Do you believe in heaven, angels or forces greater than yourself? I certainly don’t have all the answers but I do believe in “spirit babies” or as the literature more commonly refers to it “conscious conception”. This is the idea that we can connect to the soul of our baby before the sperm meets egg.
Walter Makichen writes beautifully about it in his book “Spirit Babies” which, I just could not put down. Now I’ve always considered myself a pretty grounded person. I have my Masters in Social Work; I provide counselling, hypnotherapy and am a trained Reiki practitioner. Most of what I provide to couples along their infertility journey is based on the tangible. When it came to my own struggle with infertility however, things changed and I’ve kept this story secret, until now.
This is my tale but it’s really the story of Rachel and Jacob, not the biblical characters but my beautiful, seven year old twins.
It was not that long ago that I was blessed with the most beautiful set of girl boy twins. I remember the gratitude that spilled over when I heard the news that I was expecting not one, but two babies. It’s a joy I still carry with me today. Often, though, my thoughts drift back to nine months before I heard this joyous news.
It was exactly nine months prior to the twins’ birth that my grandmother passed away. My grandmother and I were very close. She lived with my family for several years when I was growing up. At the time of her death, I was extra emotional full of grief for her and also full of worry about my infertility diagnosis. I was in the middle of a two-week wait after our first IVF treatment.
It was during her funeral service that I found myself doing the math. At that point in my journey I was always calculating time and possible due dates, if we were lucky enough to conceive. What I realized, sitting there in the service was if our IVF treatment worked out this time, it would be bang on for “so-called” reincarnation to occur. Maybe it was the heightened emotion, maybe a simple distraction from the somber occasion but I let my mind wander. I thought about the day she passed, June 13, 2009. I imagined the possibility of her soul entering our embryo on transfer day. I have to admit, it was a peculiar thought and quite honestly, it was a fleeting one. I never even considered it again until we got our positive pregnancy test.
On March 13, 2010, exactly nine months later, our twins were born. We named them Rachel Frances and Jacob Jerry. Frances was my grandmother’s name and Rachel is so much like her. She has her smile, her gentleness, her sweetness and even her gait.
Now, I often think about the idea of reincarnation. It’s a thought that raises constant speculation and questions about our afterlife. What I find most fascinating about it is that my story isn’t unique. There are other people who’ve had similar experiences. On several occasions, hopeful couples have asked me if I believe we can connect to the souls of our unborn children.
Here’s what I believe. Creating conscious conception means tuning in our minds and waking up to the calling of self-love and healing. It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as the timeline of my twins. I always encourage women I work with to look at the big picture.
Instead of focusing on our diagnosis of infertility, we need to take time and slow down. When we do that, we open up to more than our immediate feelings of stress and despair. Slowing down, listening to our bodies gives us time to get reacquainted with patience and trust. Becoming conscious myself helped me to remember there is a bigger plan and that I can’t control everything.
