A Spoonful of Sugar-Coating

January 7, 2020
I've mentioned how powerful and peaceful temple service has been during this time, helping me to grasp at eternity and to broaden my perspective to see Abigail's life in terms of forever, rather than the deeply felt loss of her life here on earth. Last week, we missed our temple date because Wednesday fell on New Years, and we just didn't make it out the weekend after.

This, combined with a rather unpleasant visit to the doctor's office on Friday, sent me into a dreary gulch emotionally that lasted beyond the weekend. Despite a long and cathartic conversation with my amazing midwife, I've struggled to shake this wave of grief. It's a grief renewed by some phrases and images conjured by a doctor who thought I needed to relive the diagnosis of ABS (Amniotic Band Syndrome) and the prognosis of certain death for my baby and potentially a very difficult labor for both of us.

He had communicated with the maternal fetal medicine doctor about her findings via ultrasound, and for some reason thought I needed a rehashing of the situation and his own worst-case scenario fears.

This was unwelcome and unhelpful.

Since November 8, I've gotten used to the phrase, "I don't want to sugarcoat things, so..."

It's not my favorite phrase. Like I've said, I'm the type of person who asks questions and wants to understand the full picture. I appreciate honesty in medical practitioners.

I also value my emotional health and sanity, and I understand that where you train your focus can often build your reality in incredible ways. I wish more medical practitioners understood that the mental and emotional state of a woman about to give birth is intimately married to her outcomes. A woman in panic will not have a peaceful birth. I can only imagine how a woman in grief will fare. As I fight for my emotional well-being in the face of discouraging worst-case scenarios, I could use a little help from the people tasked with supporting my physical well-being.

Mary Poppins famously sang about a spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down. I appreciated the way Dr. Feltovich struck this balance. She may have had fears and worst-case scenarios going through her head, but she wasn't bent on planting them in my imagination. She didn't sugar-coat things, but she didn't knock the spoonful of sugar from my trembling hands either.

My biggest complaint, and this comes out of my gulch, the one I'm still trying to fight my way out of, is that some obstetrics practitioners take their detachment to an extreme. I am weary of hearing about how they are going to prioritize my physical health at the expense of Abigail's, simply because her expected outcome is poor. I am tired of being told that, since she's going to die anyway, the goal is to get her out without too much damage to me, as if she weren't real or important.

That's my baby you're talking about.

I know that people generally don't know what to say. Heck, I don't know what to say either. That's why you see so few comments from me after other people's beautiful and supportive comments on my facebook posts or here on the blog.

My wish would be that everyone who has something to do with bringing Abigail into this world could be on the same page about something: she's a person. She's our person. We LOVE her. We are grieving her and celebrating her at the same time. The language we use to talk about her is not detached, and we don't want your language to be detached, either. We are all humans dealing with other humans, and Abigail is just as human and just as valuable as I am. We want her birth to be handled with human dignity, and not with fear-based urgency.

I am trying to learn from the many, many mothers and babies who have gone before Abigail and me. One thing I've heard repeated from these mothers is how they wish they had spent less time dreading or fearing or mourning the future outcome of their angels, and more time enjoying the life within them. I feel that the well-intentioned lack of sugar-coating is creating more obstacles than we need to the goal of celebrating and enjoying Abigail's life while she is here.

It is unlikely that I will die during Abigail's birth, but if I die, it was meant to be. Neither of us needs for our final days to be made up of fearful dialogue and depressing thoughts.

I'm watching on social media as my favorite people all make New Year's Resolutions. It's a joyful and optimistic time for most people.

It's a beginning.

Though I know that something difficult and devastating awaits my family in the first few months of 2020, I also want to focus on what I can bring to this new year. The message I feel coming strongly through the veil between heaven and earth is to trust God in everything.

The saying goes that the devil is in the details, but I love to say that God is in the details. I have witnessed many miracles throughout my life, from prayers for the starting or stopping of rain to priesthood blessings to overcome serious illness. I have cheated death a few times, with angelic aid. I have healed from past trauma and sin through the atoning grace of Jesus Christ. All life is a miracle that I witness every day, flowers, mountains, pets, and people.

On facebook, a friend shared this Carrie Ten Boom quote:

NEVER BE AFRAID TO TRUST AN UNKNOWN FUTURE TO A KNOWN GOD.

The future is always unknown. Prognosticators will try to predict it, and we will always have wars and rumors of wars to keep us busy and fearful. But, "...God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).

That doesn't mean that difficult things don't exist. They are here mixed in with the good, like the life-constricting amniotic bands mixed with the life-preserving amniotic fluid in my womb right now. Opposition in all things is what makes this world grow and each human heart beat against the anarchy of the blood. We push up through the soil or out of the chrysalis or egg shell, and are born, over and over again, until we become ready for that final birth, the one called death. And there we are promised to enter into Christ's rest.

As my husband gently reminds me on a regular basis, because I need the reminder, we ARE keeping Abigail. But if we were allowed to keep her here on earth, Abigail would have soon learned to love to dance as much as I do. Like my five-year-old said, she would have gone to ballet with me. This necklace is the one I wear to remind me that she does dance. Club foot or no, she is dancing now in my womb. And soon she will dance with all the heavenly hosts. I do believe that one day we will dance together.

That's hope. It is as real and powerful as fear. Today, I choose hope.

Feel free to hope along with me, and thank you for the prayers and emotional support you have given to me and my family. I will never forget it.