To be or not to be... a mama

[annietyme]

I have a huge dilemma... I am currently living with my new fiance. We have only been living together for one month now and we have managed to get pregnant in this time. When we first discovered this I was wanting to not have the child and he was completely opposite. He could not even fathom why we shouldn't. We love each other; we could make it work. But in the last few weeks (3). He has convinced himself that this is not his baby and does not believe me that I have never been with anyone other than him since we got together. I have never given him any reason to think I would be nothing but completely faithful. His reasoning is that the doctor's go by the first day of my last period to determine the due date. So curious Ben read a medical book that said according to the first day of my last period my 3-day fertility time was when he was still in Wisconsin and I in California. So he thinks that is the only time I could have gotten pregnant. Absurd right? But the issue is... we have done nothing but scream and yell at each other since I got pregnant. Now he doesn't want the baby, yet wants us to get married tomorrow if we do. I have explained that I am not ready for marriage, but I really want this baby. We have rushed everything else and I don't want to rush into marriage. He thinks that this means I am not committed and don't want to marry him.

I asked the I Ching to show me and image of me NOT having the baby... Could you help me with the interpretation? Anyone?
6 changes in the fourth into 59

 

[candid]

Hi Annie,

A dilemma indeed. I?ll do my best to interpret your reading.

First, your question while specific, may have been too narrowed in scope, based on the response you?ve received. I?m persuaded to believe that the I Ching is much more likely to address ones present mental-emotional condition (attitude) than to satisfy our narrowed and specific interests. This is a sweeping statement, I know, but its genuinely how I perceive it. My interpretation, therefore, will apply to your present circumstance rather than to show you an image of you NOT having the baby.

6 is a picture of Conflict. The most relevant council here is to carefully consider the beginning because it holds the seeds of all that will follow. This is a matter of clearly identifying the rights and duties of each of you. This can be tedious and uncomfortable at first, but its an essential step if you are to be at peace for the rest of your life with the decisions you will be making now. Let me repeat the two critical words here: Rights and Duties. This isn?t something I can do for you, nor is it a decision which Yi is offering to make for you. Only you and Ben can come to these conclusions. Since you are the inquirer, I?ll offer that Your decision is the pivotal one in this matter.

Line 4 suggests that you have the option to submit and accept your fate. In fact, the line encourages you do just that. It means that your forward motion to engage in the conflict of your pregnancy with Ben could be calmed by ?being at peace with eternal law.?

Line 5 refers to an arbitrator. There are many possible arbitrators in this case, so it may be suggesting more than one. In any case, you can turn over or present your dilemma to certain others in whom you have trust in and respect for. In such times as this, good council is priceless.

Your relating hexagram is called: Dispersion or dissolution (59). The idea expressed here is, the dissolving of divisive tendencies. This is accomplished through gentleness. Ice is dissolved by a gentle wind. The hexagram points to a turning toward God. Now I know that the word, God, can be inflammatory these days. Interpret the word to mean whatever it means to you. Call it your higher power, your raised consciousness, or call upon the deity which you are most comfortable calling upon. This isn?t a mistake, and indeed is essential in order to dissolve the hardness of egotism that is dividing and causing conflict.

I hope you find this helpful. My sincerest best wishes to you.

~Candid

 

[willow]

Oh Annie!

This has to be really fast right now, but I'll be back later.

The thing I want to say is that Karcher's title for #6 is "Arguing." He says, "to be in accord with the times, you are told to argue!" So what you and Ben are doing is right in line with the times.

But it's a special kind of arguing - like Candid says, it's a time to carefully consider the beginning. The advice of #6 has a lot to do with the point and the rules of arguing. Notice that you have alternated positions over the weeks - you are both exploring the poles of the possibilities, dancing around them, alternating. So let your arguing start to give you a sense of the shape of what really matters to you, the shape of how you will decide things as a family, what you want as a family, how you will be able to be two unique, separate, (whole in your own rights) people who are both contributing to something that both of you shape together.

