Endangered

Okay, so I have a crazy thing for anthropomorphizing animals and projecting my own skewed-by-loss maternal yearnings onto their behaviours. (This is just one of the many and obscure ways in which my brain has become its own peculiar version of twisted as a result of loss and trying and infertility and loss. What does animal reproduction and parenting have to do with my own experience? How do I manage to take the most random scenarios and find in them a reminder of what my body can't do, or do only badly? How can I feel I understand anything of their animal experiences of death or grieving or maternity? Crazy talk.)

When I read that Washington Zoo's panda Mei Xiang gave birth this week to a surprise, stillborn twin to her healthy delivery, it hurt my heart a little. And when I read that she groomed her dead baby for 17 minutes before relinquishing it to keepers for an autopsy, not only did I cry; I felt I got it, a little.

Mei Xiang, who was impregnated via insemination, gave birth to another baby last year that lived for six days. This was her second loss.

Giant pandas are an endangered species, so that's a big deal.

Sometimes - back in the world of human reproduction - knowing all the stories I do and all the things that can go wrong, I wonder how healthy pregnancies ever progress, how babies ever get born and grow into children. It's inexplicable to me. They all seem like endangered species.

Parallels. Source

Travel essentials and learning to let go

Ordnance survey maps marking the trail we've laid out: check

Guidebook for exploring small villages and historic points of interest encountered along the way: check

Nuts and dried fruits as energy-supplying provisions for the trail: check

Sunglasses for keeping out the glare of this unusually, sublimely sunny summer day: check

Daypack: check

Mobile phone: check

Ovulation test for surreptitious use in whatever public bathroom might be encountered en route (purpose obvious): check

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Yesterday, on what has surely been one of the warmest, loveliest days of that mythical beast that is the English summer, H and I decided on an impromptu away day. I was getting myself in a knot about job prospects and baby making and The Future and how they all fit together. None of which will find any resolution through my worrying; so okay, why not get outside my own head for a while? And what a wise suggestion H's was. We went here:

Starting the hike

Through the perfect sunny day we walked twelve kilometres, keeping the sea on our right and the gentle rolling farm fields to our left. And the sun shone and warmed our stiffened bones and the soft sea breeze blew up from the coast, cooling us down and emptying our heads of all their anxious contents. After the first few kilometres our feet began to tingle with that pleasant ache. It was a day full of small gifts. We foraged marsh samphire that will become tonight's dinner. At a bird sanctuary near our final destination we were lucky enough to see not only puffins (I've always wanted to see wild puffins), but dolphins and even a glimpse of a whale.

It was one of those rare, random days of utter bliss. I felt insignificant and calm and very, very fortunate. I felt deep gratitude. As always in such surroundings, I felt very close to S, as though his presence was everywhere, interwoven with the warmth of the sun and the vibrant colours of the wildflowers and the lapping of the waves.

And with all this filling my heart and my lungs and my head, I didn't think of appointments or interviews once. It's hard to when you have views like this:

Starting to feel the burn

We encountered one beautiful, secluded cove...

...after another...

...after another.

Here be pirates!: Smuggler's Cove

Whenever I see one of these, I think of S

Lunch time: a bench with a view

Unlike it's cousin the public footpath, the one on the right will let you eat chocolate cake for breakfast and stay up past your bedtime

The trail

Friendly faces along the way.

A well-earned rest

The end!

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So much of life is about learning to let go, and we often assume that this process can only be a painful one; that letting go is tantamount to quitting.

But there are so many ways in which this process is brave and fertile and creative and healing. Letting go of expectation to make room for possibility. Letting go of fear to make room for hope. It's an expansive gesture about flinging your arms wide open to receive whatever the universe has in store. 

The entire journey of grieving the loss of S has been one of letting go for me: letting go of the grief/rage to make room for the grief/love. Letting go of the dreams I had for him as a child who would grown as our family did, to make room for an acceptance of the fact that while he'll never grown physically, he's become a part of our family in ways we never imagined; his brief life a source of inspiration, a reconnection to the spiritual and the magical in life.

It's never an easy process and I don't have any answers as to how it can or should happen. But I do know that when all those why?why?how?when? questions are running circles in my brain, building into ever tighter coils of tension until I lose sight of any of the reasons for why I am seeking something in the first place, there is no better antidote than to leave myself for a bit, to place myself in something much bigger, that makes me and my problems feel small, the worrying seem futile. That makes me breath deeper and just know: things are unfolding as they will. And yes, you are going to be ok. 

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On Monday afternoon, after discussing it with H and allowing your gentle support and encouragement to rest with me, I emailed the organization who offered me the interview. I explained that I had a prior, unavoidable appointment which had been scheduled well in advance and which would prevent me from attending the time they had initially set, and wondered whether we could discuss alternate times/dates for the meeting. Then we went on our walk, getting up very early yesterday morning to catch the sun and then, (partly because we wanted to preserve the natural endorphin high of the day and partly [ahem!] because that ovulation test came back positive) we went straight to bed on our return. As of writing this morning, they still haven't come back to me, either to say they're not amenable or that they're looking into it. Although it would have been nice (and one would have thought professional) to receive an acknowledgement either way, I'm hoping that silence means it's the latter.

