Taking Your Life Off Hold

Infertility takes its toll. The harder you try to have a baby, the further away the goal may seem. The Fertile Soul Method ™ teaches you to “let go” of the stress that is keeping you away from your child so you are more likely to conceive.

We all know stories of women who adopt, give up, or stop trying, and magically become pregnant. It isn’t that life is just cruel that way; there is a scientific explanation. Our body cannot be in fight mode and receptive mode at the same time! Nature won’t allow it. When we release our grasp and open up to the creative power of all of life, our fertility expands.

The Fertile Soul Advisors Program will help you get your life back. The Fertile Soul Retreats will teach you how to live and love and embrace life again. The Fertile Soul Workshops will empower you to take charge of your fertility. The Fertile Soul staff will help you get there.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that

Within me there lay an invincible summer.

—Albert Camus

We all strive for the miracle of letting life express itself through us. Some of us, however, have to take a different path in order to become mothers. And we may feel like there is something missing: the experience of letting a life develop inside of us, of feeling the first kick, of holding our child the moment it comes into this world, of breast feeding. For whatever reason we have been programmed to believe that motherhood is tied to these sensations. And choosing another route of becoming a mother often starts by grieving the loss of such experiences.

It is our blessing at The Fertile Soul to be able to help most of the women who come to us to conceive and bear healthy children—but not all of them. All of our patients will experience greater health by following the principles and treatments laid out by The Fertile Soul Method ™; yet nobody can predict if the spark of life will actually ignite. If there has been too much damage to a woman’s reproductive organs, if she is approaching an age where she no longer has healthy eggs, if she has other medical conditions that preclude her carrying a child to term—even though I may want to, we cannot cure every woman. In some cases our role is more that of a friend and guide, to support women in making difficult choices.

Not too long ago a young woman came to consult The Fertile Soul because she wanted to go off her birth control pills. She was not married yet and told us she really wasn’t interested in being pregnant right now, but eventually she would like to have a child. However, she had never been able to have her period when not on the Pill. We worked on balancing her hormones, and her spirit, and in the process she noticed that worrying about her fertility was really becoming a problem. She said her fears about infertility were already eating away at her soul. Then she said something quite significant: she told us that perhaps this fear was a valuable insight. “If pursuing my own child is going to tie me up in such emotional knots,” she said, “then perhaps I need to find alternate ways of expressing my motherhood.” It’s a real gift to have somebody reach that kind of insight at the beginning of the journey instead of at the end, instead of being forced to her knees and having to say, “I can’t do this anymore. I give up.”

This following article is about forgiveness, transition, letting go, and putting our maternal energies to use in new ways. It is about finding the invincible summer that is within your heart even in the depths of winter. It is about discovering the truth of what love really means, and how many ways there are to give and receive it. Most of all, this is about healing your soul and body at the time they need it most.

Coming through Grief

No grief so great as a dead heart.

—Chinese proverb

When you’re in the midst of pursuing a baby, everything is overwhelming. All you know is that you want to be a mother, and you can’t. Unfortunately, for women who have been on the infertility “treadmill” for years, the choice to stop is almost impossible to fathom. While the end of our fertility is something all women must face eventually, it is only natural that we feel a sense of loss and sadness, mourning the children we will never have. But for those of us who have wanted children and failed to have them, making the decision to stop can feel like death. And the grief is real. The greatest loss a woman can ever experience is losing a child, whether it is a live child or a child she has carried in her womb and miscarried. But when we are trying to conceive, our menstrual blood represents the loss of the hope of a child yet again. For a few weeks each month, you feel hopeful. Maybe this time, you think, only to feel disappointment wash over you when your period appears. And when you fail to conceive month after month, disappointment becomes grief.

Grief and mourning are difficult emotions, especially in a culture like ours that prefers we do our mourning tidily and quickly. In addition, few people who have not experienced infertility can understand how much grief the unsuccessful pursuit of children engenders. After a woman miscarries, well-meaning friends may tell her, “Well, you can start trying again right away”; but before she creates another baby she might need to acknowledge the child she has just lost. Others may ask an infertile couple why they would spend every cent of their savings or even borrow money for yet another IVF attempt. “Maybe you’re just not meant to have kids,” they’ll say. “Have you thought of adopting?” These and many other comments can trigger new recriminations and fresh rounds of grief in those pursuing parenthood at any price. And what’s worse, showing our grief and anger to friends will usually result in blank stares or embarrassed looks.

