3 and 1/2 years ago I went through an IVF attempt, but I had to stop as my ovaries reacted very strongly to the drugs. Unfortunately that spelt the end of our real hopes to have our own baby. At the time I cried a few times but than I told myself that I would not be one of those women who goes "mad" because they cannot have a baby. And that was the end of it. My husband is not very comfortable expressing his emotions and I felt that I could not express mine with him without him getting angry with me. So I guess I unconsciously decided to close up my emotions about this.

 It is now the right time to face this as it has come up with EFT and I have realised there is so much sadness, grief, loss.....It was going to be a baby girl, or at least this is what we were secretely hoping for and now I am grieving her loss even if she has never existed. The intensity of the emotions is so strong that she might as well have been a baby who died. I feel like a mum, I would have been a good mum and I just would like to hold my baby and give her all my love.

 Could anyone help me at all if they have had a similar experience or can somebody help me with some suggestions with tapping or links to tap along videos or audios for this kind of issues?

I feel that this might be the cause of some physical problems I have been having for a while and I hope that by working on this, the physical problems might go away.

I always wanted to be a mum all my life.

Herbiecat

This is a very poignant post and one that I am very sure many women will identify with and I am sure you will get support from others as well.

Although I do have two beautiful strong sons, I had 5 early miscarriages and never got the daughter I longed for. I have no hope of one now either because of a rather rash decision I made after I finally conceived, believing I could never survive another miscarriage emotionally at the time.  When once I mentioned to a therapist I grieved the loss of a baby girl I was told very abruptly to be grateful for what I had, many women didn't even have what I had.  I suspect perhaps in retrospect I touched a nerve for her and that was her issue not mine, but it did shut me up.

It is just recently that I have got in touch with my grief for these babies.  To many an early miscarriage is a normal event, but when your entire 24/7 365 days a year thought is to get pregnant then there are so many hopes and dreams attached to that.  I think IVF is getting your body ready for pregnancy in the same way and failed attemps are emotionally and energetically the same as a lost child.

It sounds like the time has come where you are ready to face this loss. This is real grief and can be dealt with as any grief or loss.

www.griefismourningsickness.com has a resource that may be helpful but in my own case I just tapped while I expressed these feelings and visualised my babies.  I tapped until i saw them, their faces were like little faces in a rose, floating around and when I think of them, they are still there, smiling and gurgling.  I see them and they are mine!

I am not so great at providing formulas as my work with clients is very fluid and following their lead or my intution, but my intuition here is suggesting to imagine this baby and tap for all the feelings that come up and talk to it and make peace with her.

I know you do this with your inner child work so I think it will be possible for you to do it this way.

Hugs

Gill

Gill

 thank you for your support, it really made me feel like you understood the way I was.

I have done tapping on my baby girl and I was holding her and caressing her and crying and tapping. My mum told me something that made me feel very warm inside...she said that maybe my little baby girl is with my grandparents (who passed away a few years ago). It felt so right! I completely trust them and if she cannot be with me for the time being I wouldn't trust anyone anymore than my granny and grandad to look after her the way they loved and looked after me when I was a child. So they are all in my heart and I am carrying them with me all the time.

After this more came up and I had to start tapping for the lack of emotional support that I got from my husband during the IVF. I guess he was scared and really wanted the baby too, but his natural reaction to very emotional issues is anger as he is not very good in the "feeling" department. I know he really loves me, but then he could not help me at all, actually he added to the hurt a huge amount. I have now tapped for this, but I am not sure I am done with it yet, I might have to tap more. The thing is that I think and hope that I am getting nearer the core issue that causes me these tummy aches that remind me of when I over-reacted to the IVF drugs. I got tested and tested by doctors and gynecologists and it looks as my reproductive system and organs are perfectly ok, so I am assuming the pain comes from this unresolved problem.

I have been tapping for months about different things in order to clear this, without finding the core issue, but the good thing is that, in the process of doing so, I must have cleared other trees and this is all positive.

The other day I was reading the Louise Hay book "You can heal your life" and I was in front of the mirror telling myself that I was ready to change. Even if  I could say this quite easily, I sensed some blockage and some negative thoughts about this, so I thought that I must be psycologically reversed. I have started to do some work on this and I hope this will help too.

There is so much going on at the moment and I just feel really overwhealmed. Could anyone who feels like it reassure me a bit and tell me if they think I am on the right track?

I want to thank everybody who has been replying to all my messages or even the people who have been reading them.

Lots of love

Herbiecat

I am glad it was helpful advice.  I cannot presume that I understand your exact situation as my own was different in many ways but I do understand some of the deep emotions involved.

I also had to work on how my husband was at this time, I perceived a lack of understanding and support, but he was a young man and he was terrified.  I was not the girl he had married who declared beforehand she did not want children, and very soon turned into a baby obsessed hormonal wreck, with feelings she did not understand never mind him.