But for right now, I'm going to keep the spirit of those turquoise waters and crashing waves with me. I have to keep learning to let go of the things that I can't change, in order to make room for all the good that I don't even realize can happen yet. And I can think of no better place to do that (metaphorically or otherwise), than such paradisaical surroundings that remind me in the simplest and deepest possible ways just why it is I keep trying at all. Whether or not I can accurately predict what it is right now, something good is on it's way. I'm continuing to let go so that I can make room for a recognition of how much more there is out there, and the belief that I belong in that more and better as much as anyone.   

Empathy for the seals (Or, how I narcissistically connect everything to my reproductive challenges)

So I'm back from my travels. I've missed and look forward to catching up on all your news, but I must say, it's been good to have time away from screens of any kind. Away from any thoughts related to my reproductive system, babies, or lack thereof. Well, almost any thoughts.

And just like that, it's now officially spring (and the start of another year in my life); but here in the UK we've been hit with a gust of glacial temperatures and snow the like of which I've not seen in all my years of association with these isles. Of course as a Canadian, I find all the hoopla faintly humorous, (it's really just a few inches people), but the fact is they are simply not equipped to deal with snow of any real quantity here.  

Anyway, the weather made for a very atmospheric experience of the beautiful and forlorn Northumberland coast, where we hiked the coastal path last week. It seemed to evoke the history of the peoples that built the magnificent castles and abbeys studded along the beaches, conjuring the mournful Gaelic tunes which lie deep within the heritage I inherit on my mother's side.

And speaking of my mother, the long walks in conditions not conducive to extended conversations provided other hidden benefit besides atmosphere.

Here's the thing: H and I spend so much time together, and even, because of the nature of our work, away from others, that it's easy for me to forget the casual way in which  patronizing and wildly unrealistic 'helpful' comments about the state of our childlessness, the things we should do to change (or my favourite, accept) that state, and even the ways we should grieve our son, can so easily be tossed around by those who don't understand the life-altering depth of the infertility and loss experience. As such, my skills at deflecting these comments, at placing protective boundaries, are not as finely honed as they might be. It's worth noting though how tiring it can be to stay 'up' all the time for the benefit of others who can't and don't understand, and who worry for you because they probably think your behaviour is well beyond the margins of normal coping. Because man, as much as I love my mother, is it tiring. And so isolating.

I know all mother/daughter relationships are fraught, with or without the challenges and uncertainties and feelings of inadequacy that come with infertility and loss. But in moments like those last week, I was reminded of the inevitable divide, the very natural inabilities to relate (on both sides), that have developed as the space between our respective journeys to motherhood widens.

But having said that, the time outdoors was wonderful and invigorating and calming, as it always is for me.

Aside from the gorgeous views, all the freshly caught crab we could eat in cosy pubs along the way, and the soothing sound of the waves, what did we encounter on our hiking expedition? While walking along the coastal path to one of the aforementioned castle ruins (pictured below), we came across a scene that nearly broke my heart. A beautiful seal pup, clearly not more than a few weeks old, had been washed ashore by the violent waves. He was deposited a very long way from the water's edge, his mother nowhere in sight, and had suffered an injury to his eye, which was heavily swollen shut and releasing a sickly looking fluid. He kept lifting his little flapper to shield and sooth the eye, while annoying hikers who I would have liked to beat chase away with a stick wanted to come and 'pet' him. Apparently, under severe weather conditions, this is not unheard of. I couldn't bear the thought of this little guy floundering, in need of care, so far from his natural habitat, or of his mother, out there in the waves, lamenting his loss. Big, fat missing-my-son, longing-for-a-living-baby tears threatened as I imagined this. Go on, tell me I'm anthropomorphizing creatures whose reality in the natural world is a brutal one. I already know.

As soon as we reached the nearest car park, we put a call in to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who were listed as the contact point in case of discovery of a sick or injured seal. (Why no Parks Warden, I don't know). Five telephone calls - from the RSPCA (who said they couldn't help because by the time we finally got through to their call centre they couldn't be sure of the pup's exact location anymore - thank you RSPCA!), to the National Seal Rescue to the Scarborough Sealife Centre to British Sea Divers' Mammal Rescue - and many angst-ridden hours later, I finally got through to someone who agreed to send out a scout who would locate and treat the seal pup. So back in my flat and already re-packing for my urban idyll, I had only to hope this story ended as happily as other, reassuring but even more surprising cases of seal pup rescue. I hope they found that little guy and got him back to the water. I can even dream that he was reunited with his mother.

On reflection, I don't know what worried me more about this episode though: the thought of this lonesome baby seal suffering far from the care of its mother, or the fact that I sometimes now find it easier to empathize with and relate to the predicaments of a seal mama and baby than relate to my own (human) family.

A glimpse of H and I, pre-seal discovery