Wish well

I'm reading a non-baby-related book about making wishes and the power of thought - a memoir called The Wishing Year by Noelle Oxenhandler. The author begins in January with a decision to make three wishes for the year - a house, a man, and spiritual healing - and then she dives into the subject of wishing, reading books and talking to people about the power of positive thought, meditation, wishing, desire, etc. I purposely picked this out at the library for inspiration, because right now I am trying to do two very big things at the same time: take my business to the next level and become a mother.

I am both a skeptic and a wanna-be believer in the power of thought and things like positive visualization. There is a coldly logical side of me that sneers at the idea that wishes can come true just because you want them to. However, there's also a kind of groovy hippie side of me that is drawn to the idea that you can influence the course of your life through meditation and, perhaps more crucially, your attitude and outlook.

When I was a child my neighbor built a wooden wishing well in his front yard - all the kids in the neighborhood were allowed to come throw our pennies in and make wishes. I used to go there almost every day to throw a penny in and wish for one red rose to grow up out of the ground in my front yard. This reveals a lot about my natural disposition, I think: I persevered in this wish for the better part of a year at least. I went every day with dogged faith in the idea that it could happen if I really concentrated on my wish and kept believing it was possible. But the wish itself was formulated as a kind of skeptic's dare: I deliberately chose to wish for something that could never organically happen on its own. I didn't want to wish for a toy or a puppy or anything that might happen by itself anyway - I wanted to be sure, when I saw it, that my wish was being fulfilled. Which of course it never was.

In my mid-20s I was diagnosed with HPV and mild cervical displaysia, which as someone who'd always been a little paranoid about sexual diseases and a hypochondriac to begin with, was extremely frightening for me. Around the same time I took a yoga class, and I used some of my yoga time to sit and concentrate on the idea of a white, healing light moving through my body and cleansing it of all sickness. Two years later I was found to be HPV-free with no medical treatment, which is certainly something that happens on its own all the time, but I suppose it's possible my meditations had some effect.

When I was pregnant the first time I used to lie in bed at night, place a hand on my flat belly, and visualize a tiny embryo floating in a pool of white light, and imagine it growing strong and thriving. This soothed my worries and I felt that it might even have some power to keep my baby alive. And then my baby died.

So with this pregnancy, I didn't do that at first. Not because I was superstitious, but just because I felt that the exercise had lost its power. I made a half hearted attempt a couple of times in my first trimester but it felt like a hollow gesture.

As I've gotten further along I've explored the ideas of meditation and visualization again. One of Marie Mongan's meditation tracks has you visualize your labor and delivery from beginning to end. I have done this and find it to be soothing and moving. In my visualization,

I wake up around midnight with some period like cramping. I don't want to wake Mr. Ibis yet, so I quietly get up and go downstairs. I wrap up in a blanket and read on the couch for a few hours as the contractions grow stronger. Mr. Ibis wakes up around four and we make coffee and he calls our doula while I take a shower. She hangs out with us at home for a while, and we talk and snack between contractions and she begins to show Mr. I some massage techniques and pressure points to try.

After a while I feel it's time to head to the hospital, so we all drive there and check in. I get into the jacuzzi and that helps me through for a few hours until I feel I need to get out and move around. Things get pretty blurry for me as I go through transition, but I make my way to the bed and soon I'm ready to push, which I do squatting on the bed with Mr. I sitting behind me on the bed. Our son is born and immediately brought to my arms, where look at him together and smile and cry.

I have also started to visualize my baby, now that I can feel him moving around in there, hiccuping, kicking, pressing his little behind against my belly.

I picture Miles with just a light fuzz of blond hair and barely-there eyebrows. He has my mouth, Mr. I's nose, and his eyes are kind of a combination of both of ours and dark gray. Later his hair will be light brown and fine, and his eyes will be blue with a ring of golden brown around the pupil. He has long, strong legs and feet. I can picture every inch of his body, his little toes, his baby butt, his tiny fingers, his chin, his ears.

Oxenhandler in her book follows one guru's advice to come up with an 8-syllable wish to repeat like a mantra. Mine is:

Please let our son be born healthy.