Our awakening: Phoebe's Story
A journal by Megan Sheppard

PART TWO

Megan Sheppard takes us on an honest journey of her experience of losing her third baby in utero. Her story was shared on the Natural Parenting forums and Part one of this series was published in the Summer 2006 issue of Natural Parenting Magazine.


09/04/2006
Still hanging in there, I'm thinking somewhere in the next couple of weeks ... have got everything set up in our room for a quick and easy home birth. As hard as I tried, the thought of a hospital birth just doesn’t sit well with me and I know that stress is not conducive to an easy straightforward birth. My midwives have assured me that if anyone can do it at home with absolutely no problems then I can! The hospital kept referring to me as a high-risk and discussing all the things that could go wrong, talking about blood transfusions and infections, and I just thought what a load of crap - I'm not subscribing to that, and I actually have no signs whatsoever of being at risk for anything that they are talking about (retained placenta, post-partum haemorrhage). I am definitely a 'cross that bridge when we come to it' girl, not a 'hope for the worst and you can only be right or better off' kind of girl! My biggest concession was getting ambulance cover.


01/05/2006
Hi - not much to report here yet. We have shifted to Kalamunda and feel really settled already - for some reason, as lovely and interesting as our last place in North Fremantle was, we never felt settled in our old house. Because we are so far away we have been assigned yet another new midwife. I have met her - she is from NZ, which is kind of cool for us, and she seems like a nice and open person which is good.

On Friday I had a session with an intuitive healer and it really blew me away. She had a good chat with Phoebe who was a fiery ball of rage and pretty much yelled the whole time. The healer was quite shocked and said in over 10,000 readings during the past 13 years she has never encountered anyone quite like Phoebe - her determination and strength was only surpassed by her intense anger! She was angry with me too. Apparently she has been here before and I completely ignored her, so this is the second time she has come through to sacrifice her chance at life for me and she’s going to be furious if she has to go through it a third time. So by this stage I am listening with both ears wide open. She said that she has been a part of my life and previous lives forever, she has always been close to me, and that she has come (as she did last time) to set me on track and ensure that I bite the bullet and become an active participant in my own life instead of a spectator.

She tells me I need to ground myself (so true) and stop creating illusions and half doing everything. I need to throw myself into life and (a direct quote) "Mum needs to find her mission and stick with it, not turn left, not turn right, only full-steam ahead". She also is having trouble leaving for personal reasons - she really wants to stay and live, but she knows she is dying and that it is necessary for her to be a sacrifice so that I can make these changes to my life. Phew! Lots of other stuff too, but that is the basic gist of it. To cut a long story short, Phoebe was happy at the outcome of the reading/session and feels confident that I will start truly living my life as I am supposed to. She said at the end "I am now one day closer to my death, and I am happy". The whole thing was truly intense and the best thing ever, even though that wee girl had some really harsh words to say. I explained to the healer that subtlety is lost on me and that for any message to get through it would have to be driven by a sledgehammer. And Phoebe is obviously well aware of this! I was not at all offended and actually appreciated her deeper understanding of me, and her no-nonsense approach.

So that is the closest that I have to an update for now. We do have a visit from the new midwife today at 1pm so I will report back if there is no heartbeat.


10/05/2006
Okay - so tomorrow I have reached the 25 week mark. The hospital are still insistent that a homebirth is to risky, but continue to avoid giving me any straight answers. I asked for information as to why it was so crucial that I had a hospital birth, but was fobbed off with the 'high risk' comment again. So we had a kind of stressful weekend because I really didn't know where to turn and just needed more information to make informed decisions. I said all along that I would happily reassess the situation if we reached the "impossible" 24 week mark, but how on earth can we be expected to do that when no one will tell us what is really going on?

Anyhow. Monday a miracle happened. No exciting baby news, but a phone call from a local GP who had heard about our story and wanted to help. A home birthing GP no less! So she clears her Tuesday afternoon appointments and sees us straight away. Listens patiently to the whole story, reads through every detail of the notes that we are allowed (the hospital won't give us any of our information/file or let us see it for that matter), and then says that she is happy to liaise with the hospital and find out what reasons they are giving. I am elated because I know that they attach more credibility to a GP than a home birth midwife, and as a mere pregnant woman I am at the bottom of the food chain! So she rings up straight away (bless her - how awesome is that!) and gets all the information that we need and then rings me straight away to pass it on and discuss it all with me.

To cut a long story short, their concerns are due to the fact that as the baby becomes more fluid-filled, so does the placenta. They are concerned about this as it is potentially very problematic and carries a greater risk of being retained. The hospital is also concerned that because the placenta is so large I may not be able to birth it (is it seriously going to be more difficult than birthing a 10lb baby???). Another concern is the fact that Phoebe tends to favour the breech position. If she dies in breech then this will not put enough pressure on the cervix to dilate enough to then birth the hugely distended abdomen and the head. Fair enough. If she dies in transverse (particularly past a few weeks from now - when she will have absorbed most of the amniotic fluid) then she will not be able to be moved into a more favourable position, so a c-section is my only option. Again, fair enough - and again, happy to cross that bridge when we come to it and take appropriate action rather than doing the hospital thing "just in case". Post-Partum Haemorrhage is also a concern given the increased blood supply that my body has in order to help grow and support a baby with a failing circulatory system.

So that's us for now. A bit in limbo. Glad we have ambulance cover. Seriously wondering how on earth this adventure is going to end up! Still, the experience and knowledge gained has been worth the journey so far. If c-section is how it ends then that will take a bit of working through, it is hard to imagine going through the surgery without having a live baby at the end of it all - but again, I trust in the universe to provide what we need when we need it.

By the way, the intuitive healer phoned to see how I was feeling about everything and said that Phoebe needs to tell me that she is doing the best she can as far as dying goes, and that I need to understand that the process has only just begun and it is not an easy task. While achieving things on an energetic level can be done in the blink of an eye, achieving anything physical certainly takes more time. Phoebe let me know that dying is not easy, so I needn't rush her. Patience. Another lesson I need to learn. Interestingly our midwife said on her last visit that she felt that the baby was 'different' somehow, 'weaker'. All very mind opening!

I think I am at the point where I can honestly say that I have no idea what is going on in that womb of mine. Lucky I have total faith in the unknown ...