I’m in the midst of recording my next imagery CD and what I thought would be a three-session–production, has turned into three weeks of editing and additional rerording yet to be done.
So once again, the blog was on hold, until two wonderful Fertile Heart™ moms sent a couple of emails that set my soul on fire.
It started with Kristen, a former client, and a lovely, active member of this community, who gave birth to beautiful little boy a few weeks ago:
“Hi, Julia,
Have you heard the story about the woman who won the 112 million lottery? She was on TV recently telling her story. She was helping to get her brother’s children out of foster care for him when he passed away. She made it her mission to get them out and she was successful. There are 5 children and she is raising them now. She lost her job shortly after filing for custody of the kids and had always used visualization to help her through life. She had visualized not needing money or having enough money not to worry and she visualized the number 112 million. She played the lottery maybe twice a month. When she saw the jackpot was for 112 million she bought a ticket knowing this was her lottery and she won! I don’t know what to think of her story but I immediately thought of you and your imagery work…I have to start my imagery work again and keep moving towards the life I desire for me and my family. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this story- thought it was interesting if nothing else:-) Love, Kristen”
And the next day, as I took a break from listening to the latest draft of the new Imagery CD, I got an email with a subject line that read: Frustrating Experience, from Daryn, the gorgeous mama who, with her husband Matt generously shared their story a few weeks ago, in NewTimes, their local daily newspaper.
Daryn writes:
Hi, Julia,
I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. I felt the need to vent to you about a little incident I had last night. Matt is racing in a triathlon this weekend and was participating in a practice swim at a local pond last night. Camryn and I tagged along so that she could play in the sand and water while Matt swam. As we were walking up to the beach I noticed that our first RE, the gentleman who so kindly passed me a box of tissues BEFORE he even gave me his damning diagnosis, was also preparing to take a practice swim. I did my best to smile and walk by.
45 minutes later we are getting back into the car to leave and the fertility doctor approaches us, asking “Are you Daryn?”, I said yes and then he proceeded to say who he was…we politely said, Hi and Matt introduced him to Camryn. He then asked me if I was pregnant again (I am almost 8 months…sort of a silly question),I laughed and pointed to my belly and said “yes, I sure hope so” he says “Well…you two should buy lottery tickets…I am not kidding you should buy lottery tickets!” and walked away. I don’t consider myself a violent person, but I had to fight the urge not to attack his smug little face.
It is just amazing that after all this time, we have a beautiful 1 year old and a baby on the way and this guy can get to me. I am sure he saw the article (as his office was quoted) and felt the need to refute our process. I had nightmares last night…isn’t it funny how quickly the orphans return and how long it takes to evoke the ultimate mother.
I thought you might find the story and my reaction interesting.
I hope you are well! Take care!
All my best.
Daryn
So how do we win the Fertility Lottery? Is it all just a matter of luck? Or a matter of some “secret law of attraction” formula that we follow because someone tells us it works?
How do we respond to fertility doctors who– threatened by our courage to question their bleak prognosis and narrowly defined views of reproductive health– act-out their fears by dismissing our efforts? Do we send them links to “groundbreaking” research studies that validate what all thoughtful people can discover in the laboratory of their our own bodies: That images, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, the food we eat, our relationships have a profound effect on our hormones and health?
I am far from an expert on hitting the mega-million lotto jackpot. But I do know how I choose to live my life and what my choices have taught me so far.
I can also report on what I see and observe through my work with others. I can pass on what I have witnessed in the lives of the hundreds of people I’ve worked with in the last fifteen years: Deep conscious healing, healing that can reverse a hopeless diagnosis, happens as a result of our active, knowing, passionate participation in the healing process.
And it can also happen un-consciously, when we simply respond to the opportunities that Life places before us by doing what feels right. Usually what feels right depends on what we have learned so far about ourselves, our histories, our bodies, and the rules of the Human Game.
The healing process, as all creative work, is also full of Mystery. The Weaver that linked Cynthia Stafford’s lottery winning story with Kristen, and Daryn’s, the ingenious Author that brought Daryn’s doctor into the narrative with such impeccable timing is not a Force we’re meant to manipulate and control, or a vending machine that responds to the right affirmation by sending a baby down the chute. Yet it’s a Force I can collaborate with, bow to and wrestle with, until I live my way into the answers i seek.