Think of the yin-yang symbol. If it's static, it just looks like a pair of opposites, things that look like they want to pull apart. But if you start to spin it around, pretty soon each blurs into the other, and you start to see the other fundamental shape that's there - the circle, the whole.

Regardless of what you decide, you are creating one of the defining experiences of your new family. In my family, for two generations, there are first children that never were. They aren't here with us as people, but they contributed to the shapes of the families where they knocked, then for whatever choice of soul, or blow of fate, they did not enter. (Note that the nuclear hexagram is #37 The Family.)

My thoughts are with you!

Willow

 

[willow]

Hi again Annie,

I hope your silence is not a sign of too much distress. Send us a sign!

I said above that KArcher suggests that arguing is the right approach. So more on what kind of arguing. Arguing that reveals the many opposites, contradictions, etc, in the situation, but finds its resolution not in the triumph of one "side" over the other, but in the realization of what it is that underlies the apparent opposites, what holds them together.

The changing fourth line suggests that you need to come to an answer that you can feel at peace in yourself with. It's not enough to settle for the answer that you know you can get. The way Wilhelm says this is:

"This refers to a person whose inner attitude at first lacks peace. He doesn't feel content with his situation and would like to improve it through conflict. In contrast to the situation of the nine in the second place, he's dealing with a weaker opponent and might therefore succeed. But he can't carry on the fight, because, since right isn't on his side, he can't justify the conflict to his conscience. Therefore he turns back and accepts his fate. He changes his mind and finds lasting peace in being at one with eternal law. This brings good fortune."

The way LiSe says it is:

"9 at 4: Failing to contend. Returns and approaches destiny. Renounces and settles. Determination: auspicious.
Solve contention by dissolving: return to your fate and let loose - then you can find what you sought: agreement. Essentially contention is searching for the end of contention. Find it by not contending, which is a shortcut."

What I think she means by this is that you don't "contend" within yourself - you don't impose a decision on yourself by weighing opposites until one feels heavier. Coming to a state of genuinely accepting that *either* choice really *is* possible helps you to get past what others feel is right to what you feel is right.

You know that you were whole (and contained opposites) before this circumstance. And you know that you will be whole after it too. Now, knowing that you will always be whole, and that whichever way you choose, you will go on (flawed, wounded and glorious still!), which choice feels truer?

I think also that, since you asked this question in the form of asking for an image of NOT having the baby, the answer has very much of an emphasis on how the process of your deciding will influence the future shape of your relationship with Ben (and with yourself).

LiSe calls #6 The Gong Speaks, and she emphasises how productive conflict calls forth a concept of "right" that is not "either-or", but "what is best for both?" She says:

"It is not wrong that one should fight for one?s right. Sometimes it is necessary for making life possible. But the meaning of ?right? is, that it makes life better, it should never make life less ? or the spiritual values of life. Every controversy can be solved by moving up a step. The best step is inside, in one?s own mind. Changing the common everyday personality into a better, wiser person. In doing so, the controversy will become smaller and smaller, moving away into a far-off distance. If one is not able to do so, then find someone who is already higher, and whose words can bring a solution. And always remember there is no such thing as being in the right. It is based on human truth and human truth is temporary. In the course of time, right and wrong change places over and over again. Then there is the order of ranking, the pecking order. Some people have natural authority, they do not fight for it. They are the Gongs. The ones who fight for a rank usually are bad leaders."

For #59, she calls it The Flood. I imagine this conflict surely is an unexpected cataclysm for your new relationship, an unexpected flood. When Ben starts to wonder if it's his child, I see the natural tendency in any crisis to search for reasons, causes, blame, even evil. LiSe deals with this sweetly, as she takes her commentary from that starting point on through what else there is about floods that is even more important to know than who was "to blame."

