It's So Hard When It Doesn't Come Easy: My Journey Towards Infertility

"The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I want to be. Because of all I may become, I will close my eyes and leap."

~Mary Anne Rudmacher

Though I've been a mother for only 12 years, I had to be a mother to myself for virtually my entire life. With parents who did what they could while battling their own inner demons and a mom who died when I was ten, I have been mothering myself for over 46 years.

Throughout my life, I wavered back and forth about whether to have children. I did not want to pass down unhealthy patterns that I'd been exposed to by my parents, such as martyrdom, female disempowerment, unhealthy relationships and unhappiness. I knew having kids would mean a lot of personal growth on my part. I'd been in and out of therapy since I was 17-years-old, and talking about having children was part of the process. In the end, I decided to have kids, with the determination that any negative patterns would stop with me.

In August of 2003, the first month we tried, I was pregnant with my first daughter. My pregnancy was not easy. The nausea was so bad at times that I didn't know if I could continue. I constantly asked myself if it was worth it. At the end of the day I needed to eat more calories, but every time I ate, I felt nauseous. Organic ice cream became a way to get the calories I needed, fast. There were nights when I would sit on the stairs in tears, with a bucket of ice cream next to me, wondering when this would end.

Jack and I met three years earlier while I was training for a 100-mile bike ride. He was about five years older than me, well educated and smart. Hanging out with him was a nice change — I'd spent the previous year very isolated, recovering from a car accident. We went on a lot of bike rides together and he even trained with me for the century. In January of 2003 we got married. It was a pretty wedding, held indoors with lots of bells and whistles. I was happy.

When I was pregnant I found myself in need of emotional support from Jack for the first time, and he was unable to give it to me. It was challenging for him to be present while I experienced hard emotions such as anger and despair — I would be in tears and he would avoid me or sit with me without really being present. It had never occurred to me during those first bike rides that this was how Jack would respond when things got tough. Hard emotions were simply not part of his repertoire. This would be a theme for the rest of our marriage.

I was in graduate school during the pregnancy and my work slowed to half-tempo. The nausea subsided at around 20 weeks and the rest of the pregnancy was easier. The baby's estimated due date was at the end of May.

I wanted to experience a hospital birth since my mom died in a hospital. There was something special about bringing in a life in a place where a life had been taken from me. But hospitals weren't my favorite place and I knew I didn't want to spend a long time birthing my baby.

I asked my friend Caroline, a doula and birth photographer, to work with me before and during the birth. Caroline went over breathing techniques, the use of a labor ball and many other things so I would be ready for the big day. I practiced visualizations of an easy and healthy birth process. I talked with the baby often to ensure that we could work together to get her here as easily and safely as possible. I had numerous conversations with my body, constantly reminding it that it knew what to do, that it knew how to grow and birth a baby.

All of this preparation worked wonders. I was in the hospital just over an hour when Rose was put into my arms.

I was so excited to be a mom. The first few days I held Rose as much as I could. I couldn't get enough. Then, the crying started.

Beyond tired and unsure of how to soothe her, I needed emotional support from Jack. While he was willing to help out with the day-to-day activities with Rose, he failed to understand my emotional needs. To Jack it was always, "Nancy is just overreacting. She'll get over it soon." Things between us continued to be tense.

I took a year off from school when Rose was a baby to be a full-time mom. Right around the time she turned one we got pregnant again. The estimated due date of this baby was the anniversary of my mom's death. I was sure nothing would go wrong — it was meant to be. The nausea started a bit earlier this time and continued, and I thought it was just a sign that the pregnancy was proceeding.

When I was pregnant with Rose, we found out that Jack and I were carriers of cystic fibrosis. We decided to undergo genetic testing with our second baby at ten-and-a-half weeks to make sure that everything was okay.

Jack and I sat for a while in the waiting room filling out forms until it was finally our turn. Donna, a nurse with straight brown hair and a blue medical gown, escorted Jack and me to the examination room. The environment felt sterile and not particularly inviting. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I was nervous about having someone put a needle into my abdomen.

