Relieving Myself

Earlier this Spring at my first-ever acupuncture appointment my acupuncturist lent me a book. This book, he said, was the philosophy and the spirituality behind his entire practice. “As a Man Thinketh” outlines the power of thought and states repeatedly that we are what we think: our character is the complete sum of our thoughts. My acupuncturist said that-- in addition to the balance that would come from acupuncture itself-- if I could train my brain to believe that I would conceive, then I would. For weeks, in addition to praying and dozens of other “fertility enhancing” hoops I jumped through, I fixed my mind on positive thought. And yet I didn’t get pregnant.  

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My dear friend and supporter gave me a gift one day knowing that I was going through a rough time. It was a beautiful beaded bracelet with an elephant charm. The card explained that an elephant with its trunk up is not only a sign of good luck, it’s a symbol of fertility. The green calcite and rose quartz stones are known to clear toxins and stimulate fertility. I cried at the thoughtfulness of this gift. More than believing in the power of gems and crystals, my friend wanted me to have a reminder that she was thinking and praying for me. In the following days and weeks (and even still) I saw elephants everywhere. Eric and I stayed at a hotel whose water fountain was fashioned out of elephant trunks. I was rummaging through my desk and came across two dresser drawer pulls that I bought in Paris with distant dreams of a someday-nursery. They were blue knobs with a white elephant with its trunk up. My acupuncturist would try to convince me that the Laws of Attraction were hard at work and I was thinking these things into existence. But with every elephant I saw, I think it was God saying, “I gotcha...don’t you worry.” 

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When Eric and I made it to our 12-week ultrasound we were still pretty cautious. We hadn’t really allowed ourselves to bond with the idea of being pregnant again, let alone bonding with the actual form that was taking shape inside me. We were desperate to hear a heartbeat and for the medical staff to congratulate us and welcome us into the league of expectant parents. The ultrasound tech was gliding the goopy wand thingy over my belly and started commentating her sightings: there is the heart and the brain and the little feet...and then she trailed off. I asked, “what is that black dot near the baby’s abdomen?” She told us that it was the baby’s bladder; it was enlarged; she was concerned; in her decade plus of practice she had only seen one other enlarged bladder of this size, but if she remembered correctly,she “thought it turned out just fine.” Great. Just in case they wanted to send us to a team of specialists. But we would have to wait for 5 days. 

We left the office with virtually no information. We had heard the heartbeat and gotten the on-target “head to rump” measurements, but looming over both of us was this reality that things might not be ok. We did what any desperate, grasping people might do and consulted Google. (I can almost hear your collective groans and sighs. And you are right, wise reader:  NEVER EVER conduct a Google search unless you are prepared for the worst case scenario.) And that’s what we got: The enlarged bladder could be so full that it presses against/causes the heart to stop beating. It could be a sign of genital complications, i.e. a risk of the baby being born a hermaphrodite. And on and on. We powered down our laptops and we waited.

We got to the specialist a few days later for yet another gooey stomach rub-down. (Although this time the gel was heated! It’s the small things...) Eric was out of his seat and standing a foot or two away from the flat-screened monitor. I was white-knuckling the chair and squinting at the screen through one eye. I listened as the ultrasound tech began her commentary: there is the brain and the heart and kidneys, the skull and the arms and the legs...and there is the bladder that looks perfectly normal...I interrupted. “The bladder is NORMAL? So what do you think was wrong?” She nonchalantly told us that the baby probably just needed to PEE. 

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I don’t know what happened over those five days in between ultrasounds. Likely, the baby’s bladder just caught up to the rest of it and did what it was designed to do. But I still wonder how our first ultrasound tech had only seen an enlarged bladder of that size ONE other time in her entire career. I still wonder if maybe God worked a miracle that weekend. In my months of trying to conceive, and these vulnerable first months of being pregnant again, I have realized that, for ME, information has become the opposite of faith. I read fertility books and websites and conducted Google searches and gobbled up any resource I could get my frantic hands on in efforts to conceive and now in efforts to sustain this pregnancy. Perhaps I am already learning a valuable lesson in parenting...that it’s just as much about holding on with all your might, as it is about letting go.  But I know now, that in order for me to fully relieve myself, I need to unplug, put all information aside, and just pray.