"God makes deluges to punish the evil. Of course a flood does not make discrimination between the good and the bad, they drown together. But man always felt God?s revenging hand. A flood destroys all the old structures, paving the way for a new, fresh and as yet clean life, open for new possibilities. For a life with an open gateway to the cosmos, man?s mind needs deluges. Dissolving all the rigid structures, like opinions, prejudices, ties, obligations. They all give a feeling of security, but they restrict, narrow down, reduce, and take away the essential deep security of universal openness. Having to save one?s life puts many other things back in the place where they belong, often even completely out of sight."

Hope this helps.
Willow

 

[annietyme]

Thank you both Candid and Willow for your great insight into my situation.

I am still at a lose as to what to do. My relationship is very important to me and so is this baby. I am afraid if I lose one to save the other I might end up losing what I was trying to save in the first place. I am on a holiday away from Ben at this moment and I have never felt distance greater than I do right now. We do not talk as much as we used to. Before he could not stop calling me and now I can never get him on the phone yet when I do he does not sound like himself and he never says I love you before the call is disconnected. Last night for instance he said Good night and Good bye then I said I love you and he was silent and said that is nice to know/hear. Then I asked if he was not going to say it back and he said something along the lines of I can't now, now can I?
I just don't know what I can do at all right now if anything.

 

[dharma]

Dear Annie,

I did 4 different tarot readings for you to clarify the situation for myself and to see if there was anything of value I could tell you to help you figure out what to do. I will extract their meanings into more of a letter to you from me than as a reading about the situation to save time and to just get to the point.

No relationship is problem-free, I think you are aware of that, but due to the fact that you are dealing with hormonal changes in your body you aren't handling this as well as you might have under normal conditions. Recognizing this may help you to be more patient with yourself, with Ben and with the issue of baby.

You're struggling with the notion that you can make this all better if you just made the "right" choice. What you aren't seeing is that, in a very real way, the choice has already been made at this point. The fact that you are pregnant means that your life has altered way beyond any fixes. If you abort this baby, your life will be forever marked by this event. If you have the baby, your life will forever be marked by this event.

Certainly, the conditions are challenging for you but apparently these are the optimum conditions for you all to grow under, and having said that, I'm well aware of the fact that it's alot easier to say than to live through. Ben is going through his own version of adjusting to the shocking change. He is in the denial stage of trying to make it go away just as you too are contemplating doing the same. But again, remember that no matter what you both do the event has *occured* and all you both can do is accept the reality that has already bound you two together --irrevocably.

This baby, significantly represents your relationship/union with each other as a separate entity. Up until now you both *toyed* with the idea of this union in a very romantic sense as separate individuals however all your joint choices along the way have made your hopes for merging as ONE to appear in the phenomenal world in a very concrete way. In that sense, your wishes have come true but rather than recognize that you are getting precisely what you asked for, you are both in state of shock and disbelief. As long as you stay in this place, you cannot flow with the events naturally and the baby growing within your body is very much picking up these distressing signals that mom and dad are projecting (dad's distress may have originated when he was trying to figure out the reason mom didn't want to have the baby in the first place and mom is now confused over what made him change his mind and wonders if, oh my! is this the way dad handles difficult life situations all the time?.. and so on...)

The merging of two entities entails serious commitment and huge responsibility... pregnancy has a way of making it all stand out as clear as day. Clearly at this point, neither one of you knew each other well enough yet to make this kind of commitment but that's neither here nor there, is it? First, you have to figure out how you are going to move ahead now as an individual. Take this time to become very clear about who you are, what your values are and what you believe at this time you want out of life and share these things with Ben. Be completely open to listening to Ben whenever he decides to speak openly. You may have to give him some time. He needs to think through everything without feeling pressured to have answers right away. The same goes for you.

If you choose to abort this baby it will have more than a significant impact on the course that this relationship will take. It will affect YOU as a person very profoundly and impact the course that your own personal life will take with or without Ben. The same goes for Ben. If he chooses to deny this child it will impact the course of this relationship as well as impact the course of his own personal life with or without you.

