depression in my life, even as a teenager and probably as a child too, though I was not aware of it then. In the womb, I was searching for my mother's absent heart - I was born breech, the only one of the six. I've been searching for meaning for a long time. My career has brought me happiness and a sense that I am doing something positive for the earth, but I long for something more. I thought children would fulfill that meaning and longing, but I am no longer convinced of that.
I am reading about this Phoenix Process at the same time I am reading about living a life from the present moment in Eckhart Tolle's books The Power of Now and A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. I am reading these books as if I have never heard of living in the present moment, but I have! I've been on a spiritual path for the last nine years that focuses on this same teaching. I left my spiritual group between my two IVFs because I felt that it wasn't supporting me, and that the teaching was becoming stale.
I have been enlightened, or I should say, I have had an experience of enlightenment. I remember how I felt that Being was enough. I did not desire anything else. I did not need a purpose in life. But that feeling did not last long. I was not truly transformed. What will it take to completely let go? Do I have it in me to go there? Do I have the same drive and passion for the Truth as I did to have a child? These are the questions I have.
Who will I be when I emerge from this Phoenix Process? How long does this process take? Several months or several years? I feel that I have not been completely consumed by the flames. I do feel a little crisp around the edges, but on days like today, I feel that part of me is still burning.
Broken Open has many inspirational stories and passages. This one spoke to me in particular:
"I do not wish upon anyone a descent into hell. But if your life has to be turned inside out in order for you to know yourself...I pray that you use its force wisely. I hope that you take the ultimate responsibility for your actions and that you consecrate any destruction to the rebuilding of your higher self and a more radiant life."
I hope that what I have written will inspire you to share with me your stories of your Phoenix Process.
Today, I'm continuing with my theme of burning. In my last post, The Phoenix Process, I talked about how I feel like I'm still in the process of burning. Here, you can see, I'm not afraid of a little fire.