Cynthia Stafford tells us that she has been engaged with the invisible world of images for years, and it sounds like the five orphaned children have given her the opportunity to bring a great deal of healing into her family. How wonderful that she will hopefully be able to take care of herself and the children in a way that all children deserve to be taken care of!
Kristen and Daryn, and the many women and men I’ve had the privilege to meet who beat allegedly unbeatable odds, have walked toward the winning-fertility ticket by using imagery and the rest of the Fertile Heart™ tools, to actively, knowingly engage in the healing process. And as Kristen points out that process is meant to continue if they are to remain fully fertile. As Daryn observes, the Orphans don’t go away, they just become more visible and we learn to respond to them more effectively.
As I see it, at this stage of our collective evolution, we can no longer afford to settle for remaining un-aware in any arena of our private or public lives. How else do we discover our own power to co-create a safer world for our children, if we don’t claim our power to co-create our bodies and lives?
Daryn’s fertility doctor became the “angel” of this story. He mirrored to us, just how important it is for us to claim our co-creative power, and how essential it is that we join together in independent communities with a safe space to strengthen the voice in us that refuses to be bullied by self-appointed authorities. (Just so this doesn’t become a doctor-bashing post, I also know that a growing number of physicians is becoming aware and supportive of a holistic view of disease.)
I understand from some of my reading, that many people, who win the lottery, ultimately find it difficult to use their winnings well. They fail to emotionally grow into their abundance.
So what I want to keep reminding myself, is that we, every one of us, has already won the lottery. We got to, in spite of staggering odds, show up on this earth in human form, with the astounding gift of self-awareness. The ability to know ourselves and to choose our actions!
“Whatever there be of progress in life comes not throught adaptation but through daring…To not dare is fatal,” says Henry Miller in one of his brilliant essays. Whether or not we keep on winning the Life-Lottery or become the winners of the ultimate Fertility Lottery, is less about hitting the jackpot and more about daring to full-heartedly engage in the Human Game.
There are many kinds of lottery in life, and trying to get pregnant can seem like waiting for eternity until suddenly your lucky number is picked and your ticket has that magical extra line that means the normally depressing pregnancy test has magically transformed into a ticket worth more than 112 million dollars.
After spending about three months with the OVUM process and visualization techniques, my husband and I got our ‘lucky ticket’. We went to the doctor’s office later that morning to confirm that we weren’t dreaming, and got the same result. It stayed in my husband’s inside coat pocket for months – we just couldn’t believe it was true.
I’m about 5 months along now, and what I hear over and over again from other women is that everyone’s pregnancy is different – some women go to great lengths telling me how they felt so great the entire nine months that I want to stick a sock in their mouths, while other women tell me how trying the period of time was for them that I find myself getting scared and nervous.
But what I think about the most is that just as every woman’s journey of pregnancy is sacred and varied, so is every woman’s journey to conceive.
For my journey, there was a very scared little girl that had to heal and realize that she had grown up and become the strong woman that she had always wanted to be. That little girl didn’t have to keep waiting for the loving, secure home she had always yearned for because she was now in it. My heart was holding on so tightly to grief, that until that little girl started to heal, it instinctively knew that bearing a child needed to wait. Once that little girl started to heal, the floodgates opened. I began to experience peace. I started asking my husband what I needed from him through intimacy excercises that Julia developed and our relationship deepened. We became more of who the ultimate mom – for me that’s simply God – created us to be.
Fertility specialists may know percentages and statistics. They may know what doesn’t function and what that looks like. They may give you diagnosis and drugs and loads of bills that drain your retirement account or send you into plunging debt. Still, even with all they know, they do not know the wisdom of the heart. They do not know what keeps you up at night, what brings you joy, and what delights you more than you thought possible. They do not know what makes your heart leap, and what about having a child is precious and holy to you. While fertility doctors are in the business of facilitating bodily parts to function, it is the Ultimate Mom who is the one who freely supplies the hope, love, and drive that all of us crave and seek. Because finally – it is not the fertility doctors position to create life. Life is a mystery that is woven in the deepest parts of ourselves – so deep that we can only grasp and stutter in awe of it’s sheer power to make us cry with yearning or with delight.