I lay down on the gurney in a room with a sink, an ultrasound machine and other medical paraphernalia, as well as a few posters of growing fetuses. Once I was comfortable, Donna put goop on my belly and started looking around with the ultrasound machine. She looked for several minutes without saying anything. I saw the baby on the screen, and I kept wondering why Donna wasn't talking. In my mind, nothing could go wrong with this pregnancy because of the marvelous coincidence of the due date and my mom's "death date." I thought this was going to be such a wonderful healing experience, bringing in my child on or around the date my mom passed away many years before.

The nurse then told us she wanted to get the doctor. The doctor arrived and took a look. It didn't take her long. In a calm voice, she matter-of-factly told us that the baby was dead. With the level of development of the fetus, the heart had stopped approximately two-and-a-half weeks earlier at eight weeks. The tears started streaming down my face. The shock set in. I wanted to throw up. Jack was there with me with seemingly no reaction. We left the doctor's office through the back door. I was crying and completely distraught.

We walked to the car in silence and got in. I couldn't comprehend the information. How could it be? I'd just seen the baby's heart beating a few weeks earlier. I had no signs or symptoms of a miscarriage. I was still feeling nauseous.

I lost it. I cried. I yelled. I was mad at God. I slammed my fists on the dashboard. Jack thought I was overreacting. He asked me why I was so upset. I said, "You have to be f***ing kidding me!" I'd lost a child. My world was shattered. Here I thought this baby was going to help mend my heart and instead it tore it apart. Everything was a blur. One billboard was bleeding into the next.

For the next few weeks I blamed God for losing this baby. Since childhood my relationship with God had been precarious at best. Growing up in a toxic family and losing my mom to cancer when I was ten, I was not always sure there really was a God. I remember asking myself how so many horrible things could happen if there was a higher power? How could life be so hard? At times it took other people reminding me that there was a bigger picture, a universal plan, in order for me to continue on.

After waiting a month to let my body recover from the miscarriage, we tried again. But from this time forward, pregnancy was a challenge. We went to two reproductive endocrinologists who were recommended to me by my OB/GYN and we were subjected to numerous tests. I tried Clomid, a medication to help produce a predictable ovulatory response, and I had a reaction that neither reproductive endocrinologist could explain. My already short menstrual cycle shortened even further. No one could find any reason as to why I wasn't getting pregnant. To make matters worse, things with Jack were stressful and the doctors told me that could be a contributing factor.

By this time I was back in school — I could only take one year off from the program at any one time. We had a babysitter for Rose and Jack worked full time as an engineer. I wanted to complete my program, and have time with Rose, and get pregnant again. The stress to balance it all was building up, and, to make matters worse, my next obligation for school was a hands-on practicum, working with pregnant and post- partum women and their babies in a six-bed residential substance abuse treatment program. It was anything but relaxing.

As part of my attempt to lessen my stress, I continued with acupuncture and worked with a restorative yoga instructor to help with fertility. In the spring of 2007, roughly two years after the initial miscarriage, the acupuncturist I was working with asked me if I was open to an alternative way of looking at pregnancy. I said yes and my world changed forever. This was my introduction to Walter Makichen, author of Spirit Babies: How to Communicate with the Child You're Meant to Have. I remember wondering if it could help, and thinking, at the very least, it was worth a shot.

Walter was a clairvoyant, meaning he could get information about a person from "looking" at their energy field. I knew a little about this type of work, but had never delved too deeply into it. Walter was big on working with the chakras, the energy centers in our body, and utilized chanting as one of the main ways for his clients to help balance their particular issues. From the get-go, many of the chants Walter prescribed for me addressed my chakra system. There were chants to reset my chakras to their basic setting, chants to help open my chakra system to gain more information and wisdom, and chants to help my chakra system get ready for birth.

My time with Walter challenged my rigorous scientific training. There was an authenticity to the work that Walter did that rang true in my heart. Modern medicine was not able to answer any of the questions I had, but Walter was. Walter helped me understand that my mind was not going to win the battle on fertility, and that if I simply let go of trying to think my way through things, I might have a chance at conception. He gave me exercises to give my mind a rest from being the only tool that I used to bring in a baby.

