All journeys of healing begin with self-examination. In this process, we usually ask a similar set of questions as to why, how, and what occurred in the past that led us into a current state of being unwell. The symptom, after all, is a branch of our complete being; what is most essential is the entire tree and the health of the root.
When we talk about fertility, we are speaking about more than an individual’s journey. An individual is like a branch that is connected to other branches and grounded through the trunk and the roots of our collective consciousness on Earth. Each symptom opens a window for introspection and healing. As we individually do the work of healing, we simultaneously heal past and future generations, wounds in our cultures, and our relationship to the numinous. I’ve worked as a healer for two decades, and what I have found in that time is that the most powerful example of this window into healing occurs within fertility.
Human beings are stewards of the Earth. Many traditions on the planet also say that we were made in the image of God and that our responsibility is greater than that of other living beings because of this likeness. For so many of us, consciousness is a heavy crown. It is easy to look back at failed attempts made by groups of the past who tried to create new ways of living in harmony with the Earth. Many of the collective living models championed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated compassion, environmentalism, and collective creation failed miserably when put to the test. Religious communities often sacrifice the happiness and expression of the individual to create a more unified and harmonized group. Politics is in a perpetual duel. The left battles the right and the right battles the left, when all the while it’s the people in the middle who suffer and are lost.
But this doesn’t have to be the case. We continue to learn from our mistakes. We must pass through failed models of religion, politics, and economics in order to truly learn what works and what doesn’t. Although it might not be obvious, things on Earth are getting better—but that doesn’t mean that any of us can sit back and rest. If anything, we have to work harder than ever.
A few years ago, I went on a spiritual pilgrimage to the rain forest of Costa Rica. It was the longest amount of time I had been away from my daughter, and it was emotionally very difficult. I was anxious and fearful that she would be vulnerable without my presence and that something bad might happen to her without me close by. I realized that time away from the people I’m most attached to was essential for my growth. I was reminded of the primary relationship that we explored in Chapter 4: the one between me and the universe. I remembered that the people whom we are tied to through love and spirit are always with us, even through distance, death, and time. I could love my daughter and my husband more honestly, more deeply, when I let go of my attachments and viewed them without the filters of conditionality.
Sitting next to the fire under the moon in one of the last great biodiverse places on Earth, the healer I had traveled to study under asked me why I did the work of fertility. “I care about women having healthy pregnancies and healthy children,” I responded.
“Yes, but what’s beyond that?” she asked.
“I care about consciousness and healing,” I said.
Still one more time, she asked, “Why do you do the work you do?”
Several sets of eyes were on me as my own began to tear. I exhaled and said, “I have to keep helping the good come into the world, because there is so much bad just waiting to take over. When a child is born through consciousness and love, they help tip the scales to the light.”
As much as I am meant to be a mother and a partner in this lifetime, these relationships are only extensions of my soul’s purpose and path. I identify as my daughter’s mother, but this identity is representative of something timeless between her soul and mine. I have faith that the soul work that she and I accomplish independently in this lifetime is more important than our personal relationship. Before she was born, I thought that the shift into being a mother would somehow change me. And it did, but not in the way that I thought. Becoming a parent is never what you think it will be. If anything, it is an opportunity to be spiritually initiated, to pass through the systems that worked in the past but have since become irrelevant. The tighter you hold on to the old ways, the old you, the longer the transformation takes. Like the Earth, we are constantly evolving, and the only thing certain is change.
I see each of us as spiritual beings. And I see each of us as powerful manifestors who have traded in these abilities for the comfort of knowing. And while it is true that knowing is a great tool for defending and planning for the future, the future still comes regardless of what you comprehend and how well you comprehend it. Strengthening the spirit is the best practice for preparing for the future. A spirit that is nurtured when life is balanced and calm is ready for the times of chaos and turbulence.
I offer this statement to the reader who has suffered through the long and toilsome fertility journey. The depth of self-knowledge that is gained in the waiting, in the fertility treatments themselves, in the self-doubt and despair, powerfully strengthens your spirit, eternally. The greatest danger that threatens this hard-earned wisdom comes in the form of loss of faith, love, and hope. While I have offered several tools in this book to help protect your spirit, ultimately it is your own courage that matters most. Digging deep to abolish the despair along your path requires you to keep dreaming and keep believing that better days will come. This might sometimes seem impossible, but look around. We all share the vision on Earth that someday it, too, will be better. If we didn’t believe this, even unconsciously, none of us would continue to work as hard as we do or love as deeply.
When individuals radically heal their life, everyone around them is impacted. The same is inversely true when someone takes his or her own life. The dynamic power of healing radiates outward and reveals a path that others who might not think themselves capable of healing can follow. I have seen entire families healed by the birth of one child, but the path of spiritual fertility is about far more than conceiving or the choice to become a parent. The life that we live is a model for others, including friends and family, our children and future children, and our grandchildren.
I’ve spoken throughout this book about collective consciousness. As much as I am an advocate of the individual, I think our untapped power on Earth will be accessed when each and every one of us has the opportunity and experience of individuation. Individuality is the cornerstone of modern economics, marketing, and media—and although we have platforms to express ourselves to the world regardless of location, age, or nationality, many on the planet are still limited by poverty, sexual expression, and war. People, especially those of us who have been privileged to be free, are beginning to recognize that individual freedom can only take us so far. Without a greater connection to our community, and in an environment where many of us are not granted the same opportunities, our growth remains atrophied. When we stress individuality over community, we remain isolated and unaware of our full capacity to love and be loved.