So I want to encourage you in this community – you who are weary from financial strain, and loss of hope – you who are tired of heartache and loss and grief: fertility doctors do not have the answers. When it comes to life, we all grasp for the same mystery. But we grasp with something more powerful and predictable than a hope at a lottery ticket – we grasp and yearn for life with the heart. And the more we are in tune with the heart, the more we understand parts of ourselves we never realize were hurt or broken. Life comes towards us – whether it is in the form of a baby, unleashed creativity, or the weight of shame cascading off our shoulders to the ground. The Ultimate Mom enfolds us and nurtures us and holds her in the palm of her hand. For it the Ultimate Mom who knows our heart and cheers for our healing. It is the Ultimate Mom – not fertility doctors or sperm counts or sterile clinics – who is at the heart of life itself.
Peace to you all in this sacred time, and peace and healing be yours in your journey toward life.
I met a new specialists yesterday. She didn’t give me one statistic or negative comment despite previous doctors scepticism. She used the words ‘possibilties’ and ‘opportunities’. I felt like she was another piece in my winning ‘lottery ticket’ jigsaw. I strongly believe my ovum imagery work, acupuncture, diet and reflexology are bringing fragments together everyday. Thank you
Thanks a lot for the thought provoking post Julia. I really love having this space and it’s so nice to read everyone’s posts.
Like Gal, I have read this blog and let it sink in and came back to it a couple of times…I have also had a very trying couple of weeks.
I thought about this blog and the idea of a “Fertility Lottery” this past Friday. We met up with some friends who were visiting from out of town. They have three children and 5 minutes into my conversation with the woman she tells me “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I am pregnant again!” Her youngest just turned one in May. And of course it was an “accident” they were not planning on another child so soon.
So I thought she rolled the dice and the #4 came up for her! What about me…what’s my number, how much longer is a going to take to get there? It has been a really long journey to this child who insists on taking his time to get to us.
How do I cope with that and the challenges to my health I have had lately? Part of me wants to just throw in the towel and say you win. Another part of me says keep on moving forward do the work with a greater degree of intensity and presence and more will be revealed.
I think we are way beyond the half way point..I mean common we have to be on the home stretch walking towards our baby!
Not long after reading this post I decided to get a bit more “adventurous” and start entering contests. In the past I never bought lottery tickets, or really entered contests because I thought, “I never win anything, so why get my hopes up?”. I have felt similarly about our struggles to get pregnant, and took inspiration from this blog post and thought, I am going to enter any contest I see, and see what happens. Well, less than 1 month later we won a local contest and my husband and I are going to Prince Edward Island to see Regis & Kelly!!! I see this as a sign that the Universe is ever changing and if you are open to positive thoughts and change, many blessings can come your way!!! I am fully giving in to the desire to get pregnant, and feel the Universe is smiling on me and validating my new approach at life!!! Blessings to all on the journey with me, and to Julia and all of the other fertile sisters who have led the way!!!!
Kristine in CT
This was a timely post for me, as I’m having a go-round with my OB’s office to get testing results and was struck by how just *asking* for information (my results, my body, mind you) gets interpreted as me being a pushy patient, but also how quickly I can be made to acquiesce to that silencing if I’m not careful. I was also talking with a friend who’s doing IVF who just had 20 eggs retrieved, with half of them fertilizing, and she’s concerned that’s not enough (she’s had several hard losses, so she’s not being unreasonable here). It makes me think twice about my lonely little once-a-month older egg and question loudly to myself whether I’m playing the odds (lottery) correctly.
So all of this blog message is really important to reframe the questions and the thinking about what abundance and creating really mean. Statistics don’t matter to individuals and their real situations–thank you for that post, Julia. I like Gal’s take on overshooting the halfway mark–I definitely think I’m working on that right now. I loved the synchronicity of Ann’s discoveries–hope I, too, can get back into that “happening” space with this community’s help. Thanks for Anna’s post here and on the message board. And so pleased to see Suzanne’s and Anna’s connections to compassionate doctors, a great counterbalance to what so many of us experience with the medical profession.
