"The light is round like a ring and we move within its movement."

Inside the light
your soul circles
winding down until it dies out,
growing like the ringing of a bell.

And between dying and being born again
there is so little room, nor is the frontier
so harsh.

The light is round like a ring
and we move within its movement.

from Not Everything is Now by Pablo Neruda


How do I write about the hidden realities of pregnancy? How do I write about the "opposite of birth"? How do I write about that unknown space between life and death?

In this blog I focus on the joy of working with pregnant women, attending their amazing Slow Births, and helping them through their postpartum journeys. But there are other journeys that some must travel. I hear their stories. Now, it's time to start telling some of these stories.

Because so many clients stay in touch with me after their first birth, I'm often one of the first people to hear about the second pregnancy: "I'm signing you up right away this time!" I've even had some phone calls from the bathroom! "Guess what?!"

But, since it's estimated that up to 20% (or more?) of all pregnancies may actually result in miscarriage, I also receive a number of phone calls each month from those same women - as they experience early pregnancy loss. They call me from bathrooms, from cars, from bedrooms.

"I started spotting this afternoon. What does it mean?"
"I just felt such a strong sense of dread that I went to the ultrasound knowing that something was wrong."
"I thought I was 14 weeks, but it stopped growing at 8 weeks."
"They say it was an empty sac, an anembryonic pregnancy. They say it was never a baby."
"I wasn't feeling sick any more, and I just knew."
"I think I'm having a Slow Miscarriage."
"I took the misoprostol and NOTHING HAPPENED. Can't believe it."
"Tennis ball sized things (blood clots) were coming out. I collapsed."
"I'm really struggling."
"It all happened the way it was supposed to. It was sad and awful. But it was even more empowering and incredible than those more negative things."
"I don't really know how to move beyond this sadness."
"We will try again, soon, I hope."


Eight clients have traveled this journey of loss in the past month. One woman is going through her second loss since last October, when she lost twins. Some have gone for a D&C instantly. Some have waited for weeks for everything to happen naturally. One travelled to Ontario and miscarried in her mother's home. No one had a miscarriage that was what she expected. Each story is completely different.

Sometimes, a woman and her partner must travel this journey alone, because the pregnancy loss can happen so early that she's not even seen her doctor or midwife. She doesn't know where to go, what to do. The Early Pregnancy Loss Clinic at BC Women's Hospital offers medical care, support and guidance, and Family Physicians and Counselors can help with the changing emotions that follow miscarriage. But, often, my clients call me because they know I've been through this experience personally, and have gained wisdom from the stories gathered from other women. Each woman knows that I will focus on her alone and listen as she tells her story, listen when she gets angry, and listen when words just won't work any more.

We hold our stories up to the light. We tell our stories to each other. We won't forget.

To start, this is my story. I never had a hard time physically with miscarriage. Both times, everything came away quickly, deeply, with me sitting in a red bath at home. Thankfully, I never bled too much nor too long. The physical aspect did not scare me. It felt right, complete, connected. I healed gently.

But, the first time I miscarried, in March 1986, all I could think was - Where did the lost spirit go? What was the spirit's purpose? Would it ever come back again? Was this its only time here as a physical being? I couldn't get the image of the lost spirit out of my head. I needed some meaning. And I was lost.

My husband couldn't help me. He wanted to help, but his loss was different, more theoretical. I needed stories told by women. I asked women for their stories of pregnancy loss, and heard nothing. It was still a time of whispers - "I hear she lost her baby, poor thing." Only my mother told me her stories of loss, why there were five empty years between my brother and me, and why I had a mental snapshot of her being carried out of our bathroom by large men (another pregnancy loss after a car accident when I was two). Only after I'd heard all her stories was I able to integrate my experience and find understanding.

When I miscarried a second time, in March 1988, while I was still breastfeeding my second baby, I was relieved. Yes, relieved. I admit it. I was so thankful that I wouldn't have to give up precious time with my son, precious time with my daughter. Did this lost spirit come and go just to help me decide that I only wanted two children? I really didn't feel any sense of loss. I looked at guilt and chose not to let it in. The miscarriage felt necessary, right, complete, connected.

Those losses eventually merged with the intense joy of being alive, being able to look up at the sun shining through the trees, knowing that everything is connected. We are all connected.

Now, all these years later, in March 2009, eight women called to tell me their stories of loss. Just like all the women who have come before them, they continue to tell me their stories, so we don't forget. We hold each other up to the light with our stories.

Each telling and retelling makes life feel more real, more exquisitely beautiful for its fragility.

The light is round like a ring
and we move within its movement.

- Jacquie Munro, Vancouver Doula, Slow Birth, Slow Planet

We are not our bodies

We are not our bodies.

As one who lives with birth,
I am at peace sitting at the doorway between life and death,
sitting beside each woman as she discovers the infinite.

At each birth, I must acknowledge that the doorway is open.
I honour it, thinking,
"This may be the day,"
and I am at peace.

I still remember being
in the last few lightning flash moments of labour
with my son,
thinking, with clarity,
"Death is a viable option here.
Perhaps the midwives will consider that."
But they didn't hear my thoughts, and my son
was born
onto my leg, and peed
all over me.
Our laughter seemed to make his wet skin shimmer.

I have been in a room, filled with Sufi women
mourning the loss of a baby
reciting the chapter of Mary
and hearing their chanting
knowing that the root of the word "rahim" means womb
being lifted up by their sounds
that rise and fall like the ocean
that recreate the sound of the beginning of time
the divine feminine
the womb

I wanted that day to last forever.