“I want my greatest achievement to be the children I have raised,” said my dear friend and accomplished colleague, Dr. Jennifer Ashby, with whom I met at an international fertility conference as I was writing this section of the book.
“Yes,” I responded, “but you raise your children to be individuals of service. You raise them to be aware of the collective consciousness of Earth.”
“I do, but what’s the alternative?” Jennifer asked.
“I think most people raise children to be an extension of themselves,” I replied. “They expect their kids to pick up where they left off or finish the achievements they never did.”
What if we began conceiving and raising children not only for ourselves but for humanity? What would it look like if we supported one another through pregnancy and the raising of children because we recognized the power of the collective instead of only the power and desire of the individual?
If you recall Kate’s story in Chapter 5, her struggle with the choice to have a child or save the planet almost kept her from becoming a mother—but she discovered that it did not have to be that way. Kate found that her passion and mission to protect the Earth was intertwined with a deep respect for motherhood itself. When we bring consciousness and spiritual practice into conception and parenthood, we build the infrastructure for human beings to be sovereign and unique, while also understanding that they are not alone and that they are an integral part of something far greater. I have learned this by watching the children whom I have helped bring to Earth, as they grow and thrive. They are each beautiful and radiant in their energy. The love and consciousness from which they were born has engendered in them something dynamic and powerful. However, it shouldn’t be that only some children have access to this support. Everyone, especially those who are the most disadvantaged on the planet as well as the ones who cannot ask for advocacy, should not be expected to give voice to their suffering. When a person is a victim of their family and their culture, we have a duty to step in and offer help, even if it is not requested.
Years ago, as I mentioned in an earlier chapter, I did a residency on a labor and delivery floor at a busy hospital in Shanghai. I arrived late Sunday night on a direct flight from New York City and barely slept before my first morning at the hospital. I was with a small group of doctors, and our translator, who was supposed to meet us at the hospital, was late. Hospitals are publicly run in China, and the high population means that they are also very crowded.
I put on scrubs, washed my hands, and walked into a large triage room with 16 laboring women all in different stages of labor. We joined the doctor on call for rounds as, in broken English, he quickly explained each patient’s condition. In the back right corner, a beautiful young woman was breathing heavily yet rhythmically, with her eyes closed.
“She’s almost in transition,” the doctor said.
As we continued, I noticed a patient who was crying and visibly upset. She appeared to be six months pregnant. Concerned for her health, I asked the doctor about her condition.
“This is a chemical abortion,” he replied coldly and moved on.
Confused and overwhelmed, we were ushered into a long hallway, where we sat. Not much time passed before both of the women I mentioned were simultaneously wheeled out of the triage room and into the main delivery room down the hall. In China and many places in the world, the concept of a private delivery suite is unheard of. This room was very warm and had enough space for several laboring women at a time. It was staffed by nurses, a midwife, and a medical doctor. Between the jet lag and the culture shock, everything felt unreal that morning. And as I observed a perfectly healthy and beautiful baby boy born to the stoic and brave young woman, I concurrently observed, just four or five feet away, the medically induced stillbirth of a baby girl. Neither woman seemed to acknowledge the other, and it was all business as usual to the medical staff. But for me, the juxtaposition of these two births was deeply moving.
Later, the translator arrived and I asked him to find out why the termination had taken place, expecting a medical reason to be the cause. “Family politics,” he told me with a sigh. “She did not want the abortion.”
For many people on the planet, the choice of reproductive freedom is not much of a choice at all. “Family politics” for the woman in despair was code for the fact that a girl child was not wanted by her family, and that without the support of her family, she had no option for raising a child on her own. She had no choice, nor any spiritual or psychological support.
I share this story because it is one of the events of my life that has most impacted the way I practice fertility medicine. And while it describes a story that many would consider sad, I share it because things are actually getting better on this planet. The repression of women that long went unspoken within society has now been brought to light, and the transgressors who were once safe in the shadows are no longer able to remain unknown. While I work tirelessly to help each of my patients heal trauma and blockages, and to connect with the spirits of their children, I also do my best to remind each of them that our individual actions and beliefs impact the collective. I teach that exercising an ethic of compassion, nonjudgment, and service to others—especially those who are suffering—is an essential step in healing their own individual fertility.
We are far more connected than we acknowledge. What happens on the other side of the world, regardless if we are aware or not, impacts us. The “heaven” of cheap goods and clothing at your local mall is the “hell” of a child laborer in Asia. The hell of a forced termination and the impact on a woman’s soul is felt everywhere, especially by the most empathetic among us.
We have to start caring about more than ourselves, our immediate family, and our own children. The path of spiritual fertility will help you to conceive and will connect you to your child’s spirit, but it will also lead you to another type of conception of consciousness, one that I encourage you to share with the world. What you discover about your unique relationship to the universe is a piece of the grand puzzle—and a very important one, at that. Nourish it and continue to practice the steps of this book, long after your child is born.
This book is my transmission to you. It is the piece of the puzzle that I found as I made my way back to belief while helping children to be born in health, spirit, and consciousness. I have faith in your intuitive wisdom, and I am eternally, as I often tell my patients, on your side.