Stop looking for him to express his love for you at this time. This is as critical a time for him as it is for you. Refrain from clinging behavior, make no demands and have no expectations of each other (a good rule of thumb at all times but especially now.) You both still love each other but the negative feelings that have arisen need to be addressed and dispersed before the warm sun can shine again. Remember, if Ben is wrong about the baby being someone else's all this can eventually be made plain. All kinds of tests are available to prove paternity. Perhaps if Ben realizes that you are more than willing to have this done it might go a long way towards restoring trust between you in a more immediate sense.

I pray that some of this helps. Hang in there and all will be well again soon... you'll see.

Dharma

 

[annietyme]

Thank you so much Dharma for that wonderful insight. Events have turned even uglier than I could have forseen since just this morning. I was awoken by a call from Ben at 8:30 this morning. He proceeded to tell me that he needed to talk. He had spoken with the Rental Company and broke our lease agreement. His stuff was almost out of the apartment and it would be gone by the end of today. Then he informed me that I have until the 31st of this month to completely out myself. I have just moved 2000 miles away from my friends and family. He is all I know of this place and now I do not even have that. He also told me that I will have to find my own ride from the airport when I return this coming weekend. I am a wreck to say the least. I had not forseen this at all and now I have no place to go and no money to do anything. My mom agreed to fly out and help me move back to California at the end of the month. That is my only choice at this time. I guess. So is an abortion. I need not to have ties to a man that is so selfish and careless. I have sacrificed everything for him and now I must go home with a broken heart and bleeding gut. He does not deserve to be the father of my children and I do not want him to have that privledge. Thank you all for your words of wisdom. I appreciate it more than I could ever express verbally.

 

[candid]

My thoughts and prayers go with you, Annie. I?m greatly relieved, as I?m sure you are, to hear that your Mom is supportive of you during this critical hour. What a God-send!

You took a huge leap and landed squarely in the mud puddle. Hopefully, you will manage in time to grow positively from this experience. That may sound a bit clinical, but I mean it endearingly. If we can accept our own role in our fate, its much easier to accept appropriate responsibility, and without needlessly beating ourselves up over it. It?s a life experience that contains great potential for your future, in spite of the trauma you incur.

You?re a strong woman, Annie, and this will serve to make you even stronger. I trust this with all of my heart. And, you?re not alone. Please remember that.

~Candid

 

[annietyme]

Thank you again Candid! I will remember that. I know I have been blessed with an amazing family as well as amazing friends! At least I have that!
Thank you...
~Annie

 

[willow]

Hi Annie,

How awful. Be strong, grow wiser, and don't let your anger keep you from opening your heart again in the future when it's time.

I just looked back at your topic about moving to Wisconsin. When you asked for an image of what your life would be like there, you got #59 Dissolution (Flood) to #43 Breakthrough (Speaking Staff, proclaiming the truth). When you asked what affect the move would have on your life, you got #49 Revolution/Molting (Skinning) to #17 Following (Follow Without Resistance).

And here, the image of not having the baby is #6 Conflict (Gong Speaks) back to good ol' #59...dissolution, the flood.

Maybe there is some insight waiting for you in going back to those previous readings and looking at them again. Not in a sense of looking for what you missed, or judging yourself, but in a sense of finding a way to back off and see this awful crisis in the context of the larger sweep of your life.

My thoughts are with you!
Willow

 

[julianne]

Annie-

I notice your initial enquiry proceeding "what if not?" (conflict) into "he bolted!" (dispersed)

On behalf of the flipside, may I introduce "what if" - the unspoken yang to yin's "what if not?"

I'm no pro-lifer, but "what if?" comes before "what if-not?". What are the what if's? Do you, Annie, want a baby? Do you have criteria for choosing how and when? I read so much talk about Ben - me, I wonder what about Annie? What if ANNIE. Such a big moment in a feeling girls life, "what if..." offer yourself the same consideration you offer you relationship?
Annie.
Annie!
I'm thinking of you. Lots of love.