Talk to you all soon,
Christy
Hello Julia and fellow beautiful Fertile Heart Sisters,
Thank you for another engaging blog Julia. As you suggested, I am going to use this reply as an opportunity to share my recent experience at a fertility clinic in London.
When we found out four years ago that there was a major issue with my husband’s sperm, we did a round of visiting various fertility clinics in London because I knew that I would have to find somewhere that I felt comfortable and supported. Whilst researching books on amazon I found inconceivalbe and I very gratefully became a member of the FH community. My husband had surgery to remove his varicoceles and we avoided fertility clinics – until now.
Going to a fertility clinic would not be anyone’s preferred option of conceiving a child, would it? After five years of ttc, I agreed to go to a consultation – having firmly in mind the idea that all I would start with was a couple of cycles of IUI’s. I chose a clinic – let’s call it Clinic Shabby – (one of the ‘top’ ones, although I didn’t bother with their statistics) because from what I knew about it, they really monitored carefully the woman’s cycle. I liked the sound of this because my cycles are not regular and I had been told by another clinic (4 years ago) that they would put me on the contraceptive pill to regulate my cycle – and so I could fit in with their schedule. But Clinic Shabby did transfers etc. during the weekend too.
So after waiting 6 weeks for an appointment, we arrived and had to fill out a myriad of forms. My husband was taken off to produce a semen sample. After over an hour of waiting, we met the doctor and had a pretty straightforward consultation. He told us we had a 1.5% chance of conceiving using IUI’s and I just let that figure bounce right off me, like Julia describes a client doing in The Fertile Female. As Julia later said to me – it either works or it doesn’t!
I could tell my husband was not happy during the consultation. He would go straight for IVF with ICSI as he has a lot of impatient orphans right now. However, I later discovered the reason for his unhappiness. He had to wander around a very busy and bustling reception area, holding his semen sample and asking who he should give it to. It was a really painful and shaming experience for him. I mean it is such a delicate thing when you think about it. So when he heard me discussing IUI’s with this doctor, all he could think about was the humiliation that lay ahead having to go through with numerous semen samples.
I had really had to breathe in the waiting room. This clinic was like a zoo – it felt really chaotic and busy and impersonal and I did not want to be there. I was really surprised by how shabby the place was – there was paint peeling off the walls. I know you don’t go to these clinics for the decor but this is a place that charges a hell of a lot of money for ART and I wondered why none of that money was being invested in the upkeep of the place. Where does all that money go???
Anyway – I am digressing here. They agreed to monitor this cycle and then if all was ok, we would proceed with a few cycles of IUI. I had my bloods done on day 2 and was extremely happy that they were all good. I returned for my mid-cycle scan. Again, waiting over an hour. Not enough chairs for all of us who were waiting for scans. Really??
I was seen by a different doctor for my scan – he had no idea about me or our particular details. He was in a hurry as he had so many other patients to see. It was the quickest scan of my life – no joke. It was over in less than a minute. He told me I was slightly polycystic and my womb lining was thin. He was going to leave it at that but there was no way I was leaving without some further explanation.
I honestly could not believe this treatment! Luckily, I was in the land of my UM & V. I knew this was not the place for us. I called up a holistic gynaecologist I had been to before and made an appt to see him. What an enormous difference. I had a long and thorough consultation with him. He showed me everything very clearly at my scan and explained that I met none of the criteria for polycystic ovaries. We are now going ahead with IUI’s with him (I didn’t even think to check if he offered that).
The (financial) lottery winners are the fertility clinics and the way I experienced it at this clinic was people’s desperation to become parents was fuelling the whole lottery. I don’t think people would put up with such service in any other kind of ‘business.’ But because this might be a way to that much longed-for child, people ‘suck it up.’
The winning lottery ticket for me was finding you Julia and the Fertile Heart Community. I really could go on and on but this will have to be enough for now as I am off for a walk before our phone circle.