To our western minds,
how can a day of mourning be so breathtakingly
beautiful?

To our western minds,
how can we accept the knife-edge of pain and ecstacy
that exists in birth?

We are not our bodies.

- Jacquie Munro, Vancouver Doula, Slow Birth, Slow Planet

Van"cool"ver?

I was driving home from visiting clients yesterday, and the CBC radio host was talking to a guest, asking if she lived in Van"cool"ver. It made me laugh, but it also made me think about one of my clients had been talking about her experiences at a Mum's Postpartum Drop-in. The women she had described sounded just a little bit to "cool" for a brand new mum to embrace.

I mean...imagine you're a brand new mum...you've made the first trek out after being trapped in your house by the snow for WEEKS. You've been looking forward to this first drop-in mum's group - "Maybe I'll meet some new friends...and we can go out for coffee...our kids can have fun..." You get your baby tucked into her stroller. You dream about how great it could be as you sweat and grunt and push that stroller through the snow and ice.

Then you arrive, feeling pretty good about yourself. It's the first day of the new class... You look around, still unwrapping your scarf from around your face - and you realize that everyone there looks like they know each other. You realize that you're the "new kid".

Inside jokes are flying back and forth. One mum suggests to the group that they all trek over to the North Shore to take in a "Mum and Babe Snowshoe Trip". "They even have a breastfeeding tent!" Another mum turns and asks if you know any new spelt recipes...

Van"cool"ver is right. And now you've lost all the happy expectant energy that you had...

Now, I know that there's a point in the life of a new mum where things have finally fallen into place, and you can happily head over to Cypress and strap on those snowshoes. That's fantastic! But should you (with your seven month old) be in a newborn drop-in class still? Or, if your talk about snowshoeing is masking your inability to cope, and you still really need the support, could you please spend some time including the new mums in your conversation? Those new mums would really appreciate it.

I have to thank my best friend of 25 years for being that stranger, that veteran mum (her daughter was a whole 5 weeks older than mine), who welcomed me with open arms at my first drop-in. She had just watched my daughter throw up ALL over me (I mean, drenched!), and saw the look on my face. She came right over and said, "Would you like to come over to my place for tea and muffins afterwards?" Her invitation made me smile, so I just grabbed a receiving blanket, and mopped up the mess without a bother.

My mum's group got me through many months of struggle. We started out as a diverse bunch of strangers, and then became friends. The veteran mums told me to turn on the fan over the stove - great white noise to help the baby sleep. They helped me negotiate the emotions of those first few months. They'd come over to my house, and we'd sit on the kitchen floor, watch our babies learn to roll over each other, and burst into tears at random points - but it would be okay....better than okay...it would be wonderful. We graduated from the mum's group when it was the right time to go, and organized our own group play-dates for another few years.

So, to the new mums who didn't take notice of that new mum in the corner, didn't notice that she'd been really courageous that day, didn't notice her personal feeling of triumph after making it through the snow to her first mum's group...please say "Hi" to her next time - she's quite amazing! I was her doula, and she was powerful in labour, and is a wonderful mum. She's just not ready for baby snowshoeing or spelt...yet.

"The Assumption of the Virgin"

Birth and death are inextricably linked.

Though Mary, after death, is spiraling upwards into the divine light, there is such a feeling of joy and birth in this painting.

When I was in labour with my son, there was a moment when I felt the door between life and death was wide open. It was such an indescribably beautiful feeling.

Four years later, when I asked my son where we go after we die, he answered, "Silly, just where I came from!"

In memory of the students at Virginia Tech...

“I know the heart of life is good…”

"Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
Fear is a friend who's misunderstood
but I know the heart of life is good..."

I don't think John Mayer was thinking about birth when he wrote this song. But I played it over and over again on my drive home from a beautiful birth last night.

Why was this the song I needed to hear after such a joyous and swift birth? I just knew that this was going to be a powerful week. There was going to be sadness to balance the joy. I could feel the phone call coming...

“Is it normal if you don't feel the baby move at 17 weeks?”

And to think I bought the book about Spirit Babies just the other day. I’d been already preparing for this phone call.

Then, this morning, an email came from another wonderful, powerful woman, spilling over with loss and fear…

The Spirit Babies book was at my left hand, waiting for me to pick it up.

Later that morning, my pager vibrated as I sat having tea with another amazing woman, nursing her five-month old baby, finally shaking free of the fog of postpartum. I made a quick phone call.

A quiet voice on the phone confirmed last night’s fears. My memory flashed to images of her first birth, where she was strong, singing mystic songs in labour. She leaned over a bed, holding onto a desert herb, the kaff Maryam, or "Mary's Palm." According to Arab tradition, the Virgin Mary clutched this herb in her hand while "suffering in childbirth", its branches unfolding as her labour progressed.

On some days, when I’m working with clients, we skim the surface of life, talking about the technicalities of birth, what to expect, our biology, logistics…

But on other days, we’re almost forced to delve deep into the spiritual meaning of this thing called “birth.”

Today, I made phone calls, sent emails, and searched for meaning like someone in the desert searches for water. I need the kaff Maryam in my hand…so I can help these women through the challenges of this week.

Just as I had read the book on Spirit Babies only yesterday, then attended a joy-filled birth, before the new week began to unfold… we are all given the tools to deal with these challenges in advance – miraculously. Our hearts just need to be open enough to hear the lessons as they arrive, to make sense of it all, and to remember that “the heart of life is good.”