It has been very eye opening for me to work with male clients on their grief over miscarried babies or infertility.  It is as deep and strong as a womans but they have the added burden of the mantra' big boys don't cry!' drilled into them as babies, and the feeling that they should be able to look after us and in this instant they can't, they also feel failures, inadequate, grief stricken and desperate.

The trick in this work is once you have tapped on your feelings of your husbands perceived lack of support, tune into what you believe he was feeling at the time and tap for that, as if you were him.  You will be astounded at what comes up and it will really open up the lines of understanding, I predict.  I believe in these situations once we understand and gain compassion for the others point of view, forgiveness is not necessary.

The loss of a baby, and in this case hope of a baby,  is one of the most painful things a couple can go through and it is one of the most challenging situations for relationships as each partner tries to cope in their own way, and in general burying feelings which seem to difficult or painful to deal with, which does make it feel a very lonely situation.  

I read an interesting book called Men and Depression and discovered from that when men are depressed, rather than feel sadness and tearful as woman can and do, they feel it as anger. There are many reasons for this, but it is helpful to remember that underneath anger is often fear and powerlessness, vulnerability.  

It is my experience time and time again that when I or my clients resolve our own issues about an energetic relationship conflict we are carrying from the past the whole energy of the relationship shifts.

One more point though I would like to mention.  I think sometimes we latch on to the idea that there is a 'CORE' issue and look for it almost like the Holy Grail as if once found everything will fall into place.

As well as Garys metaphor of forest and trees another very helpful one from the DVD's are our Core beliefs or issues are a table top.  What support the table top is legs of evidence, the evidence being the specific events in our life, and in complex issues we have the initial event and then all the consequences of that through our life, so we can have many legs.

Once all the supporting legs have been removed there is nothing to hold the table top up and the issue collapses.  So from that point of view I would like to encourage you that none of the work you have done until now is a waste of time, and in fact its because of the work you have done you have reached this point.

Being aware of our own blocks to success and limiting beliefs is also great progress, you are starting to be very self aware and that is a good thing.

Gill

I believe I understand your feelings of loss and grief and anger. I am the mother of two adopted-at-birth children. I remember going places and seeing kids everywhere and even seeing one mother severely punishing her kid and thinking "she doesn't deserve to have a child" and going to the zoo was a big mistake-- there were families everywhere...where was ours? What seemed so natural and easy for everyone else was impossible for us...it was maddening and sad. Going through infertility treatments can be painful, humiliating, and full of disappointment and false hopes. I believe that it would be helpful for you to write down any and all emotions you can think of and work through them with EFT. This is going to take time along with the realization that the feeling of loss may be something that lingers or reoccurs. My two children turned out to be special needs kids and now when my friends children are going off to college and getting jobs, driving etc. I experience the loss all over again. Maybe you can still be a mum. You may also want to try EFT for infertility if it is something you can be an observer to and not too invested in. I'm sure you know your alternatives to having your own child as well. I doubt that its ever the same. I don't see family members in my children they don't look like us, or have the same interests or talents though there are many things that we have been able to share. It has been an enriching as well as challenging endeavor being a parent...there are no "days off." We can't always forsee what path our lives are going to take. I try to remember to "bloom where I am planted" and I know that my unborn children would want me to also. Peace.

Dear Nancy

Thank you for your input and personal feelings. A few years ago I thougth I wanted to adopt, but my husband felt that most of the children you adopt (in UK) end up being emotionally damaged or special needs and, to be perfectly honest with you, we didn't feel we had the emotional strength for this. We keep saying that we should look at the positive aspects of not having children like having more free time and more money to spend on ourselves. This is all very true and nice, but I think  that Mother Nature takes over sometimes, as it is not so easy to ignore these very natural feelings. Nowadays most of the time I do not even think about this, but sometimes it comes up very strongly and this is why I think I should tackle this with EFT. Also I feel (and hope) that this is the cause of this physical problem that I have now had for nearly a year. Today I am tired and sad and if I could I would just melt into tears in my mother's arms. Sometimes we try so hard!! and maybe sometimes we should just be and listen to what comes up. I do not know.

I understand when you say that the most natural things that happens to everybody cannot happen to you, and I do get extremely angry towards people who get pregnant "by mistake" when they are still in their teens and they really do not want the baby....what a waste, don't they understand how precious a baby can be?? And abortion because they could not be bothered to use contraception...what a waste of life....we would have given these babies so much love and such a good home!!

Sometimes on tv they show adverts for charities for neglected children and they show a couple of stories and I always jokyingly say to my husband: "we will have them!". A joke as I know this would not be possible by law, but not a joke in my heart....

Thank you again for letting me know your story.

Love

Herbiecat

My longed for second child ended up having ADHD, colic, terrible temper tantrums.  He was reflecting my stress and his own birth trauma and also the feelings of being unsafe as I was not emotionally stable when he was a baby.  I didn't have the emotional strength to deal with it and many of the events of his early life and how this impacted on us all, and have had to use EFT over my feelings of regret for this.  My 'easy' first baby was deeply traumatised also and this did not evidence itself until he started having difficulties at school.  