Walter was instrumental in helping me conceive and carry to term. Without his guidance, I'm convinced that my beautiful daughter, Marie, would not be here. I continued working with Walter after Marie was born and until he passed on in 2011. On several occasions Walter and I talked about things he saw regarding my career. Walter mentioned that whatever I ended up doing, that I'd work with chakras and that I needed to make these energy centers a more prominent part of my life. He suggested that I have a creative outlet, something with my stamp on it, a technique that conveyed my personal perspective to the world. We also talked about how much I had learned about communicating with baby spirits and helping to bring in future children. He smiled and said I could have a career helping people bring in their future children, and that this would be fun.

What I propose to you next is a series of information, energetic tools, journaling exercises and meditations to help you create an optimal energetic environment for conception to occur. In my own unique way, it's a tribute to Walter Makichen and all that I learned from him.

Electric Boogie: How Energy Affects Fertility

"And what is man without energy? Nothing — nothing at all."

~Mark Twain

When we talk about fertility, we're addressing an energetic system that begets life. But what would life be like without energy? Would the sun exist? How about flowers, trees and the food we eat? What about humans? If there were no energy, what would become of us?

It might feel strange to think this way about your body and mind. It was completely foreign to me for many years. By the time I went to college, I was fascinated by the mind-body connection. My life was like a puzzle with pieces strewn all over the place. Working with therapists, I started putting some of the pieces together and learning why my body and mind worked the way they did. However, it always felt like something was missing.

It wasn't until I learned about energy and how it affected the totality of my being that I really started seeing the pieces fall into place. It was like I had finally found the dimmer switch to a light bulb and turned it way up, which allowed me to see more of the puzzle. I was then able to more fully influence how I refined my thinking, my physical body and my entire life; I put the pieces back together to make myself whole, which is the opportunity I present to you in this book.

After all, you would only want to give your child all of you, not just a part. Infertility is not so much a "problem" as it is a chance for you to refine many aspects of yourself, so that you can be whole. Here is your chance to do so.

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 becoming whole — we can create miracles.

What Is the Energetic Fertility Method (EFM)?

First, EFM is not a miracle worker. The only channel through which such a miracle can occur is you — this book will help place you in the driver's seat. The primary intention of the methodology I introduce is to facilitate your own power. Having said that, the Energetic Fertility Method is based on the premise that everything is energy — your physical body, your thoughts, other peoples' bodies and ideas, the trees you see outside, the birds that chirp, the cup of tea in your hands and the electronics you use. Without energy, nothing would exist. The good news is you can harness that energy. You can direct it, and I am going to teach you how to do so, bringing you into wholeness for yourself and for your future child.

Very often energy gets stuck, becomes stagnant or leaves an energetic residue, which can affect fertility. Think about how a dam works. Imagine that the water is like the energy in your body and the dam represents things that cause that energy to become stuck. A dam must have a gate and a way to remove everything that contributes to the block, thus allowing the water to flow into the spillway. EFM is similar to the gate in a dam; it helps you address the stagnant energy to get it moving. In order to bring in a baby, you want and need your energy to flow optimally — for yourself and the new life you are creating.

What causes energy to stagnate? In my practice I have seen many issues that contribute to this: unresolved grief or anger regarding a past miscarriage or pregnancy termination; childhood trauma; unsettled issues with a parent or grandparent; the loss of a loved one; our own and others' expectations, frustrations and judgments of what the journey towards motherhood ought to look like; fears around getting pregnant, being a parent, and the responsibilities that this entails. Throughout this book you will learn more about what types of things can end up being energetic baggage and can create blocks to pregnancy. Some of these you might be aware of while others will be a surprise.

Have you ever considered that what happened to you in utero could affect your ability to have your own baby? What about how you relate to your body? Do you treat your body like a best friend, an acquaintance or a nemesis? Have you considered that your past intimate relationships could affect your ability to have a child? When we are intimate with others, we share energy. If we don't move this energy out of our space, it stays put and can hinder our child-making abilities.

But how do we know where our own energy begins and ends?

Energetic Space

Scientists agree that all living beings emit electromagnetic radiation. For humans, this pulsating field is like an envelope of energy surrounding each of us. It's your sacred space and is the container for your vitality and essence, your energy skin or personal energetic boundary. Some people call this the aura. It contains information about your general nature, personality and moods. Have you ever been around someone who was angry or depressed and then you started feeling awful? Have you ever been around someone who was happy, vibrant and enjoyed life, and then you felt more positive? In both of these examples, you were feeling the effects of the other person's energetic space.