Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Hope is the Thing

Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul, 
And sings the tune--without the words, 
And never stops at all…


              ~ Emily Dickinson



Whenever we were together, I sensed an undercurrent of sadness in Meg.  We met at a dinner party one evening and hit it off when we discovered we were fellow writers.  Though she appeared jovial to most observers, I sensed a grieving spirit within her.  
After becoming better acquainted, I learned the reason for her sorrow.  She’d tried for years to conceive, and wasn’t getting any younger.   Time was of the essence, but time was slipping by.

Amazingly she held onto hope.  “I believe I will have a child…isn’t that what we are made to do as humans?  Reproduce?  I never thought I’d turn into one of them. Those people obsessed with becoming pregnant. People who see specialists.  People who take fertility drugs.  People whose one wish in this world is to become pregnant.  Well, I have.”
She’d been diagnosed with a uterus septum.  A uterus anomaly.  Fallopian tubes which never fused into a whole uterus.  A freak of nature.

More specialists. A series of tests, ultra sounds, gynecologists.  Hormone and sperm testing, egg counts, MRIs, endocrinologist, laparoscopy, hysteroscopic uterine septum resection, polypectory.  There would be no full term baby.  An impossible dream.  A blighted ovum, an embryonic pregnancy, a fertilized egg attaching itself to the uterine wall.  An undeveloped embryo. 

 A sense of false hope.  Tears.  Acceptance.  
A fertility clinic that might (or might not) work for them.  More ultrasounds.   A heartbeat! 
A memorial garden. 


“I named our first baby Grace.  I didn’t know if the baby was a boy or a girl, but knew its name was Grace.  My husband and I planted pink and white impatiens and blue delphinium.  
“At first it was difficult to force myself to talk to the unborn baby in the memorial garden. I secretly wondered, Was it even a baby?   
“I’d read on the blogs of the weary and sad, who’d been through this ordeal, that it was helpful and healing to write messages or letters to the  unborn, telling the baby what you’d planned for it. 
“So I’d walk out the front door and down the long wrap-around porch of our Victorian home and onto the brick steps of our front walk every day, and tell our baby that I would have loved it with every inch of my being, and taught it to play soccer in the front yard, and taken it on adventures. I told it every day that I would have loved it.  I told the baby this until it didn’t hurt to tell it. 
“Then I knew the healing had begun.”     


More fertility drugs.  One sterile room after another.   The room where swimmers are caught in a cup.  Sperm and eggs in Petri dishes.  15 million sperm needed.   
“Both IUIs didn’t take and we were out $2500.  We couldn’t afford any more options as infertility isn’t covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield.  But an abortion would be covered.  Ironic.”

At last I sent Meg to my acupuncturist, Richard House. 

“I’d get up at 5:15 A.M and be out the door by 5:15 for the dark drive to Goldsboro.  I imagined my child in those northern hemisphere stars. They looked like giant pin holes in an earth covered ball.  I knew our child was out there.  I called to it on those early drives, knowing.  Just knowing.

“The needles felt like invisible flutters.  Dr. House would take a tiny tack-like instrument and gently place the needle in the skin.  He told me he’d learned this fertility treatment from a man in India.  He said my liver energy was high and my kidney energy was low. Basically, I was stressed and it was throwing my body and hormones out of whack.

“This little breathing, beating-heart baby is inside me and I have to stop and think how lucky I am to be here.  I am taking each moment by moment and each day by day.  Things look good and the impatiens and delphiniums are still blossoming even after the cold frosts we have had in the last week.  I believe both babies are connected.  How, I cannot explain.  Just something a mother knows.”  

“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”  From The Shawshank Redemption.  (Andy in a letter to his friend Red). 

Meg’s hope remained steadfast.  I added my faith to her hope.  Because “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. “  ~ Rabindranath Tagore


Faith, hope…






 A Baptism of Light





And now there is love.  
Benjamin Matthew Oteri - Born May 13, 2010

My godson.

5 comments:

  1. Beautiful! Such a miracle blessing of life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Colleen, he is a miracle blessing for sure!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Debra - This is so beautiful. Benjamin is truly a miracle and don't you feel so wonderful to be a part of this living miracle? Hope is THE thing!
    Love and hugs..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you Corinne!
    This was posted before I had any readers(as you can see:) so thank you for stopping by with your encouraging words.

    ~ Love and blessings

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very mature, Espada said. Je me retrouverai sur le march j'obtiendrai quelque chose correspondant ma juste valeur et ce ne sera pas moins que cela, peu importe o j'irai, avait il d au quotidien "Ottawa Sun". The star receiver, who was second in the NFL with a career high 1,521 yards receiving last season, wants to wear them on Sunday when Houston opens the season against the Bears.

    In real life, the Ducks won in Ann Arbor in December. I Yeezy Shoes For Sale can say, compared Air Force 1 In Store to pretty well all of the provinces, including Coach Outlet Clearance the ones that have some better rates, we have processed more tests than any other province," Williams said.. But America should lift all its illegal unilateral sanctions on Iran," Mousavi said in a televised news conference.

    Archambault en fin de soir Je pensais qu' la Ville de Qu on avait d le tabou de la police. However, he noted that the US side MK Outlet has strict quality requirements for imported medical products. You agree that The Portland Mercury may modify the Guidelines and Terms of Use (or discontinue this website) in its sole discretion, without advance notice, and that your right to access this Jordan Shoes For Sale site Cheap Yeezy Shoes Sale is conditioned on an ongoing basis with your compliance with the then current version of the Guidelines and Terms of Use.

    Simpson. The man has big, brass ones he might not have the accumulated political debts that Lyndon Johnson had, but I won't count out the possibility that he Cheap Nike Air Force 1 may surpass Johnson's achievements (preferably without a Gulf of Tonkin/Viet Nam!). New Air Jordan Shoes Go around all the way around the curve and take the first paved road on yourYou will dead end into the Playground...

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...