LABOUR OF LOVEThe Miracle of Hannah

A true story about a babydying to tell you why youre alive

By Alison Sargent
A few years ago I started to attend a meditation group within a local holistic healing centre, invited by a friend whod confidently explained to me that this was a place where miracles were to be ordered. I desperately wanted a baby and time wasnt on my side. I also had a medical disorder which meant that my chances of conception were very low, and with no man in my life, it seemed that only a miracle would do. My friend assured me that I would find the answers to my problems sitting still on a chair for half an hour with my eyes closed, listening to some woman going on about an eagle flying around a mountain. After a few more reluctant visits and some more tales about distant sunsets and the antics of dolphins, my patience, and what felt like pointless persistence, seemed to be paying off, and I actually started to feel a bit more positive and content about myself and my life, without a baby.

I then signed up for a course on metaphysics and the journey of the soul, and soon began to build a brand new shiny positive spiritual outlook on life, and an illuminating insight into the possible reasons for my experiences so far, good and bad. I got to know a nice unattached man called David, the centres resident musician and CD maker for the meditation sessions. He modestly claimed to be an undiscovered talent in the world of writing music, and unknowingly wooed me with his tender nature and the occasional one to one performance of his musical creations, and soon we were to be an item and doing a lot of work together at the centre, helping a small team of dedicated holistic healers.

My meditations were now a daily practice and so I could now confidently tell the difference between divine inspiration and any mental chatter received whilst in my stillness. Occasionally though my ego would triumph and I would dismiss guidance received as just too off-piste to be considered. Like the time when I received thoughts telling me to prepare to have a baby. I cant have a baby I would say, the doctors said so. But the thoughts wouldnt go away, and so I finally one day decided to ask during meditation for some kind of confirmation about the determined and persevering gut feelings. Were they in tune with my physical life plan and soul destiny?

The image I received in meditation was a hot air balloon, so I asked to see one before the end of the day as confirmation that my instincts were correct. A few hours later I received a yes whilst out shopping, actually with David, who had only recently a few days before revealed his desire in principle to having a baby. I spotted the hot air balloon on the cover of a computer software disc in a local computer shop and took a sharp intake of breath at the speed of the confirmation. Coincidence I hear you cry, but within four weeks I was pregnant! I took the test on Valentine’s Day and when that little blue line began to show in the pregnancy testing kit we were so blown away with joy we had to jump up and down for several minutes to express our uncontainable delight. That was the start of this amazing journey of constant communication with the soul of baby to be, and the hot air balloons just kept on coming!

After recovering from the initial shock of such wonderful and unexpected news, we then blissfully began to prepare for our new arrival like all proud parents to be do, and couldnt wait for the big day. Baby was going to have its own room in aqua blue and lemon, along with all the usual mountain of tiny clothes and cuddly toys to nurture and entertain our little one. Over the next few months I could feel the soul of the baby coming and going as it checked out its new body, and during meditation its presence was felt particularly strongly. At the first scan we were informed about the higher risks for older parents of having a baby with Downs Syndrome, but we were just so delighted to be prospective parents it didnt concern us very much at all, as we had a fairly good understanding of metaphysics and the reasons for ill health and dis-ease, not to mention soul journeys, life plans, and karmic obligations!

However, during a later routine scan some abnormalities were discovered which the doctors were very concerned about and their fears were confirmed a few days later after various tests. Our baby girl, Hannah, had Edward’s Syndrome, a severe chromosome disorder. It was a very serious condition affecting various basic functions of the body and disability was inevitable. Past records of similar cases indicated that at best she might have a very short, and at times very painful, little life, with 24-hour care a necessity. We were delicately and sympathetically given the option to terminate the pregnancy. Of course it was, and never would be, an option, as the soul of the baby and its divine host were the only beings that could make that decision. We summoned up all the courage we could muster and prepared ourselves for difficult times ahead, knowing we would treasure every single second of her life, providing the love and support she would need on this her latest challenging incarnation.

With just a month to go before the due date of birth, baby Hannah developed further serious complications and our cautious and sober optimism turned to grief when the kicking stopped and a hastily arranged trip to hospital ultimately confirmed our deepest fears ~ she had died. The maternity unit counselling team were fantastic in all the short days and long nights that followed, but I still found myself entering a dark emotional world, this time of utterly overwhelming sadness. They advised me to embrace the grief it was a natural process that would take as long as it needed to take. This process touched depths Id never before experienced and it seemed to me like a particularly cruel twist of fate, as my patient wait of 20 years to start a family which promised so much 8 months previously, had rewarded me with a dead unborn baby with just a month to go before the big happy day. The only crumb of comfort being that I had David and we were there and able to support each other, second by second, minute by minute, day by day, trying to get on and return to the mundane necessities of life with our reluctant hearts scarred and broken.

