gearhead mama

I had a CST appointment last night. When it was over, I joked with Kelly (my CS therapist) that when I come in I’m like that strand of permed, colored, over-styled hair that’s all frazzled, broken and damaged. And when I leave, it’s like I’ve had a nice, soothing Alberto VO5 treatment. I feel smooth and flexible and shiny.

I really wanted to write about my session last night while it was still fresh in my mind. But I knew if I started down that path I’d be up half the night. I’m not getting enough sleep as it is, so I couldn’t afford that (ah, the choices we have to make). Now half of what happened is lost in the mists of the fog that descends as my body starts to incorporate and absorb everything. I will just have to do the best I can.

We started off working on some physical stuff. Reassuring my squished and unhappy spleen that its close quarters were temporary. Soothing some jangling nerves that were causing muscles spasms between my ribs. Then we sat in silence for a while as Kelly’s hands glided here and there and I sank deeper into myself, listening to the rhythmic music she had playing, letting her smooth me over. After a while her hands settled into place. One below my back, the other resting on my belly.

What feelings come up for you around the word trust? she asked. I chuckled, after all this time still amazed at her incredible, intuitive perception. We talked about what I discussed in this post, my thoughts on the upcoming birth, my vision of an ideal birth as well as my mental preparations for the fact that things may not go down that way. That I have been telling myself I don’t have to be perfect, that losing my center doesn’t mean I’m a failure, that I will do the best I can, and it will be good enough. Well of course, she replied, herself a mother of two and well acquainted with the journey of birth.

What about M’s birth? Do you feel like you did the best you could then too? This takes us into potentially dangerous territory, because there are many things I would do differently if I had the opportunity to do it over again. But I don’t, and I have come to have an enormous amount of compassion for myself. I was at a different place then, and I truly believe – with my head and my heart – that yes, I did do the best I could then. I tell her this, and feel it with rock-like certainty in my heart. There is no doubt.

Her hand hovers over my belly. What about your uterus? Does your uterus feel like it did the best it could? I take a deep breath and let her question hang in my mind, waiting for the answer. And I wait. And wait. I don’t hear a no, but I don’t hear a yes either. Instead I sense a sort of hesitation … an ambivalence. I tell her this, and say I believe the lack of a yes means the answer is no. This surprises me, because moments before I felt such certainty.

Okay, then. What is the uterus feeling?

I don’t know. I mean, of course the birth was hard. M was posterior and acynclitic. I had scar tissue on my cervix …

And then the words start tumbling out of my mouth, one on top of the other:

It’s just … I worked so hard, and I worked and worked and worked, and nothing was happening, and it hurt and I just kept working and it took so long and it wasn’t working …

I stop, startled. You see, that was my uterus talking. And the words were heavy with anguish and pain. And then I felt fear, waves of it, radiating up from my belly, washing over my heart.

There’s fear, I say. I can feel lots of fear.

I could see my uterus, suspended in the air. The long muscles running down the sides, working and working, struggling to open my cervix.

Okay, she says. Uterus? What do you need to feel safe?

Again, I let the question hang, wait for an answer. My monkey mind starts chattering, talking about how the scar tissue is gone and I have lots of tools at my disposal to keep baby from being posterior, it won’t happen again. But I brush that away; I can tell it’s not the answer. I sit and wait some more, and suddenly I know the root of the fear. It comes from me, from the separation of myself from my body. I wrote about it in detail here, nearly two years ago:

About 5 months after M was born, I decided to treat myself to a massage for my birthday. The woman I saw combined massage with craniosacral therapy, and for the first time I started peeling back the layers of M’s birth. And I realized there was a lot more to it than I was admitting to myself. It finally dawned on me that I felt betrayed by my body – that it was broken, defective, wrong. The days I spent struggling through my labor drove home the point that I was a failure, and I didn’t know how to give birth. Why else did so many things go wrong? Why else did it take so long? Why else was it so utterly miserable?

Failure. Betrayed. Defective. I’ve spent a lifetime hearing these messages from my parents, and am only too willing to step into their shoes and take over where they left off. As I staggered through hour after hour of unrelenting labor, as I progressed at the pace of a snail, these were the judgments and criticisms I flung at my body. What is wrong with you? Why isn’t this working? Why are you betraying me? And all the while my uterus worked and struggle and labored and tried and tried to overcome the obstacles in its way. I lashed out at it, denounced it, disowned it, wanted to leave it behind. I didn’t join it, love it, work with it, acknowledge its struggle.

That is the source of this fear. Not that the baby will be posterior and acynclitic. Not that the labor will be long and difficult. Instead, my uterus fears that I will spit on it, turn my back and abandon it, while it endures the most grueling experience of its life and does the amazing and awe-inspiring work of bringing my baby to me.

I am practically humbled into silence by this revelation. Again, we are back to the idea of trust, and the love and acceptance that come with it. That is all my body, my uterus, is asking of me, and it is more than a fair request.

Kelly and I talk this over, and she points out that not only have I done the internal work necessary to bring myself to a point of self love and self trust, but I have also chosen to surround myself with people who will do the same, who will support me on this journey of self-discovery, instead of thwarting and sabotaging me. She asks me to envision my birth space and the people who will be present. I don’t see it so much as sense it – warmth, darkness, the color red, womb-like. It feels safe and comforting, and I feel my uterus descend into my body, settle into place and release the fear.

I spend some time connecting with baby, and Kelly asks how the baby feels about trust. The baby has more trust than anyone else in the room, I say, which does not surprise me.

I float for a while on the sensations, letting the love, acceptance and trust wash over me, as Kelly’s hands once again glide here and there, finishing up the last of our work for the day.

After the session, Kelly and I talked for a while … I suppose you could call it a debriefing. She told me that when she asked how my uterus felt, she could see it, disembodied, floating, groundless. She said that sometimes the heart and mind may have processed something and be done with it, but it can still be left in the actual tissues of the organ, a residual that must be addressed and released. She also said that when I was connecting with the baby she felt a presence enter the room. A woman. A huge woman, she said, as her arms ballooned above her head to show me. Maybe an archangel, there to protect me, or my baby. She seemed awed, and said she just stood there and didn’t speak, as it stood behind her and placed its hand on her shoulder. And today this landed in my inbox, this Love Note from my baby:

Hi Mama,

I love you,
Cupid

My head reeled as I read it and remembered what Kelly had said.

There was even more to this session than I’ve covered here. Work done forgiving myself and letting go of guilt for the things I need. Understanding and releasing the source of that guilt. Baby once again reminding me that I need to take care of myself, that it’s okay to take care of myself. How will I be able to care for anyone else if I can’t care for myself? I have provided a safe physical space for this baby, but in order for there to be true safety, baby needs to know that I will meet my own needs as well. One of these days the lesson will sink in.

And so the work continues. I slide through time, moving ever closer to the day when this baby will join us earth-side. I know without a doubt that this work I did last night is crucial. I pried open a hidden door and discovered a treasure-trove of feelings, sifted through them and learned their lessons. And then I opened my hand and blew, releasing them, with love and compassion, back to the source.