As someone with one foot in the collective experience of health and healing through my professional work as a midwife and the other planted in the personal experience of continued (often messy and confusing) self-actualization through enquiry and exploration, the ideas of holistic care and tending are always in the forefront of my mind. Culturally, it's something we do quite poorly, and that's both wild given its importance and completely predictable in a world of privatized and profit-driven healthcare.
As a personal example, in the time that I underwent IVF treatment (which spanned from a consult in April to a heartbeat viability ultrasound in September), I’m pretty sure one single solitary provider (a stellar nurse on the call line) asked me how I was doing--not as in conversationally, but genuinely. how are you, really? IVF was so incredibly hard on my body, heart, and mind, and like many patients, while I was encouraged to reach out with any concerning physical symptoms, almost no one outside of my own loved ones inquired about my mental, emotional, or spiritual well-being. No suggestion from my care team to recruit a therapist. No chaplains provided.
And this wasn't because I had a bad practice--this is incredibly common and totally normal. There was a doula practice that partnered with the clinic, but I didn't need rah-rah cheerleading, help with visioning, or motivation to keep going--I needed someone to sit in it with me. I needed someone to listen to why pregnancy was important to me. I needed someone to ask me how I felt after learning that only 3 fertilized embryos came of 13 hopeful follicles. I needed someone to listen to my utter neurosis on day 8 of 9 spent waiting for genetic results of our one hopeful embryo.
Have you ever been in a situation like this? One where your body was tended to as if it were an island or the primary or most important part of you, and at the expense of the other parts of your wholeness?
· What was that like for you?
· Which parts of you were overlooked or de-prioritized?
· What could have improved it?
One area of medicine where we do tend to meet holistic needs really, really well is in hospice care, but I’m a firm believer that we shouldn't have to wait until we're dying to be treated like multidimensional beings.
Abby is a midwife, interfaith chaplain, and spiritual contemplative who lives in an old farmhouse in Fryeburg, Maine with husband Stephen and black cat Banksy. The family looks forward to welcoming a first baby this Spring. Abby is a humanist pagan UU, and through her private practice, The Hearth Chaplain, she companions people from all walks of life and from all over the country. In her free time, Abby can be found in the White Mountains of New Hampshire or gathering herbs on her land, though lately she tends to pass the time organizing cloth diapers and receiving blankets.