I really enjoyed reading everyone else’s comments and was really struck by what happened with Ann and her dictionary!!!!
Looking forward to connecting with you soon!
Suzanne xx
Thankyou Julia for another thought and feeling provoking post. I always like to wait a little to comment on the blog just to take it in and sit with it awhile. Between this blog posting and the recent activity on the connections board I have been thinking alot of the halfway point involved in a conception process. I think I may have overshot the half way point. I won’t let go of my longing for another child, but I will let go of being overly focused. I am missing how much fertility I already have. It feels such a relief too realize I can simply be living my life to the fullest (that’s halfway) and let the cosmos and the babydust and all the mystery of life do the rest.
These are two great stories – very inspiring of the power of this work and of the reality that it will always need to be done.
All the best,
Gal
Wow what a powerful message. Thank you all for sharing. We were told that our odd of conceiving on our own is less than 5% just because my DH has low count and everything else. Anyways I beg to differ. Although it is quite difficult at time to want it so hard and try to believe that it will happen no matter what the dr says. We were told that getting pregnant is a like a lottery ticket. A lot of people are buying it but only a few are lucky enough to win. I will win this lottery but not because I think that I have more chances but just because I will not stop believing that it will happen. The mind is a very powerfull thing. I need to keep working with the FH tools to make my journey toward my baby just a little easier. Thank you all for being such wonderful women.
Thank you so much for this blog. It is wonderful. Thank you so much for your inspiration.
Hi, this is the other Anna (BE) ;-) and wow, what a great post and what articulate responses. Thank you! Isn’t it wonderful that conception and pregnancy and life in general remain miraculous and mysterious and unpredictable and certainly so much bigger than science can ever describe…
Apparently 2 + 2 does not always equal 4 and the ‘human loaf’ is capable of delivering more creative equations…
May Force be with us!
Julia, such a great blog entry—well worth the wait!
The month of May was tough and I was dealing with a variety of emotions. From happiness and hope to days of second-guessing and wondering if I’m doing enough. My orphans revealed concerns about age-related statistics (I just turned 40 at the end of May).
As I was reading your post I felt the same range of emotions. The lottery story made me very happy and I felt renewed faith in the work I’m doing. But then I became completely furious and disappointed while I read Daryn’s story and her encounter with her RE. But like you said, how appropriate and important it is to see these two stories together. It gave me exactly what I need right now. Despite the statistics and what the so-called experts have to say I realize I’m ultimately in control of the choices I make, and how I choose to live my life. And by owning this choice and self-awareness I’m empowered and encouraged. This really helped me see how far I’ve come on my journey and also how many more riches I have to discover about myself. Thank you to Daryn and Kristen for being great examples and teachers!
What a great blog, really perfect timing for me too. I loved your response Ann in so many ways, it had me smiling and laughing.
I mentioned on the phone circle tonight that at a specialist medical consultation 3 weeks ago I had been told I had a 3% chance of conceiving, despite having earlier this year conceived non identical twins – so that was twice in one month, what’s the chances of that then?! Very sadly I miscarried BUT I did conceive (twice). It really got to me the 3% thing and I just couldn’t understand why. If it was a fact it was a fact but it was not the fact part that got to me. I think it was the lack of acknowledgment of what had happened (I had got pregnant), the lack of interest in how I might have beaten those poor odds.
In contrast my less specialist gynecologist showed utter delight at my pregnancy despite the miscarriage and wanted to know all about what I had been doing – from Chinese herbs to visualization. At one point I asked that given we had heard that miscarriages were more common in first pregnancies, older women, women with endometriosis and multiple pregnancies did we stand any chance at all? His reply was we had every good chance and that he saw no reason why we would not succeed. That’s what I needed to hear and that’s the message I will hold on to from the medical profession. And in the meantime I’ll set about weaving a few more messages of my own.
Thanks for this impeccably well timed blog Julia – its really helped shake out that 3% splinter that was bothering me.
Thanks Julia and everyone for your posts, which I always enjoy reading and where I often find food for thought!
