Dear Baby Girl

Dear Baby Girl,

Exactly one month ago yesterday it snowed. The moon was waxing, lilac blooming and somewhere, the world's oldest man was preparing to die. It was also the day you left my body. April 13, 2011 we went into surgery together. I was bleeding. They were afraid you might be in my tubes. They said there was no baby. There was no heartbeat. But we went into surgery together anyway. You, like a blanket of white light, covering me. Me, a mama, holding her baby. I heard you then, as I was wheeled down the hall toward the OR. I heard you say, "Everything is exactly right." I heard you remind me, "Everything is in Divine Timing. Trust Your Source."

Daughter, you gifted me with transcendence. You and I filled my being with so much trust and so much love, that I no longer felt the loss of you, simply the wholeness of you. I was standing within the stillness of Creation and Creation was Love.

When I woke I cried. You were still there. You showed me things. The way it used to be. The way you want to be born. We spoke. I went home, surrounded by women and family, your papa and good hearts. We put me in the downstairs guest room so I wouldn't have to walk up stairs. I was so pale. There were flowers everywhere. I slept. I couldn't feel you anymore. I felt hollow, confused. Every time I woke, I had to rediscover you were no longer inside me. Cole held me. I cried. I was getting smaller.

We slept with your jacket. The tiny blue down jacket Katy bought for our camping-with-baby adventures. We watched Lord of the Rings. Seren left. Nick and Nick made us breakfast. Cole helped me walk. Joanna made me laugh. I still couldn't feel you. The day Mistery and Maroo stopped by, it started to warm up. Through the window, little bee after little bee went flying by. Maroo exclaimed, "It looks like the bees are flying out of your heart!" I was sitting propped against the same wall of the house where the wild bees made their home in the wall of my house almost a year ago. I realized, every night, I had been sleeping with my head less than 4 feet away for a vibrating hive. And there it was. The story weaving me back into its folds. The simple thread connecting each moment to the next. The bees, the heart, the womb. I could feel you.

Exactly one month ago yesterday, I had a miscarriage and you left. You did not leave me. You left my body. And when it is time, you will come back to finish the work we started. "Do not be confused by the physical aspect," you said. "This is not a death." So it is, that yesterday, May 13, 2011, my moon cycle began again. Blood to mark the passing. Blood to mark the beginning. Completion.

Daughter, thank you for the time shared. Thank you for choosing my womb to do your sacred work, for however brief that time may have been. Thank you for chosing your Papa and trusting the Love we share. Thank you for gifting me with a level of wisdom that encompasses such depths of grief and joy. Thank you for bringing me the bee swarm. Today they have completed drawing out their comb. Eleven perfect white honeycombs, vibrating with the essence of unity and love. Somewhere in the heart of the hive is a brood nest, where baby bees emerge into that sacred darkness.

You are a part of this world, baby girl. There is a yogic practice called Bhamari, which facilitates opening of the heart chakra through a vibrational humming. The Sanskrit name for the heart chakra is Anahata, meaning "The Unstruck Sound", or the sound of creation/the cosmic realms. It is a sound that can not be heard with the human ear, but is considered most akin to the hum of the bee. Bhramari Pranayam is the yogic bee humming practice developed to access this sound and is used by pregnant women to vibrate the brain, reduce anxiety, regulate hormones and the nervous system, shorten labor, connect to ecstatic states and help prevent miscarriage. It is the hum behind all reality. So, sweet one, on dark nights and the brightest of days, I hum for you. I hum our song. Listen, and I will hum you into being.

Love,

Mama

Me at 9 weeks, just starting to show.