Holding Knowledge

This week I had a big experience that I only shared with one babylost mama as it was happening.
Since, I've been ruminating about the choice I made, and letting it settle inside me,
Realizing that it felt right, felt "good" under the circumstances.
It has made me think a lot about so many things.

I think I've written before that there is a woman at my work who is pregnant.
She is 36 weeks and her baby has been breech for a long time.
If the baby doesn't turn in the next few days, she is scheduled for an external version.

Enter me, and my initial response, which I kept to myself:
A version? Yikes! I have a friend whose baby may have died as the result of a version!
Do I say something?
Is it my responsibility to say something?
What do I say??

The first thing I did was close my eyes and check in with my intuition.
My intuition told me not to say anything about that.
It felt peaceful, my intuition, not conflicted.
So I spent some time thinking about it, talking about it, sorting through it
So that my brain could catch up with my gut and I could proceed accordingly.

I spoke with my colleague and got a sense of how she is feeling.
I could feel peace and trust mixed with fear - general fear about everything she has been facing:
A first child, the possibility of placenta previa earlier on, a breech baby, a fibroid she learned about recently.
Honestly, what my gut told me most profoundly was: She has enough fear to hold already. It's not up to me to add more.

I spoke with Sarah about whether I should, could, would say anything.
I spoke with my acupuncturist about things she could do to encourage her baby to turn on its own.
I spoke with my dear friend Sue, who was our midwife with Dahlia, who will always be my midwife.
Sue is wise, intuitive, experienced in births that have gone all different ways, incredibly grounded.
She asked me the question that brought the most clarity, and has inspired this post:

Can we allow others to make their own decisions without their knowing everything there is to know?

I think that's really it at its core.
I hold so much knowledge now that I am the mother of a child who has died,
Now that I am part of this community.
I know about birth anomalies I never knew existed,
About how frequently different anomalies happen.
I know about the hundreds of ways you can test for anomalies
And all that you can't know about in advance.
I know that babies sometimes die before they are born,
The reasons they do, and the babies who just die unexplainably.
I know how birth can shift in a split second and a perfectly healthy baby can end up in the ICN
Or not make it home at all.
I know about secondary infertility and miscarriage.
I know that there is danger at every turn,
That an external version can be dangerous,
And that a C-section can be dangerous too.
I know that babies can get stuck on the way out
And labor can stall or worse yet, a baby can die.
I know too much, and sometimes I wish I could erase all that knowledge,
Especially all the knowledge that doesn't come from my specific personal experience with Tikva.

But it doesn't work that way.
I have to learn how to hold all that gracefully,
Because I don't want to be sloppy with this huge responsibility.

There is such a need among us to make meaning out of a difficult experience.
If I don't share my experience with Tikva and encourage all parents to have an ultrasound at 20 weeks,
Does Tikva's short life have less purpose?
Is her life more meaningful if more people are more cautious after learning about her?
Or is that my ego getting in the way again?
Isn't her life meaningful just because she was, no matter how long she was for?
Will spreading the gospel of ultrasounds help my own healing?
Right now, my intuition replies, No.
Will it bring my daughter back?
Certainly not.

When I asked her what she thought of them, Sue told me,
They still do external versions because the risks are still less than an elective C-section.
That was a good reminder, that there is no easy solution to ensure that everything will for sure be perfect if you just...

I thought about how it is all a huge risk, every step of the way.
I thought about how you can't exist in that place of fear all the time,
How there is still great joy in the process of birthing in spite of the risks.
I thought that if it were any other way, if we always held only fear, none of us would ever carry the huge desire we have to create life,
To try everything possible to have healthy children we can grow old with.

And that is where the question came up in my conversation with Sue
About allowing people to move forward with their own choices,
Without knowing everything.
Would we have been able to listen if someone had warned us about all that could have gone wrong? Really?
And more importantly: Would it have helped?
Isn't being pregnant a big enough leap of faith as it is?

At the end of the day, after all these conversations, I talked about it with my husband.
Dave is amazing at letting me talk through something and just being present, saying very little himself,
Helping me to sort through my thoughts until my own clear answer comes.
And this is what my clear intuitive voice said:
I don't want to spread fear. I want only to help her. Otherwise, I should say nothing. Otherwise, it becomes about me, and not about her.

So the next day, I spoke to my new friend at work.
I told her I had spoken to my acupuncturist and also to my midwife.
She smiled warmly, seemed moved by the fact that I had done this on her behalf.
I told her all the things they had both recommended about helping a baby turn
And how the more you can do to prepare for a version,
The greater likelihood that it will go smoothly and be successful.
Instead of spreading fear, I gave her a little bit of comfort and peace,
And encouraged her trust in her body and her baby and the process of pregnancy and birth.
That felt right, and I didn't feel like I left out anything she needed to know.

Sarah asked me how I would feel if I didn't say anything and something went wrong during the version.
I'm not sure I can answer that question, and I pray I don't have to.
But this came up: How would I feel if I encouraged a C-section instead and something went wrong with the C-section?
How would I feel if I spread fear, and that fear kept her from relaxing during the version,
If it contributed to her baby going into distress?

And this: Is it up to me to speak from the experience of someone else?
Is that the same as sharing my own experience?
When do I share my own experience and when do I keep quiet about it?

I don't have answers to all these questions right now,
But I have thought all week about how important it is for me to hold what I know with delicacy and wisdom.
In the same way doctors and nurses must need to hold all they know gently.
In the same way economists are being so careful right now about how they speak about the economy
So as not to contribute to a collective panic that will bring on a major depression.

My friend and teacher, Mary, reminded us in our Intuitive Development class years ago,
Energy is real stuff.
It is powerful stuff indeed, and we are all energetic beings
Learning in each experience how to interact with each other's energies.
I guess for me it just comes down to one thing:
Fear is an energy.
I don't want to be on the side of fear,
And I don't want to be the one to spread it or encourage it.
That just doesn't feel right in me when I check in with that calm, clear voice in my heart.

I don't want to stop believing in the miraculous process of pregnancy and birth.
If there is a way to create meaning from Tikva's life,
It is to remain on the side of Hope and Love
And spread those energies around me.