Practicing Hopeful Resignation

I have foreseen my Obstetric and Gynecologic rotation as blissful assistance to deliveries of singletons, twins and triplets. And it started that way until a train of heartrending cases were admitted: Mothers in early weeks of pregnancy discharging “bloody, meaty material” – early embryonic demise; mothers complaining of no fetal movement beyond 5 months which ultrasonograph proved to be fetal death in utero; and mothers in inevitable feat of delivering a pre-term baby as early as 24 weeks, viability of which in Philippine setting is questionable.

The story of one mother struck me most. She accidentally self-electrocuted at about 4 months of gestation. Tocolytic agents and measures were provided to prevent her from pre-term labor. She was sent home weeks later with advice of regular prenatal check up. The rest of the pregnancy went well until the 7th month when she felt the baby move no more and ultrasound revealed it to be early fetal demise. She was then advice for admission for early termination of pregnancy, which is to prevent the dead fetus from intoxicating her body. She endured the pangs of this circumstance and flips sentiments in the approximates of denial and acceptance. I acquainted her regarding hopeful resignation.

“Hopeful Resignation” was a term I learned last month from a pulmonologist who wished to secure peace in the soul of his end-stage lung cancer patient. It is about surrendering to a resolutionless scientific fact yet welcoming the possibility of event change than can just be heaven sent or arcane. Hopeful resignation is beyond shifting therapeutic tempo from aggressive stunt to watchful waiting. It can also be accepting not to pick up a “survivor’ button and pin to the chest of relatives after a long, sorrowful time of excavating the World Trade rubble, a fire assaulted locality, a plane crash site, or a sunken ship spot. It can likewise serve as a practical management strategy in a sure-fail scholastic reap, an impossible business dip, or a loosening marriage grip.

Hopeful resignation reassembles the pieces of a predictably shattering psych and allows it to face the light of reality intact and with grace. It keeps neural anatomy from dwindling to mental anguish. It saves family energy from wasting in distress. It sets the spirit up flight despite the knowledge of a broken bridge along life itinerary with a scythed troll beneath. Before the eve a detonating finale, cut the depression wire with hopeful resignation.