Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Sara Connell/@saracconnell

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Winston Churchill

I am very pleased to be participating in WOW!Women on Writing’s Book Tour and Giveaway of  Bringing in Finn by Sara Connell. My book reviews can be found on Amazon and Goodreads.

Sara will share her inspirational and heartfelt journey through an extraordinary surrogacy experience in this guest post on ” Coping with Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Loss.”

Book Description:

In February 2011, 61-year-old Kristine Casey delivered the greatest gift of all to her daughter, Sara Connell: Sara’s son, Finnean. At that moment, Kristine—the gestational carrier of Sara and her husband Bill’s child—became the oldest woman ever to give birth in Chicago.

Bringing in Finn is the incredible story of one woman’s hard-fought and often painful journey to motherhood. In this achingly honest memoir, Connell recounts the tragedy and heartbreak of losing pregnancies; the process of opening her heart and mind to the idea of her 61-year-old mother carrying her child for her; and the profound bond that blossomed between mother and daughter as a result of their unique experience together.

Moving, inspiring, and ultimately triumphant, Bringing in Finn is an extraordinary tale of despair, hope, forgiveness, and redemption—and the discovery that when it comes to unconditional love, there are no limits to what can be achieved

Author Bio (from Amazon Author Page):

Sara Connell is an author, speaker and life coach with a private practice in Chicago. She is a frequent contributor in the media and has appeared on Oprah, NPR, WGN, FOX News Chicago- upcoming: Good Morning America, Nightline an The View. Sara’s writing has been featured in: Elle Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Parenting, Psychobabble, Evolving Your Spirit and Mindful Metropolis magazines. Her first book- Bringing in Finn; an Extraordinary Surrogacy story- nominated for Book of the Year 2012 by Elle Magazine- is Sara’s first book. (Sept 4, 2012 Seal Press)

Author Contact information:

Product Details from Amazon:

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press (August 28, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580054102
• ASIN: B00BJYM6IU

Welcome,Sara!

Coping with Miscarriage, Stillbirth and Loss

At some point during the seven-year journey I took to have a child, I started to think that people who had experienced fertility issues and reproductive trauma were like war veterans. One person may have landed in Normandy on D-Day, another shot at while flying Catalina patrol planes in the South Pacific, but they had all fought in WWII.

One day, on one of the rare occasions that I lifted my gaze from the magazines I always tried (unsuccessfully) to read in the waiting room of the “high-risk” OB, I made eye contact with a patient across the waiting room and we traded stats. Me: “six rounds IVF, miscarriage, incompetent cervix, stillbirth.” She (an attractive woman about my age with a blazing smile and creamy caramel skin): “spontaneous aborter more than three miscarriages in succession, incompetent cervix, preeclampsia).” Our experiences were different, but we knew—like the soldier who was sent in to liberate Auschwitz but didn’t go to Dachau—that the pain, the shock, the trauma, was the same.

For almost seven years, I carried shame and despair inside my body.  The weight felt the size of a bowling ball or one of those steel bombs that are lit with a fuse and explode in classic Warner Brothers cartoons. I didn’t understand that speaking about the trauma, the grief, the pain could be healing and that connecting with other people who had walked the trip wire-laden path of infertility was a way to set me free. 

Since writing a book about my fertility experience and the miraculous way my son came into the world (my sixty-year-old mother carried him as our surrogate), I’ve been asked more than once what advice I would give to someone in the midst of a fertility experience. The first time I fielded this question, I felt reticence.  So many things people said to me during my own experience were unhelpful—or hurtful (“everything happens for a reason”, “this must have been God’s will”). But I felt I should say something, so I answered by sharing my favorite of the responses I received from friends after they heard our twins had been stillborn:

“Oh god, that completely sucks.”

And the runner-up: “I am sorry you are going through any of this—you definitely do not deserve it.”

When pressed in one interview to offer more, I came up with three things that helped me heal and keep going:

1)     Healing: For me, this involved trauma therapy, yoga, meditation, massages, crying, grieving, staying off Facebook, and honoring the lives of my stillborn twins. My husband and I attended their cremation and placed their beautiful little urns in a sacred place in our house.

2)     Listening: I took long walks and spent time in silence. I began to find Y-shaped branches in the woods and trails, and I took these as a sign of yes—of “keep going”—of somehow, somehow there would be a way to realize our dream of having children.

3)     Letting go of shame: In her much-viewed TED talk, psychologist and researcher Brene Brown said that shame is one of the most corrosive energies on the planet. After ten years of studying shame, she also discovered that there is an antidote, one that she sums up in four words: “You are not alone.” After my seven year journey and the groups I’ve been fortunate to speak with around the country since I wrote my book, I can say for certain, if you are going through a fertility crisis or trauma, you are not alone.

Researching my book, I read that one in six US births involved some sort of fertility procedure. A friend of my editor who also experienced a stillbirth started a Facebook group (Return to Zero) that within months had 115,000 followers.

The numbers were undeniable, but knowing the stats alone didn’t heal me. It was hearing the women and men who were experiencing similar pain that held the alchemy I needed. I could not sit in a room of people who had experienced what I had and feel the same hatred towards them that I had felt about myself (that I was impotent, not a woman, broken, a failure). These were not people who had done some unknown awful thing and were being punished by a fertility crisis. When I heard them speak, I felt overpowering love—and, as I loved, I softened to myself.  

A support group may not be the right solution for some, but the healing possibilities are infinite. We simply have to look until we find that thing that tells us in a way we can really feel that we are not alone, that the war will end.

After WWII, Winston Churchill said: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Some days, the only thing I could do was breathe, and continue.  A colleague friend of mine who teaches fertility and pre-natal yoga told me she believed there is a way for each person who wants to have a child.  I couldn’t believe her statement fully but I felt better and more open to possibility each time she said the words.

I believe there is some lifeline for each of us that can heal us and guide us forward as well. When we find ours, we have to grab it and tie it around our stomachs—and hold on tight until it leads us home- to the fulfillment of our dream. 

***

Thank you Sara for sharing your heartfelt journey from loss to joy. You will touch many with your story and give hope to all, especially those who struggle with infertility issues. 

How about you? Have you suffered a loss and triumphed?

A copy of Bringing in Finn will be given away to a lucky commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.

We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~

Next Week:

Monday, 11/18/13:  “Growing into Country: A Memoir Moment.”

The winners of  Theo Nestor’s memoir, Writing is My Drink and Sara’s memoir will be announced on Monday’s blogpost.