I read this article today, by Lisa Friedberg Lloyd, my friend who is NOT from South Africa--I was mistaken!--and it touched my soul deep to the core.
For those of you who have lost a pregnancy, I want to share both of our stories with you. To give hope.
I will give her story first, and then mine. But before any of that, I have to share that I got my name from a baby who miscarried. It was my Aunt. They had the Rh blood type incompatibility, and she had lost some, but the last one after my two cousins was pretty far along when it died. It already had a name.
After the grieving, my parents, who were also pregnant, happened to really like the name. They asked her permission to use it. Both she and my uncle said 'yes'. Otherwise I would have been 'Linda'...
Lisa's Story:
She almost died. She was hemorrhaging at sixteen weeks and lost the pregnancy. As she was between life and death, Lisa was spiritually 'close' to her daughter's soul. She learned the name--it's Alba or Alva. This story is beautiful--it is worth a read. http://seerpathways.com/2013/11/13/alvaalba-returns-a-story-of-miscarriage-and-rebirth/
Reiki Doc's Something To Add:
Alba/Alva had Trisomy 18, not trisomy 19. We have forty-six chromosomes, or twenty-three pairs in the human genome. Our DNA bundles into genes, and in the sex cells (eggs and sperm) they split into twenty-three sets of SINGLE chromosomes. At fertilization, the egg and sperm combine to make forty-six. The process of 'splitting' is called 'meiosis' and isn't always a 'clean split' between the pairs. Sometimes during the division, a pair doesn't split. This makes two plus one at fertilization, making three chromosomes or 'trisomy'. Trisomy is when there are three chromosomes instead of two, but the child is viable sometimes even with this. Down's syndrome is an example of Trisomy 21.
I love these children, all chromosomal abnormality ones, ever since I read this story by Sherwood Anderson called The Egg.http://www.online-literature.com/sherwood-anderson/1468/ I actually met a pathologist, Dr. Kurt Benirschke, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Benirschke, who was much to my delight, very much like the father in the story. He taught me my first, and only, autopsy. And also showed me his collection of fetal anomalies. I have a book I treasure, that is called 'Smith's Patterns Of Human Malformation'. It shows all the possible outcomes and describes what happens medically for children who are like this. My childhood dream to be a pediatrician was all the more sure by these interactions; I wanted to be the one to love and appreciate these rare children and parents for what they are.
Once I saw holoprosencephaly, something that makes you 'shake in your boots', and spent some time praying over the fetus in the back room before it was sent to pathology after it was born and died.
On my rotation in Pediatrics, I was at Navy Hospital, the Flagship of Naval Medicine. On my service was a little two year old black girl named Angel Isaac. Angel had Trisomy 18 and lived! Her mother was a warrior for her youngest child. She made sure all of the services were made available to Angel, and refused one after another request to make Angel DNR.
I watched Angel. She was a priceless jewel in human form--living against all odds! There were many respiratory issues to take care of, and developmental delay. But I watched and felt and experienced, 'Is she happy to be alive?' The answer was yes! Even more, the nurses figured out Angel liked country music. We would change it to something more culturally 'acceptable' when her mom would visit, and it was not daily...how could it be with someone so sick for such a long time? Her mother trusted us and I spoke with her often when she was here. But Angel got her country music shows on her t.v., and I managed her delicate life balance which was a war between infection and antibiotic, pneumonia after pneumonia for the whole three months I was there. I asked her mother for a picture of Angel. She sent it to me after Angel passed about six months later. I called her and we had a good cry together. Angel's photo is in my bible. Inside the front cover there is a little pouch. That is where I keep my most precious things. Right there.
Thank you Lisa for helping me remember Angel, just now. I cried a second time, a good cry, because of Alba and you.
My Story:
When I was twenty-five I had surgery at UCSF with Dr. Charlie Wilson. It was a transsphenoidal resection of a pituitary microadenoma, a prolactin-secreting one.
The symptom was galactorrhea (look that one up) and dysmenorreha (look that one up too). I was beside myself--anxious and consumed with fear over the procedure, and jealous as can be over my sister-in-law who was pregnant. I would cry, and say to God, 'She is having a baby and I am having a BRAIN TUMOR!'
On Easter, the last year my first husband and I were together, several years later, when my nephew was about four, that morning I had a visit from a spirit boy. He was about ten, thin, dark straight hair, brown eyes, and of all things, freckles! He said he was waiting for me and would 'come soon'. It was a miracle I treasured and have never told a soul.
I was diagnosed with infertility with husband number two. He had a pituitary tumor that was diagnosed about two years into the marriage. How rare is that--a couple with pituitary tumors? So he was treated for infertility, and on the workup for us as a couple, it turns out I have a rare blood disorder called anticardiolipin antibody. I could get pregnant, but would miscarry because the placenta would get all clotted up. And I could have a pulmonary embolus or stroke or die in the pregnancy. I would need anticoagulation with heparin to come to term.