However, for our own sanity we must be allowed to feel our grief and mourn our lost potential children. Our biggest mistake is not to acknowledge our grief as we are experiencing it. Denying these feelings or bottling them up until we explode is the worst thing we can do. As Kim Kluber-Bell wrote of her own experience with infertility, “…if you can’t feel your grief you can only move on by shutting a part of yourself down…. Although feeling your sadness won’t kill you, not feeling it can harden your heart.… [W]hat will enable you to move on with an open heart is allowing your sadness to come and go as it pleases, rather than keeping the door locked tightly against it.”

It is far better for us to experience the small griefs along the way, to take the time to acknowledge our true feelings and their importance, and keep our hearts moist and fertile in the process. Let your monthly blood represent tears shed by the body to memorialize the passing of another opportunity. If you miscarry or fail to conceive after an ART procedure, start trying to conceive again immediately if you want, but create the space in your heart to mark what you have lost. And ask your partner to support you in the grieving process. No matter how much they may want children, men cannot feel the visceral level of loss that women feel. But remember that your partner has lost something, too. In your loss you may find consolation in each other. You may actually find each other in a new way again.

Above all, remember to take care of yourself. Often we’re so busy taking care of the part of us that’s going to make a baby we forget we need to take care of the rest of us, too. Take time to pamper yourself. Use things like manicures, pedicures, bubble baths, massages, aromatherapy, and so on to make you feel like a whole, vital woman. Get the emotional support you need, whether it be talking to friends, or not talking to the ones who don’t understand, seeing a professional counselor, or even screaming into a pillow if that helps. Go for walks in nature. Ground yourself to the earth beneath your feet, and breathe in clear Qi. Nourish your heart and soul in as many ways as you can. Remember that if you are blessed with a child, he or she will require that you are the best mother you can be. If you are not blessed with a child, life will still demand that you are the best person you can be.

Choosing to Let Go and Move On

If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial.

If you want to become straight, let yourself be crooked.

If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.

If you want to be reborn, let yourself die.

If you want to be given everything, give everything up.

—Tao Te Ching

Letting go is sometimes the easiest thing in the world: we know it’s time to stop. “No more procedures,” we say. “That’s enough.” But for most of us, the decision to let go is the most difficult one we have ever faced. How can we give up the dream that has consumed us day and night for years? Because we are not just giving up our own dream, but we also are giving up the entire future that dream created. We are giving up a pursuit and identity that has defined us for as long as we can remember. There is an identity in trying to conceive. We can even become attached to the label of “barren.” Our lives revolve around it, and it is difficult to release that obsession. As one of my patients said, “I know what it’s like to be childless, but who am I if I let go of my pursuit of a child? Who will I be when I’m not pursuing this anymore? Who will I be if I am not a mother?”

Such questions can put us into a panic, or they can be the next step in a great adventure. Over and over I have seen that the ending of the pursuit of fertility can be an opening to a fuller idea of who we are. There will be grief and mourning, of course. We must move through the stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—before we can take a look at what we would like the rest of our life to be. But in my experience, like the child who lets go of the table leg to take his or her first step, women who consciously choose to let go when they know the time is right find it much easier to step into life after infertility.

Sometimes the point where we find our souls is the point when we finally let go of our dreams. Losing the identity of being a biological mother or of being an “infertile” woman can mean loss, or it can mean discovering the deepest truths about ourselves. Our ability to have children and our role as mother is only part of who we are. I believe one of the greatest things we can do to honor ourselves as we near the end of this path is to gently remind ourselves that we are whole. Indeed, we are more than whole because now we have more substance. As we release our fierce hold on external things and beliefs, we often come to a point of peace where we find that we are not really lacking anything at all. In that place, our most fundamental needs are always met. I believe that the meaning of Shakespeare’s words, “To thine own self be true,” is that at our core—without home, appearance, husband, profession, and yes, even without children—we already have all we will ever need; and that is what life is trying to teach us.

A Word about Our Partners

Infertility is a difficult struggle for our partners, too. I once heard a speaker who said, “Men, imagine your perfect profession. You have trained for it all your life. You went to the best university, got the highest grades, passed all the tests with flying colors, and received superb recommendations. You created a fabulous resume. You looked great. You knew you would get the career of your dreams. You interview for a couple jobs per week. The interviews go great, and you know they like you. But they don’t offer you the job. Well, maybe it wasn’t the right one, you think. You’ll just wait for the perfect opportunity. Then a friend of a friend gives you the inside scoop on a coveted position at a corporation where you always envisioned yourself. You have to get this job! You’re the best candidate for it. You meet the partners; they seem impressed by you. But they don’t call you back. This happens again and again, month after month, ad infinitum. Eventually you start to question yourself: What’s wrong with me? you think. It seems like the whole rest of the world has the ideal job, except you. You hate watching all the other people leaving for their jobs in the morning. You feel like a failure. You don’t even care about your wife as much anymore because you can’t provide for her in the way you always thought you should. Your whole world seems to focus around your inability to get a job. That’s what infertility is like for your partner.”

Does it seem farfetched to you that a man might relate your inability to conceive with his inability to get a job? When I suffered my last miscarriage, I was devastated. I couldn’t lift myself out of the cloud of depression. My husband, in an effort to console me, said, “I think I know how you feel. I once lost a job and I was depressed for weeks.” I thought he was the most callous human being alive—to liken the loss of a child to the loss of a job! But I see now that it was the best he could do. And, in truth, there is some accuracy in the analogy. Women who pursue children month after month no matter how difficult the road often have a lot of their emotional self-worth tied up with being a mother. Men, on the other hand, have a great deal of their emotional self-worth tied to their profession and career. Without children, some women think, who am I? And men think, If I’m a failure in my profession, what good am I?

But just as it’s important for a woman to support her partner should he lose a job, it’s equally important for a man to support his partner should she have trouble conceiving or carrying a child to term. He needs to recognize the physical, mental, and emotional toll of seeking fertility for a woman, and make her feel he is her partner in this endeavor. “Barrenness” strikes at the heart of a woman’s self-worth; she is afraid not just of infertility but also of the possibility her partner will discard her should she fail to give him a child. This fear may be irrational, but it’s one that has been drilled into our heads by history and myth for thousands of years. I believe the greatest gift a man can give her partner is to let her know that whether she is a mother or not, whether they have a biological child, choose to adopt, or remain childless, the relationship between the two of them is still an important part of his life.

The journey of infertility is a perilous one for relationships. It can bring some couples together; it can drive other couples apart. The couples who become stronger are those who share their feelings with each other, who take turns providing support, who are willing to be vulnerable and angry and to grieve and talk and, above, all, love each other through the entire process. I believe the couples who come to the end of the fertility pursuit and stay together make their decisions jointly. Life after infertility can be an exploration of the fullness of life if partners so choose. Certainly your relationship with your partner will change when parenthood is no longer in your future. Instead of parents, you will be companions, partners in a life without children or grandchildren. Perhaps your sexual relations may change once conception isn’t the goal. (For many couples this change can bring with it a sense of enormous relief!) Maybe true intimacy can be the goal now. Whatever your choices, both men and women should realize things will be different when they let go of the pursuit of fertility. However, different can mean better, richer, fuller, with more options—including the option to pursue parenthood in other ways.

From a “Mother of the Womb” to a Mother of the Heart

Our children are not our children because we have given them our genes, our children are our children because we have had the audacity to envision them.

—Anonymous

For some of us, life “after all else fails” may still include children if we’re willing to let go of a too-narrow definition of motherhood. I see many women who are pursuing biological parenthood at all costs even when medical science offers them little or no hope, yet they refuse to consider surrogacy, donor eggs, even adoption. While I understand the visceral desire to carry life within oneself, in some cases women are creating even more pain because their idea of “being a mother” has such a rigid definition. Letting go may not mean letting go of motherhood but simply letting go of our TV sitcom vision of it.

RESOLVE, the infertility information organization, suggests couples take the following steps in reaching decisions about alternative forms of parenthood.

¨ Write a list of your options: to continue with infertility treatments, to stop and remain childless, to seek other means like surrogacy, donor eggs or sperm, adoption, etc.

¨ List what appeals to you and does not appeal to you for each option. Note any options that are completely unacceptable, and write a brief explanation of why.

¨ Prioritize your options in order of importance.

¨ Itemize what you would have to do, and by when, to make your top choice a reality. Do the same for the remaining options, even if they do not appeal to you at the moment.

¨ Create a plan to make your choices become reality.

