My mom and I spent all day Thursday, May 20, in the air or catching connecting flights. The soft-spoken United Airways ticket agent in Portland was nice enough to arrange our seats so we could sit together on all three flights, which I know eased my mom's fears about flying. Aside from having to conduct a mad dash from one side of the airport to the other in Charlotte, N.C., it was a smooth day of travel and we had a nice time relaxing and catching up with each other.
We landed in Asheville, N.C. around 9:30p.m. and my friend Matthew met us there and then drove us to nearby Greeneville, TN where he lives with his wife, Kathleen and their little boy, Jackson. I was Kathleen's doula for Jackson's homebirth two years ago, and she and Matthew are the friends who flew Michael and I around the country with them last summer, to GA, NC, NY and for me, FL. It had been nearly a year since we had seen them, but right away, it felt like we had never been apart. It's like that with good friends, I have found. :)
We were able to chat with them a bit over tea before we headed for bed. They showed us around the 100 year-old farmhouse they are renovating for some friends back in Oregon, and introduced us to their brand-new baby chicks! The little peepers were temporarily housed in a cooler with a heat lamp, food and water and lots of straw while they grow big enough to make the move to the great outdoors. Jackson was asleep for the night, but I heard him the next morning as he greeted the chicks in their cooler with a hearty "Baby Chickens!" It was so neat to see him a year older and so much changed from the baby he was last year . . . I loved hearing him talk and the way he said "okay!" at the end of each sentence: "Ride in the red truck, okay!" It was always a declaration, never a question. Jackson took to my mom right away and kept taking her index finger in his whole hand and pulling as his way of asking her to come see something.
Friday morning I awoke to a beautiful, sunny day--so different from the rain and gray skies we'd been having in Oregon for weeks. We all gathered on the back porch of the farmhouse and I glided back and forth on the porch swing while I sipped my morning herbal tea. There are no visible neighbors from the front, back or sides of the farmhouse and I reveled in the peaceful seclusion. My mom picked a huge bowl of strawberries from a patch near the house while Kathleen and I planted an army of tomato plants. Jackson ran back and forth between us and Matthew who was using the weed whacker--he'd only have it running for a few minutes, then would shut it off as Jackson came running over to see it.
My mom, Kathleen, Jackson and I piled in the car in the early afternoon and headed off to Asheville so I could check-in for the retreat at 4pm. What I noticed right away upon seeing the Grove Park Inn, is that its website definitely does not do justice to the beauty of the place. I loved the red roof in contrast with the dark stone walls and the lovely old pieces of pottery, china, quilt samples, and antique furniture displayed throughout its halls. I am a sucker for places with history and this inn is certainly one of them. There is even a plaque mounted on the door of the suite where Barack Obama stayed (I believe) the night before his speech at the democratic convention. :)
After we checked in and got our room keycards, I headed to the 8th floor for the retreat conference room and left mom to unpack and relax a bit.
I think one of the first things I noticed when I walked in the room were the Costco-sized boxes of Kleenex placed strategically here and there next to the chairs where we would be sitting. It was at that point that I had my first thought of Oh boy, I'm not sure I'm ready for where this is heading. It wasn't that I didn't think there would be tears from at least some of us over the course of the weekend--attending two Resolve support group meetings had shown me the need to have tissues on hand when women get together to talk about fertility challenges. But I think I had arrived full of optimism and expecting more of a weekend of rah-rah, sis boom-bah, we're-all-going-to-go-home-and-get-pregnant activities and lectures. The presence of the Kleenex right off the bat told me I may be about to come face-to-face with some uncomfortable thoughts and feelings--from myself and from the other retreat participants.
There were 15 of us: 4 married couples and 7 of us women who had left our partners at home. I liked how the room was arranged. Each person had a low-slung chair with a rectangular pillow that could be placed behind the back for comfort, and a soft chenille blanket in case we got cold. A retreat binder and pen was on each chair, full of resources to be used during the retreat and once we got home. A nearby table held bottles of water, a selection of tea packets and hot water. Everyone had a nametag ready and waiting for them.
Those first hours of the retreat consisted of the introductions, as we went around the group and each person spoke for a few minutes about his / her fertility journey thus far. I was surprised that the majority of the people there were experiencing "secondary infertility" meaning they already had at least one child but were having trouble either conceiving or carrying a subsequent pregnancy to term. Randine addressed the issue right away, explaining that just because someone already had a child, didn't mean they weren't going through the same pain and struggle those of us who have never had a child or even been pregnant are experiencing. Her words made sense and I could see that the desire for a child might be the same, but in terms of the experience, I could not see it (and still really can't see it), as being the same. It wasn't that I begrudged them for having children whereas I do not; it was that my heart felt a need to connect with someone in nearly identical circumstances . . . I didn't get that sense of connection with any one person at the retreat, but I did upon returning home. A woman from my Resolve support group met me one afternoon after work last week and we swapped experiences and stories. She, like me, also has endometriosis and she, like me, is trying to have a baby using acupuncture, herbs, yoga and naturopathic medicine.
Friday evening, after the first session of the retreat, I had my Chinese medicine evaluation and acupuncture treatment with our Asheville-based Fertile Soul practitioner. She took an in-depth health history, mostly talking with me about the forms and questionnaires I had filled out and faxed to her before ever leaving Portland. Having had several years of experience seeing natural medicine practitioners (as well as having been trained as one myself), the taking of an in-depth health history intake is no surprise to me. What was surprising were the questions posed in the Chinese medicine forms. The questions give the practitioner an idea of which Chinese medicine organ system (s) is / are out of balance, and then recommendations can be made to begin to unravel the tangles and smooth out the flow of qi (energy) in the body.
This is what I have gleaned so far of the theory of how Chinese medicine works: it is the unimpeded flow of qi through the body that makes a person healthy in body, mind and spirit and if there are physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual blocks in the flow, the person will not function at his / her maximum potential and symptoms will manifest. Sometimes an area is deficient in qi, or there is an excess of qi. These situations also mean imbalance. Instead of covering up the symptoms with pills or surgery, Chinese medicine seeks to go to the source of the problem and correct it using things like herbs and acupuncture / acupressure, diet, massage, meditation, and movement exercise like qi gong to remove the symptoms while at the same time resolve the problem.
One of the most impacting messages I got from the retreat was that these are all tools and there is no magic combination that will produce the desired results. What each person must do is choose which tools feel most beneficial to him / her and leave what doesn't feel right. And the message I felt most deeply at the very core of my being in terms of my fertility was this: each woman must balance her physical, emotional, mental and spiritual states on her own. Without being balanced in all areas, conception will not occur.
I questioned Liz about this theory, saying that I have seen women who (in my judgmental eyes) seem less balanced than myself but who become pregnant. Her observation was that that may have been true, but the woman may not realize she is imbalanced and so there is no internal struggle. For someone like me, who has never been comfortable in her skin, the imbalance is apparent, meaning I have always been aware of it, and conception is unlikely to occur until that is changed.
What she said made sense. What the retreat taught me is that I must do my own inner work to get right with myself on every level before I will truly be ready to bring life into this world. I feel the resistance to it--it's the same resistance I have felt since I was about 22 years old when I took a course in college called "Techniques of Relaxation." We learned about and practiced different types of meditation and about being aware of the present moment. I knew instinctively that there was more I needed to learn about myself, but I didn't want to put in the time and the discipline to do so. Since that time I've gone to self-help lectures, bought the audio cds, read the books, etc. searching, searching, always searching for someone else's truth that will be the key to my own. What Randine taught me at the retreat was that I alone hold my key and I alone must learn how to use it.
More on the retreat and on our vacation coming soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment