My sister in law sent me a book yesterday called The Energetic Fertility Method: Tools for a Healthy Conception and Beyond by Nancy Mae. Although my sister in law and I live many miles away, she is well aware of my infertility journey. She truly gets my limited edition-ness and loves me unconditionally. She said that she thought of me as soon as she heard about Nancy Mae and then she discovered her book and sent it to me the very next day.
I have recently noticed that things in my life seem to be aligning like two puzzle pieces coming together and fitting perfectly. I mentioned signs in my last post, and I feel like this book is another sign. It is a gentle message from the Universe (sent via my sister in law) guiding me towards what I seek. I started reading the book last night and teared up as I read it. I knew that this book came at the perfect time. I then read two chapters in the car this morning to my husband as we drove to Cafe Gratitude for Sunday brunch. Nancy Mae, the author, started by sharing her personal fertility story, which put into words some of the feelings I've experienced but did not know how to verbalize. I felt myself wanting to highlight every other sentence in her book because everything was so well said.
When I read Mae's words, "No matter where the path of infertility takes you, in the strangest way, it's always an invitation to extraordinary growth," (p. xiii) something inside of me shifted. "If you look at the word infertile with all of its letters - I N F E R T I L E - you'll find many other words inside, including R E F I N E. Infertility is an invitation to an inner transformation, a journey of personal growth. It's not about something being wrong or not working. It's about refinement," (Mae, p. xiv). Yes, this path/journey of infertility has lead me to so many new places. It first started me on the path towards clean and conscious eating, and then lead me to a level of soul searching that I don't think I would have explored otherwise. I had already started going to therapy prior to my infertility journey to discover more about myself, but I don't think I would have explored as deeply as I did and am doing without infertility. Infertility has pushed me to go deeper - to go deeper in my marriage, to go deeper in my mind, to go deeper in my body, and to go deeper in my spirit.
Although I am only on page fifty-one of Mae's book, I have already started challenging and refining my views about infertility. Instead of trying to fix something (i.e. infertility), maybe I can use infertility to help make myself whole. Through my therapy sessions, I have overcome many struggles that I felt had played a role in my infertility (i.e. self-esteem, paying off karmic debt, learning how to communicate my thoughts and feelings, temperaments, etc.). Really, everything I have consciously worked on has helped me overcome infertility. I'm not there yet, but maybe its not something for me to "overcome".
Mae wrote, "Wherever you are in your life, I invite you to see infertility as a perfectly natural and normal process. You have not done anything wrong. Wholeness is your birthright. You now have the opportunity to start loving yourself completely so that, if and when you become pregnant, you can pass on this vital life skill to your child. To love ourselves is perhaps the only way we will ever become complete. The key is this: by remaining neutral in the process - letting go of the outcome of bearing a child and shifting our intention to become whole - we can create miracles," (p.8).
I honestly feel like infertility has become part of my identity. It consumes many of my thoughts and is often times the main topic of conversation between my husband, my counselor, my family, and my friends. It has become a problem I want to fix, and now that I have accepted the fact that I'll more than likely need modern medicine to help us get pregnant, I research IVF, genetic testing, etc. often. But after reading Mae's words, I feel like maybe infertility doesn't have to be my identity, rather, an experience that is leading me towards wholeness. I am still pursuing IVF, but I'm going to consciously and mindfully get back to working on my self again, and not just for trying to get pregnant. I'm going to try out Mae's suggestions and am going to experiment with chakras and energy. This is going to be fun (and deep)!