If you choose to make children a part of your life, either through adoption, carrying a baby conceived from donor egg or sperm, or using a surrogate mother, then you must be comfortable with the fact that this child is not “related” to you biologically. However, I believe whenever we choose to accept a child into our families we are related to him or her on a far deeper level. First, we are related by choice. One of my patients once said to me, “Our children will always know they were wanted because we worked so hard to bring them into the world.” This is equally true of the children we choose to make part of our families through adoption, surrogacy, donor egg or sperm, and so on. But in a spiritual sense I believe these children are ours because they want us as their parents. When I was studying Chinese medicine, for a short while I felt a sense of a “presence” with me all the time. I noticed it especially in those moments between sleeping and waking. I had this sense of life wanting to express itself when the time was right. This feeling stayed with me until I had my son, Lars. While I can’t say for sure whether this feeling and the birth of my son were related, on a deep level I believe that that presence had something to do with this soul wanting to be part of my life. And if it’s possible that our children choose us as parents, then I wonder if it matters to them whether they’re born of our bodies or someone else’s.

However these children came to us—be it by our own eggs or assisted reproductive techniques or adoption—matters less than our tenacity, what we have gone through to make these children part of our lives. I believe that the most important aspect of parenthood is letting our children know where they fit in the world, giving them a sense of belonging, no matter how they came to us. If they come from us, if they come through us, or if they come to us, being a parent means holding them and letting them know, “This is where you belong.”

When I work with women who are reaching the end of their fertility pursuit, I counsel them, support them with treatments designed to help them handle their emotions. I also ask them questions like, “Do you think if a child wants to be part of your life that he or she will care where its genetics come from? What do you think is more important in terms of your expressing your motherhood: creating a child who has the genes of your ancestors, or giving a child all the love a mother can give? And are there other ways you can use that maternal energy? Can you give your time to children who are needy? How can you mother in a totally different sense, without it having to be a baby?”

In Chinese medicine, menopause is described as the transition from our reproductive years into the “time of wisdom.” At this point, the energy that has been pouring into our uterus through the Penetrating meridian is redirected. And since the Penetrating meridian connects the Uterus to the Heart, that is where our reproductive energy moves. We change from being mothers of the body to being mothers of the heart, where wisdom resides. Whether we are biological mothers or not, all women have the chance to be mothers of the heart. We can choose to offer our love and maternal energies by creating a family with children; or we can choose to mother children, adults, groups, or organizations. Louisa May Alcott once wrote, “…fatherly and motherly hearts often beat warm and wise in the breasts of bachelor uncles and maiden aunts; and it is my private opinion that these worthy creatures are a beautiful provision of nature for the cherishing of other people’s children.” You never know what place you will fill within the universal plan, but I do believe with all my heart that the love that makes us want to be parents was not meant to go to waste. The Tao Te Ching says,

The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible,

It gives birth to infinite worlds.

It is always present within you.

You can use it any way you want.

When you become a mother of the heart, you tap into the “Great Mother” that lies within you. That love is always there. And when you offer it to the world in any form, it will never go to waste.

If there is a divine plan and we are placed on this earth to learn and grow, then perhaps the lessons of our souls are met through those that are put (and are not put) in our lives. Those we love come and, yes, they go. Some, even those we want most desperately, never come at all. Ultimately, however, we must recognize that the children we wanted so much, and have done so much to bear, are not really ours to begin with. As Khalil Gibran wrote:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with his might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

The pursuit of a child is borne of a deep longing of universal life to evolve—and isn’t it rather grandiose of us to believe that we have any control over the requirements of universal evolution? We can only manipulate our physiology; we can’t control the expression of life itself. I believe that for God to breathe life into the developing cells which become fetuses and babies and human beings, harmony must be created in our physical environment, our physiologic condition, our mental, emotional and spiritual state. When these conditions have been met, then we must accept that if we are to become parents, we will.

I am reminded of the prayer, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” The things we must accept are our genetic constitution: there are certain aspects of our physical state that are not amenable to change. We cannot change the past, and we cannot change anybody else. We can, however, change our health and our environment in the present—what we put into our bodies, the environments in which we experience stress, and our mental and emotional states.

Our work at The Fertile Soul endeavors to help you take control of everything possible that will help you have a child. But after we have done all that we have control over, we must remember to breathe, to recall that we still have this present moment where we can allow life to express itself through us, however it may. This is a courageous stand and not an undertaking for the weak of spirit.

Perhaps the final lesson from our struggle to bear children is to find peace inside ourselves no matter what. I do know that finding that place of peace is the greatest gift we can receive. Those that we love come and, yes, they go. Some don’t come at all. But no matter what, we are whole and at peace. May you find that place of peace within yourself. May you find happiness. And may that happiness be unconditional.

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