The ancient wisdom of yoga has so much to offer during this challenging time
Note: The following post contains my story of fertility treatments and pregnancy loss, so if that's something that's sensitive for you maybe come back to this post another time.
If you need specific support at this time, please feel free to reach out to me, or contact PANDA on 1300 726 306.
It took us 16 cycles of fertility treatment to have our three pregnancies and two sons.
As a result of hypothalamic amenorrhea (an absent period due to, in my circumstance, a failure to ovulate due to long term weight suppression and anxiety) we couldn't conceive naturally.
We started with a treatment called ovulation induction, where you inject medication to stimulate the growth of a follicle, then another medication to trigger ovulation, then you try to conceive naturally.
We conceived on the second month. What a joy! Sadly, I started bleeding at 7 weeks, and despite treatment with medication and the bleeding ceasing, we lost that pregnancy at 9 weeks. It was, by far, the saddest and most grief stricken I have ever felt in my life. I felt as though my potential identity as a mother had been taken away, and hung in the balance. Would we get pregnant again? What if that was my only chance?
I managed to miscarry naturally, living through the most intense contractions outside of labour I have ever experienced. We planted what was our little baby-to-be under a rose bush in our garden, where we had gotten married just a few years earlier.
After another 8 rounds of ovulation induction, jabbing myself daily, attending the fertility specialist for internal ultrasounds every third or so day to track the follicle's growth and ensure I didn't become overstimulated, we conceived my eldest son, Eden.
After a fairly 'easy' pregnancy, my waters began trickling at 31 weeks and after being monitored for pre-term premature rupture of membranes for 4 weeks, including a week in hospital, I was induced and had Eden at 35 weeks. He stayed in the NICU for 12 nights before we took our premmie home.
Knowing that my fertility was always a question mark, if we wanted to have a sibling for Eden, we thought sooner rather than later was safest. We started ovulation induction again when he was nearly one. After 6 rounds, we made the call to commence IVF. Our first round was full of expectation and hope, but unsuccessful. Our second round, joyously, we conceived Jonas.
Why do I share all this? Because, whilst there are absolutely women and couples who struggle and endure longer journeys to parenthood, with more challenges and disappointments than me, I do truly understand the lows of trying to conceive, and experience of infertility, as well as pregnancy loss.
Throughout the 16 cycles we didn't fall pregnant, my yoga and movement practices were an absolute non-negotiable rock of self-soothing support, to help me process and cope with all the emotions: the highs, the hopes, the lows, the losses, the bloating, the pain, the wishing, the tenderness, the tears.
In many ways, I am grateful for our challenges because I think they were the greatest possible preparation for postpartum life and motherhood generally (I also want to acknowledge humbly here that I am so fortunate to be able to say that, as our infertility ended with two live births).
I do not mean that I love every second because of how hard it was to have the boys.
I was recently chatting with a close friend who had her own challenges conceiving and is now in the early stages of motherhood.
"I feel like I can't complain, because we wanted him for so long, so if it's hard, it's like 'Well you wanted this'", she said in passing.
Oh, how I wanted to take that pressure away for her. Motherhood and parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done, and will ever do. Wanting a baby and trying to conceive for a long time does not take away your right to complain, nor the very likely reality that you will not love every second!
How can yoga support us during infertility or TTC?
One of the classes I teach on Amy Carmody's online platform is specifically designed to support women trying to conceive, experiencing infertility or miscarriage.
In that class, I refer to this podcast, which I listened to at some point in the cycles to conceive Jonas. It is from 'How to Fail' with Elizabeth Day and she interviews Alain de Botton. He is a UK writer and philosopher who I have always found to be very wise and calming. He is influenced by the Stoic tradition, a school of philosophy that hails from ancient Greece and Rome in the early parts of the 3rd century, BC and which has a lot to teach us in modern life, in particular about accepting what we cannot control about life.
In the podcast, de Botton tackles how to deal with grief. He dismantles the idea of any "hierarchy of suffering" - insisting that how we feel is a fact that must be taken seriously, even if there are people "worse off than us". He also talks about the need to "turn the light on in the room of your fears" so that the darkness no longer has the power to terrify us. He even suggests writing a pessimistic shopping list, where you write down all the things you're most afraid of.
For me, this relates to yogic teachings that encourage mindful awareness and acceptance of all emotions and experiences, even deeply painful and negative ones, just as they are. This doesn't mean liking them, wallowing or being defeated by them, rather, accepting at a deep level, with loving kindness towards yourself, that you are having a tough time and that it is hard and that there are genuine fears and life long consequences related to trying to conceive. Do not minimise it, or blame yourself, or try to tell yourself stories about why it's not that bad or it could be worse. That doesn't seem to help, in my experience.
We all share the same fundamental humanity, including deep pain and grief. This doesn't mean it's all futile and we should just give up on hope and joy! Rather, we can turn towards that unique personal story of our pain and grief, and accept it as part of our experience, at the given time. As a result of this, we may feel more able to bear it, and it may even pass, or subside, when genuinely felt, accepted and allowed.
Viktor Frankl's 'Mans Search for Meaning' is another resource in the Stoic tradition that teaches of the power to self define the meaning in one's life, claiming any personal experience of suffering as personally meaningful in the way one chooses to define it for oneself, rather than seeing all pain and suffering as meaningless (all the more impressive when understood as written by a concentration camp survivor, able to live like this in the bleakest of conditions).
What might this mean for pregnancy loss or trying to conceive? I chose to (try to) relate to the pain of my experiences of wanting a baby or losing a baby as an opportunity to learn how strong I am, how deeply I can love, and how empathetically I will now relate to other people who have experienced similar pain and loss.
Asana to support you during this time
Lie down in savanasa or with the soles of the feet together in supta baddha konasana, with one hand on the heart and one hand on the belly. On the inhale, take a huge deep belly breath, completely expanding and relaxing through the pelvic floor, hips, glutes and belly. Imagine that breath is full of tender, loving kindness and compassionate energy towards you, your uterus, every as yet unused follicle that may one day be a baby and any babies that have begun and not grown to be inside you. On the exhale, release and as the breath slowly seeps out, imagine too that any pain, blame, shame, fear or anxiety slowly seeps and melts and eases, revealing underneath it the strong and ever present wise you, who can see it all, hold it all, bear it all, and is not scared.
If you feel open to it, draw one knee to your chest and draw small circles one way and then the other, gently massaging all the muscles and ligaments and energetic channels in the lower back, pelvic, hips and belly. Draw that knee all the way over your extended leg, but keep your chest open and shoulders on the ground, coming into a gentle side lying twist. Deep belly breaths here. Move to repeat on the other side.
Sitting in a chair and using the top of the backrest under the scapula, or lying down over a bolster or block or pillow, open the chest in a supported thoracic opening pose. Take the arms out to the sides or overhead. Breathe light and love into the belly, the rib cage and the collarbones. Receive your experience here with radical non-judgemental acceptance, even if it means you have to have a really good cry. Just let it alllllllll be, just as it is.
If you need specific support at this time, please feel free to reach out to me, or contact PANDA on 1300 726 306.
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