Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (96 page)

I would strongly recommend deep tissue massage such as the Wurn Technique or Maya abdominal massage for any woman who has had a history of tubal infection, tubal surgery, or ectopic pregnancy. (See
chapter 5
, “The Menstrual Cycle.”) That’s because this technique might well be able to help prevent or eliminate the tubal adhesions that favor a future ectopic pregnancy.

Ended Beginnings: The Experience of a Stillbirth

While I was in my residency, a lovely young Catholic woman gave birth to two perfect identical twin girls. Unfortunately, these twins had gotten their cords wrapped around each other and died just before la bor started (a very unusual event). As I was helping the attending physi cian deliver these two babies, I asked the mother if she’d like to see them and hold them. I had intended to wrap them in baby blankets and spend some time with her after the delivery, sitting with her while she held her babies. But her doctor scolded me, and he said to her, “Regina, it’s better if you don’t look. We’ll just give you something to put you to sleep so you can get on with your life and get this behind you. It will bother you if you see them.” An obedient woman, she complied. As a physician in training, I understood that it wasn’t a good idea for me to argue with her doctor.

I knew instinctively that this doctor was wrong and that this mother needed to interact with what she had created, lest she go on to dream for years of babies with no faces. Her babies were in fact beau tiful. She needed to see their little hands, their perfect bodies and their angelic faces—and to know that her body had created them. It is so much easier to deal with what is than with our fantasies about what is.

Most women need to interact with their “creations”—their still born babies. Otherwise, unfinished emotional business may result. When a couple has a deformed baby or a stillborn (or suffers the death of any child or loved one, for that matter), they need to look at and touch this being, take pictures, name the child, and perhaps have a ceremony of some kind that acknowledges that this child existed. Thanks to the vision of Kathy Adzich, many hospitals now provide a room where couples can hold their babies who are sick or who have died, bathe them, and take pictures of them—so that parents have something tangible to hold on to. The process of simply holding the baby and interacting with him or her can be extraordinarily healing.

I met Kathy Adzich, a wonderful, light-filled human being who is obviously doing the work she was born to do, in San Diego in the fall of 2005. Kathy lost her son Jakob to sepsis when he was twenty-six days old (as well as two other infant sons before Jakob). Not ready to have Jakob taken away to the hospital morgue, she asked the nurses if she could have a room where she could hold her baby for a while (and for her, “a while” meant a few days). To their credit, the hospital staff complied. Though some thought Kathy should move on, she felt that staying with her son was perfectly normal. She needed time to sleep with her son nestled in her arms, keep him close, stroke him, bathe him, and sing to him. She made prints of his hands. She invited friends and family to visit, and together they told stories, laughed, and sang. No one thought it was weird or morbid.

The process helped Kathy transform her grief into a living force to help others. She started a movement to humanize death, com mitting her life to ensuring that the millions of people who lose loved ones year after year have the resources and space they need to say goodbye. Kaiser Permanente opened its first Jakob’s Room in 2007, with others to follow. The room includes a rocking chair, hand-and footprint molds, photography access, music, and educational and outreach resources; parents’ specific needs are honored.

Kathy now regularly speaks to hospital staffs, police departments, and parenting organizations to help them create policies that help the bereaved say goodbye instead of whisking the body away and trun cating the grief process. (For more information, visit Kathy’s website at
www.trustingthe journey.com
.)

When the work of the late Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D., on grief and dying became better known with the publication of her classic work
On
Death and Dying
(Macmillan, 1969), hospitals started to realize that avoiding and denying death didn’t help patients’ healing process. Far too many women who have lost babies never grieved properly—in fact, they were often told, “You have other children at home” or “You can have more” or “You must be strong.” Grief was consid ered self-indulgent.

But that which isn’t fully grieved cannot be released. (This is also a problem with infertility.) Healing from the pain of pregnancy loss or loss of a child is a process. It requires time. It requires that a woman give herself the time and space necessary to grieve and heal.

Barb Frank wrote me the following letter about the unexpected stillbirth of her son, Micah, after a normal and healthy pregnancy. “I was very porous after this experience. It has been a time of intense emotional and spiritual growth for me. Initially it was the opening experience of allowing vulnerability and being willing to openly grieve with my friends . . . to cry in front of and with other people was really healing and a very new experience. (I am usually ‘in con trol’ and a real ‘planner.’) This also has become an emotionally transforming experience for three women friends who came to the birth center and were able to spend time holding Micah with us and being in the midst of that mysterious energy between birth and death present in that room. Subsequently it has made my compassion and understanding so much deeper; it has affected my work as a pedi atric occupational therapist with families dealing with their own fear and loss over their children with disabilities. I am no longer afraid of their tears or even anger, because I’ve been there. The need to create a space and time for grief and reflection in the midst of busy days has brought me closer to a spiritual discipline of regular prayer/meditation time that I always wanted to make time for, but never did until now, when I’ve had to for emotional survival. So I guess I’m getting the message.”

Barb also created an announcement to be able to share the news of her birth. She used it for everything from shower gift thank-yous to en closures at the memorial service—and even put it into some Christmas cards. It reads:

Facing the mystery of
life and death
we mourn the loss of our son
—Micah—
who accompanied us through a healthy
and hopeful pregnancy . . . but was stillborn
on September 21, 5 lbs. 6 oz., 19 inches.

At the request of her midwives, she also wrote the following list of things that helped her in her recovery process. This is a most help ful and universally applicable list of things to help with grieving a loss of any kind. I am honored to share it with you from Barb.

Having enough time, initially, with the baby and taking photos to have and share later. Some couples have also dressed and bathed the baby. One couple took the child home with them for several hours.

Having friends come and see and hold the baby with us. This validated the whole experience for me, as no one else would get to meet Micah, and in that sense it still isn’t “real” for most friends and family.