Regards, Christine.
i am honestly at a low point at this moment. julia, and all of my fertile heart sisters, what i am most grateful for at this moment is this truthful space that we share. and what touches me most is the reminder that participating with truthfulness and honesty and truly falling in love with the life we are engaged with is our deepest source of strength. from my own life journey i have clearly learned that it is not a baby or job or money or degree or whatever that will set my soul on fire but rather acting with more integrity. acting from a place of integrating my relationship with my orphans, visionary and ultimate mom and honoring the process of weaving these threads into a beautiful tapestry. thank you all again! love jasmin
Great blog Julia! I must say that Daryn’s story really hit home. After my fertiltiy doctor found out I was pregnant he left us this voice mail saying “what a true MIRACLE it is that you are pregnant, really nothing short of a real miracle” and while I may agree with him on some level, I wanted to reach through the phone and shake him, but it was a voice mail…perhaps another smaller miracle. I have learned so much about myself and this journey while home on maternity leave. Now, i just need to keep doing the work to get me on track to achieve the life I truly desire. I can not thank you enough Julia, Kristen
Thank you Julia for your inspiring words and stories. I was feeling rather fed up this evening and this has given me hope and a new lease of life.
Wow, Julia, is it so completely magnificent when your soul is set on fire!! And it is a bonfire well, well worth the wait. (I would say worth 112 million days but I might – and certainly my orphans – might get a little impatient. And, as an aside, I was just checking my spelling of impatient – because my orphans don’t ever trust my spelling and they don’t like to look silly – and my dictionary opened to “impregnate”!) How could it be that each and every one of these blog postings, although varying in topic and theme, seems exquisitely timely and relevant? (And would you believe it that, on my way to “exquisite” in my trusty, old-fashioned, well-worn, paperback dictionary, what should jump out at me but “expectant”?!) How could it be that comments on the message board, voices on the phone circle, and responses to these threads seem to read my mind precisely? It must be the wonder of the Mysterious Author. I bow to it and I hope to pave the way for more and more wrestling and collaboration.
I feel like I have been waiting for this post like a coiled spring. I’m all about Mystery and the awe-inspiring Weaver right now and it feels heavenly. I absolutely love the idea of looking for opportunities. It feels right. It’s joyful and invigorating and it breathes life back into my heart. (There it is again, by golly, I go to look up breathes – because my orphans want to know if it should really have that “e” before the “s” – and sitting right there is “breech” which, of course, I take to be a fertility reference.)Which reminds me of another brilliant Weaver example. Thanks to Julia’s magical touch, I have exchanged emails with Kristen, clearly a remarkably courageous, intuitive, powerful, spirited, beautiful FH mom, who, it seems to me and I hope she will not mind my saying this, has healed a number of important HEARTS (including assisting with mine) with her own undefeatable HEART, by finding and following the Fertile HEART path. Just recently, by generously sharing her story, she has helped me see my own challenges around emotionally growing into “abundance” and I am so grateful.
The Force that Julia mentions has touched me deeply in the last week as I have struggled to birth a visionary (my imagery assignment) capable of claiming the power to co-create. Here’s how it happened. The night before a scheduled phone session, I had a terrifying dream. (I had been longing for a significant, memorable dream like the breathtaking ones some of you have mentioned on the message board, but I had been coming up empty-handed. Then I was startled and dismayed by what came.) I earmarked the content to discuss but I had no idea how it might relate to anything. BEFORE I could describe it, Julia and I got into a conversation which led to an imagery exercise designed, I think, to free up my voice (I understand the exercise is on Julia’s new CD). That was my “Oh my god” moment. In my dream, a dentist looked in my mouth and indicated, with grave concern, that I had cancer of the esophagus. I told Julia that I didn’t really have a clue about the esophagus or it’s function but my Dream Teacher certainly did! I have been spellbound and almost speechless (in a good, non-cancerous way) ever since and it has given me the gift of basking in this experience without overthinking it. But this post has allowed the perfect opportunity to OPEN MY MOUTH and, as you can see, I’m having a hard time shutting it. :-)
I will close by sending out a prayer that Cynthia Stafford’s children will help her grow into her abundance and that all of us will help each other more full-heartedly engage in the human game. Thank you, to each of you, for your part in creating this abundant and fertile community!