I am not entirely sure there is such a thing as a perfect baby or family.  I am just grateful I found EFT to oil the wheels and work through all the traumas and challenges. 

The biggest myth out there is that being a mother is easy and one we all fall into.  Everyone is always so delighted when we get pregnant because of course a baby is a wonderful thing!  It is rewarding sure but it is also hard work, scary, at times very unrewarding:)  I have just sent to Gary a case study, at my clients explicit request from a young mother who got pregnant after 6 years of trying but was so terrified to lose this baby, and nearly did, she never bonded with it, and still at 5 years old there was no bond and a terrible relationship where she felt her child was hurting her and she knew she was definitely hurting the child, physically and emotionally.  It took alot of work to help her tune into her experience and she was so courageous, by the end of the session her child had crawled into her arms like a baby volunatarily and fallen asleep.  This had never happened since he was 5 months old.

This was a very much wanted child, and still there was no close bond.  I was able to tune into this client very effectively as I understood exactly what had happened. My son was 6 years old before I fully bonded with him but to do so I had to work through my own birth trauma and the trauma of his birth, before that I might as well have adopted him, it felt such an alien thing to me and even worse because I had bonded so immediately with my first child.  I do not mind people knowing about this as I think it is something that is very important for people to talk about. My belief that I would be happy once I had a child was one that brought me great pain, I was never more depressed after I had him.  Our relationship now is very deep and strong and the more work I do on my guilt and regret the better he gets.

I have often expressed I do not know where my family would have been without EFT and its a great joy for me to work with families and their relationships.

But what I really I love doing is working with people on all their negative beliefs and fears and traumas BEFORE they get pregnant, those mums do not seem to suffer post natal depression and have happier babies, plus they have EFT as a tool.  However many of them couldn't conceive so its almost like this unwanted time turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it forced them to look at their issues and clear trauma that may have adversely affected the baby, who knows. 

Nancy, I just love your expression 'blooming where I am planted' 

We really do not know where our life will go, any of us.  I had always envisioned big family meals around the table and involved grandparents.  Both of my parents who were close by were so very ill they just couldn't be involved, the others were too far away physically and believed we should just get on with it.  I have had as Nancy said, many, many times had to tap on the pain of loss of what could and should have been for my little family, often made more poignant in these situations at farms, zoos, berry farms ect where families all flock en mass, grandparents in tow.  My own fondest memories as a child included my grandparents, zoos, camping, holidays etc. 

However now it seems I am more focused on the future,than the past and we often congratulate ourselves on our "All our own work" family, and observe how fortunate we are in some ways that we never had parents interfering or criticising every move. But every now an then I get mother envy:) and borrow my friends mums!

It seems there is no such thing as a cookie cutter family perhaps.  Its good to observe what pushes our buttons and allow ourselves the space to express this and let it flow through as this allows us to focus on what we do have and what is good rather than what we wish we had.  And its ok and normal to wish for it too!  I have put here a little clip thats on Youtube of Gwyneth Moss working with me and towards the end we did some tapping on 'If only and I wish' on my pain of not having the family I felt I should have had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzUknaDGRUY

I have been told this has been one of the most requested of her DVD's and people have found it helpful.  Maybe the tapping can be helpful for you too.  Although its a bit of a tease, it ends before I tap on the real truth.  The real truth is, I have a wonderful family and my mum did love me! Everyones real truth will be different, but once we tap on the pain, the real truth is there to appreciate!

Hugs

Gill

Dear Gill

Gill Wightman:

My own fondest memories as a child included my grandparents, zoos, camping, holidays etc. 

This really hit a nerve. My granparents, camping holidays, a time (for me) without anxiety and fear of this kind. My maternal granparents where like a second lot of parents to me and I used to adore especially my grandma. I was telling her everything and she always got time for me. I would talk to her about my little boyfriend when my mum did not have the time to listen because she was working long hours. My grandma always seemed to understand. She died 16 years ago and I still miss her and her company. I often think of her as one of my spirit guides/angels and I imagine her protecting me from harm. She would do anything to protect me! And the fond memories of the holidays I had with my parents when we were kids. Dad bought a rubber dingy with engine and we would fly on the water in the sunshine; that was the best feeling I have ever felt and it was so close to freedom!!

Whatched the video on youtube and realised I had seen it before. The intensity of your pain brought tears to my eyes and the BIG protective part of me came out. I know that you are not in that frame of feelings anymore, but I just wanted to be able to absorb all your pain away and blast it in the sky so that nobody could experience it anymore. We are survivers and we are so strong inside to be able to overcome and carry on even after SO much! As you said there is not a perfect family and there is not a perfect life and we are not perfect ourselves, but we can learn and strive to grow and I am sure we will endup, one day, right at the top of that mountain.

I aim high and I am sure that my grandma and my potential baby girl will look at me from wherever they are with pride. Blimey, I am talking big today!!!