My head contained a mind and its sea of negative thoughts, obsessed and consumed with a different kind of depression I now know only the death of a baby can create. My now strong spiritual beliefs were tested to the limits, and at times I felt they would disintegrate completely. A regular cry of why me was silently sent on its way up to the heavens as I stared at the bedroom ceiling every night ready once again to cry myself to sleep. My life suddenly again seemed pointless and empty, and I woke each morning to the cold raw reality of the rest of my life ‘without. The doctors were wrong, but my little miracle of life was prematurely embraced by the normally distant inevitability of death, and my gift from heaven was gone. My spirit survived, and I eventually made it through the long dark tunnel back into the light, but on numerous occasions it seemed like the builders were busy in the distance building more tunnel.

We were then unknowingly ready to embark on the next amazing stage of this emotional roller coaster, which began when we were asked if we would like to have a chat with an experienced spiritual counsellor, Caroline, who occasionally allocated time for consultations at our healing centre. She explained to us that after such a dramatic and painful sequence of events a joint life plan session could prove very beneficial and shed more light on our experiences and why they unfolded as they did. We decided to take up her very kind offer and arranged to visit her soon, and we are now so glad we did.

Caroline had for some time been receiving in dreams and meditations prior to my pregnancy a message from a soul (Hannah) ready to incarnate on earth once again in a physical body. This came via the soul personality from the previous incarnation, who she had personally known, and through direct contact and in meditation. The indication was that she was ready to commence the next stage of her work as a teacher and was about to come into the physical. Caroline was then shown the initial Soul Blueprint which Hannah would attempt to follow and was told that to do this she will require acceptance from both parents, and that the challenges would in turn release them from their own karmic patterns of control. Caroline was also aware that the soul may not require to come into physical life since the purpose was to release the remaining karmic patterns to the earth. These included personal karma with us both and this was the reason why we all accepted the opportunity from higher awareness. The stages shown were: contract for marriage, conception, pregnancy, awareness of diagnosis, options for termination, healing, life plan counselling, birth, transition counselling, loss, acceptance, and healing. The final stage was to tell the story, which was to have as its main themes communicating values to the masses relating to past life issues and the identity of the soul. It was also to teach appreciation and respect for the value of life even when not lived at the physical level, and that spiritual values, such as unconditional love, must always be placed above material desires such as professional status, public standing, and financial security. If it proved impossible to face the challenge of the pregnancy it would not have continued. Similarly, if either or both of us refused to accept Hannahs higher purpose the life plan would terminate with her transition. Another Soul Blueprint for the new journey of Hannahs would then have been created. Fortunately we completed these stages and so progressed to the next painful stages of loss and grief which led us to our session with Caroline.

It was 18 months before we had any concrete ideas on how to tell our story to the world. With hindsight, the emotional scars were still a bit tender and so I suppose we were just not ready to speak up. But then one day whilst we were out taking a walk in the countryside David suddenly had a flash of inspiration and came up with the idea of using music and drama as the vehicle for the tale about our experience with Hannah. We meditated that evening and asked if this would be of good doing and with great delight received a positive reply the next day. David then enthusiastically immersed himself in his lifetimes passion and spent endless hours in the attic writing the music and script. With headphones permanently clamped to his ears hed play with all his little electrical gadgets and gizmos, and Id sometimes forget he was in the house. Now and again he would venture down into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, and then he would disappear again for another few hours. His creative endeavours were enhanced by the positive synchronicity that frequently occurs with divinely inspired ambitions, when a gifted local musician and vocalist, Barry Jackson, knocked on the door of the healing centre with some musical equipment he was wishing to sell. After a few meet ups he and David became friends and were able to help each other out on their musical paths using their joint resources. Barry then became the main singer in the project where he could draw on his many vocal styles that would lend themselves to the changing themes and moods within the project. He was also on a similar spiritual path and so felt comfortable and in harmony with our beliefs and story.

Now after two years of slaving over a hot mixing desk, (Davids words not mine!), the fruits of all his time and musical wizardry in the attic have now ripened and our stage musical is complete and titled Labour of Love.
This is the story! It contains a message of peace for the world and hope for all those who feel it has deserted them. Its a moving and ultimately uplifting family show with lots of lovely songs and catchy tunes, but dont take my rather biased word for itlisten for yourself at www.soundcloud.com/musical-medicine.