Rachel Ellison
What can we learn from how others see the world? This new column peers through different lenses, exploring how ideas and perspectives might be woven into coaching and mentoring
The premature birth of a child is an intense, frightening experience – and it will inform everything you do
Two minutes. Two pushes. A baby boy is born. I was only six months pregnant – I’d got my MA in coaching just the week before.
I thought I was meeting a friend for coffee, followed by a civilised summer of theatre and concerts, client coaching programmes and buying baby gear. Instead, the next few hours were a lesson in dread, grief, release of control and turbo-charged acceptance. This is happening. You can’t stop it.
Etan Solomon. Less than 2lb. In an incubator covered in lines and drips and tubes, an oxygen mask attached to a hat, electrodes stuck on chest and thighs. Tiny fingers, perfect cupid’s bow lips, heaving for breath.
We were warned of the risk of brain haemorrhage, cerebral palsy, chronic lung disease. We were in shock.
We were to spend three months in neonatal intensive care, high dependency and special care. I didn’t hold Etan until day 12. And even then, just for a few minutes. Eventually I could hold him to my chest in ‘kangaroo care’. Heartbeat to heartbeat. Skin to skin.
It was during these many hours that I began reflecting on what this experience was going to teach me. I was sure that my time on the neonatal ward would show up in my coaching. How could an experience as intense, frightening, insecure as this, not inform who I am and latterly, how I work?
Here are a few of my reflections:
- Presence When doing kangaroo care, I was unable to eat, walk around, make phone calls or read. I tried to steady my breathing and be genuinely emotionally present.
I am passionate about learning and all learning can come into play. So my coaching questions and present listening skills helped develop rapport with doctors and nursing teams, and negotiate for understanding and support.
- Resilience You need stamina and emotional self-resource to spend every day in hospital. To cope with your and your partner’s feelings. And to watch your child’s heart rate dip, oxygen levels plummet – and see them resuscitated.
- Annihilation anxiety I worked with a coach and a therapist on fear of loss through death. This can apply to fear of your business going under as well as actual beareavement. I learned how ‘inherited terror’ can come into play generations down the line. I know where that shows up in me and how not to pass it on.
- Accepting help and helping others when you are under great strain
- Barriers Protecting self against loss by not bonding or forming too strong an attachment
- Fear of the future vs flowing acceptance of whatever may be sent to you
- The ability to build rapport fast with new medical teams / the night shift
- Trust I have to go home and this stranger is charged with looking after my child at night.
There’s no doubt plenty more material around the transition into parenthood and its influence on relationship to self and others. And because most parents don’t leave their children in hospital every night, and can cuddle them straight away after birth, I’ve thought much about attachment theory1.
I’m in a good place now. I’m not traumatised by what happened but I think about it a lot. I think about the courage I didn’t have to have because we had a positive outcome – a healthy boy. Now, he’s just like any other one year old.
Had the outcome not been so positive, how ready or able would I have been to accept this biblical teaching: ‘Happiness is not having what you want but wanting what you have.’
Further information
- 1 Attachment theory was described by psychologist John Bowlby who believed early bonds with caregivers have enormous impact throughout life. See “Sticky business” at www.coaching-at-work.com/2010/05/24/sticky-business/
- Special care baby charity Bliss www.bliss.org.uk
Rachel Ellison MBE is CEO of Rachel Ellison Corporate Coaching and Media Consultancy www.rachelellison.com
Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 6