Crying with people, and seeing others cry, made it easier for us. When people tried to hide their emotions in an effort to be “strong” or “professional,” it made things feel worse.

Notes and phone calls from people who have been there and experienced loss themselves, and could articulate this. Also communication from others who had just spent time thinking about what we have experienced and were able to reflect on it beyond “I don’t know what to say.”

Physical presence of people and physical contact with people, especially in the early days and weeks. I had a need to literally hang on to people to feel grounded and “present” in the world, which is unchar acteristic of me. As time has passed, phone calls still serve that purpose, especially when I need to connect when I’m having a hard time.

Creating a “shrine” of important gifts, notes, photos, remem brances of Micah. This has been a tangible way to remember and honor him, and I never understood the importance of shrines/altars in other cultures and churches until this happened. Lighting a candle (and carrying it around the house) still helps a lot when I feel depressed.

Getting back in shape physically, getting as much exercise as my body could deal with at each stage.

Being involved in purposeful activity. Achieving concrete tasks around the house, in the garden, that gave me a sense of accomplishment but didn’t require too much problem solving (I was easily frustrated, had memory problems, and not much creative en ergy for a time).

Being outside. For me, getting back into work in the garden puts me in touch with the cycle of life and is grounding and gives me a sense of hope and renewal. Going to the beach is good, but the ocean was almost too emotionally powerful at first . . . so infinite and symbolic as a source of life.

Reading the books and handouts on grief and loss of a baby. We read many out loud together, which also let us talk about our feelings. They always made me cry, but it has been important and positive to cry. Afterward I usually feel better. (I highly recommend
Life Touches Life
[NewSage, 2004] by Lorraine Ash.)

Barb went on to give birth to a healthy baby girl. She told me that that pregnancy was difficult because she was always worried about the health of the baby. But with the support of her midwives and the staff of the birth center, she made it through and is now enjoying her new daughter.

ADOPTION

Adoption is receiving more attention than ever these days. In fact, a Centers for Disease Control survey published by the Urban Institute reported that between 1995 and 2002, the number of women between the ages of eighteen and forty-four who were interested in adopting increased 38 percent (from 13 to 18 million).
⁷⁸
Currently, a large number of American couples have adopted foreign infants. I can’t think of a better way to promote global awareness and intercultural understanding. A patient who adopted two Chinese children told me the following story, which she calls “Listening with the Heart.”

In November 1981 Susan and her husband, Bob, went to Taiwan with the intention of adopting a child. One month later, they returned as a family of four with Anio Nicholas, almost six, and Shao-Ma Annie, almost four. “Christmas of 1981 was a wonderful celebration of the birth of our new family,” said Susan. The following Thanksgiving Susan invited her extended family of origin to share the holiday with her “new” family. Near the end of that day of celebration, Annie, sit ting on the stairs, asked accusingly, “
Why
did you come to get us in that taxicab in Taiwan, anyway?” Susan wondered what had prompted that question. Then it dawned on her that for the first time since the adoption she was sitting in a roomful of people whom she dearly loved, to whom she had been paying a great deal of attention—the kind of attention that up until then Annie had seen her give only to Bob, to Nicholas, and to herself.

Focusing on her daughter’s question, Susan told her the truth: that she had had a very happy life, full of friends and family, work and play, but that she had still felt filled with a love that wasn’t used up. And so she and her husband had gone looking for someone to love and had found her and her brother. Annie tipped her head pensively to one side, then went off to brush her teeth. Susan joined her for their nightly ritual together. As Annie squirted toothpaste onto both their toothbrushes, she said defiantly, “I want to go back to Taiwan to see my
Chinese
mother”—even though she had been told that there was no record of her mother and that it wasn’t known who had brought her to the home. Susan realized that her daughter’s desire to go back to Taiwan at that moment was symbolic and impor tant. So Susan asked her, “Would you like me to go with you, or would you like to go by yourself?” Annie answered, “By myself.” Susan was struck by a sense of loss, emptiness, and despair. She later told me, “Welling up in me was the question, ‘But what about me? I love you and have loved you with all my heart! Isn’t that good enough? What about me?’ ”

Then she looked at her daughter and knew that her longing for her Chinese mother was simply a natural part of her birth history and who she was. “Annie was, in her love for a woman whom neither of us would probably ever meet, sharing with me her deepest self. I could join her now, at the core of her being, in her love, or I could bar myself from it. And so finally, I, the verbalizer, just listened—actively, achingly—with my heart.”

Several Christmases later, Susan and Bob were walking together with Annie swinging between them, holding their hands. She swung high, and as Bob and Susan’s eyes met over her head, she called out to the sky: “Hello, Chinese mother! How are you? I am happy and I hope you are, too! I love you! Goodbye!”

I once participated in a wonderful adoption ceremony with a cou ple, long infertile, who had successfully found a child with the help, intent, and prayers of their extended family and community. They brought the baby to a large gathering shortly after the adoption to share their joy with us. I would recommend a similar ceremony to all who are adopting a child. It is a touching and conscious way to bring a child into her or his new community.

In a ceremonial fashion, the woman leading the event had the adoptive parents hold up the baby and carry it around to the members of our community to be welcomed. At the same time, she asked those people who had been adopted to please stand in the center of the circle during this ceremony. As we each welcomed the baby, she addressed the people who had themselves been adopted. “As we welcome this new baby and celebrate his birth and his new parents, may this day symbolize for you that you are deeply wanted, that you were always deeply wanted. And from now on, no matter what has happened to you in the past, may you know how meaningful your birth was and, seeing how deeply wanted and blessed this child is, claim the same thing for yourself.” This ceremony was a great healing on many levels for many people and was full of wonder and hope.