During my fellowship I lived in a city about sixty miles away. I commuted one night a week back home, and on Thursdays did anesthesia for plastic surgery. It was strained because my second husband didn't want me to do a fellowship. I had an affair one month before the fellowship year was up. His name was Todd and he lived a few doors down from my apartment. Although we broke it off about two months after I moved back home, I noticed changes in my breasts, my moods and my cycle. I was pregnant and overjoyed that 'it wasn't me'! I stopped drinking alcohol but I didn't tell a soul. My cycle came when I would have been about nine weeks. I saw the clot in the toilet, and I cried. Motherhood was not to be. I understood from Spirit that this was a test of sorts, a 'this is the best we could do for you now' due to my level of soul development. I gave thanks for what it was, to have had experienced even a little bit of motherhood. It was better than not ever feeling those wonderful feelings in my body of love and new life at all. I never named the one I lost, nor 'heard' from it.
Although my ex had his suspicions, I denied the affair, the marriage failed, and we divorced. I moved out. I was in my current home about five weeks, when I saw a spirit child in the kitchen! He was about sixteen months, and clad in a diaper. He had blonde hair and blue eyes. I looked at him and thought, 'what are you doing in my home?!?' and he shot back a telepathic thought, 'This is MY home!' and glared at me. Then he walked away.
About six months later I began dating my 'baby daddy'. Five months after that, I was in Honolulu for a conference, and staying at the W hotel in Waikiki. One morning I awoke to Blessed Mother and another angel asking me, 'would you like to have a baby?' I had to have them say it to me twice just to make sure I understood. I answered, 'whatever is for the Highest Good. If it is yes, then I would love to have one.' Then I forgot.
The funny feelings in my body came back two weeks after I came home. One of the first signs of pregnancy is the breasts swell. I had gone shopping at Victoria's Secret, and thought all my new brassieres were 'vanity sizing' because I had gone up from B to C cup. Even though I am a doctor, I had a strange form of denial so I didn't have a clue. Once the symptoms continued, I bought a pregnancy test and did it at home by myself. The joy in my heart when I saw those two blue lines was indescribable! God loved me! For once in my life God showed me a mercy and made my sweetest dream come true!
It wasn't easy. On the day I had the ultrasound, and confirmed the pregnancy at eight weeks gestation, there was a note under the front door by my boyfriend. He wanted me to understand 'he loved me but was not in love with me' and never wanted to see me again. I experienced just about every emotion one could have that afternoon.
I thought long and hard. I decided I did not want to deny this child a father, much as I never wanted to see him again, and knew my rights with the law were in favor of me never saying a word to anyone. I reached out to him. We lasted two more months, 'for the baby' and then he shattered my dreams during a pregnancy massage (he is a massage therapist) at my home. I was seeing angels and laughing. He stood up, stopped, kissed my stomach and said, 'I'll be waiting for you' then told me, 'I can't take this any more' and left.
I cried so much during the pregnancy, I made myself watch comedy movies so the baby wouldn't be raised in an 'imbalance' of emotions as it grew. One day, I was in the garden, and I just couldn't take it any more. I was seven months and miserable. I couldn't dance ballet, my outlet, because I was so huge. I had registered at the Big Box Baby store--alone. My showers were being planned just for me. There was no 'us'! There was no 'happy couple'! There was just a pregnant me, so totally alone, and yet every hormone and cell in my body longed for HIM. I cried and cried in a position not unlike an elf that sits on the shelf...well, a pregnant one, with my back against a wall.
My baby's spirit came, and consoled me. He (I knew he was a He, and also What To Name Him, from Blessed Mother) said, 'My mommy and daddy will love one another.' and that it was going to be okay.
Reiki Doc Something To Add:
These children who are miscarried or aborted have souls!* If you have had 'contact' of any kind, you are not imagining it! It is in your heart to know the truth. It is a Gift from Heaven, this type of communication! Treasure it!
You are not alone.
Lisa, I have 'mastered the lesson on loss'. Blessed Mother told me this, oh, I forget exactly when, but perhaps it was a year ago? You know what that means, to 'master' a 'lesson'. I'd like to say it's all fuzzy and warm after 'mastering' it, but there are still lessons too. They just don't hurt as much, and are more like 'puzzles of the mind and the emotion'. The pendulum and tarot really help to 'sort those things out' for these 'extra credit' work.
I think we are in the same 'major' when it comes to Life School. I think you are an excellent student, and are making A's in every thing you do. Keep sharing. Thank you for being what you are, a Light that shines brightly for the world, Lisa. Thank you for shining your Light on me, today.
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Reiki Doc
* I know this 'contradicts' the blog post Reiki and Abortion, because this is what I feel and the other is what I have read.