Pregnancy and Death - Closer than you think.

I had assumed pregnancy would be a happy time. Nine months of excitement, elation and anticipation, similar to the Christmas Eve feeling one recalls during childhood. I expected to be embodying The Empress card, flowing with nature and nurturing all who crossed my path. What I experienced was more akin to the world shattering grief that follows after loosing a loved one or coping with a terminal illness.

How could growing a life summon the same misery that accompanies death?

Most of the pregnancy manuals preach a candy floss happiness that emanates from the blooming mother-to-be. But it ain’t all balloons and baby showers. At least it isn’t for me. Nothing and no one had prepared me for the metaphorical death I was to experience in pregnancy.

I spent my first trimester squirming around in the sea of my own dark matter. Sick, exhausted and emotional, I became depressed. Like the Nine of Swords, I Suddenly felt trapped with no way out. I could not understand why I was not happy. Deep in my unconscious, had I not longed for this child? I had grieved profoundly when I had miscarried previous babies. Against all odds, this child made it through and it was a miracle. But even this did not stir my happy juices!

I knew, physiologically, there was a ridiculous cocktail of hormones rampaging through my body, clucking louder than a hen party in Corfu. But reducing my psychological state to a mere alchemical fiesta, only belittled my feelings. This felt deeper, more primitive and archetypal. I had to look elsewhere for answers.

My first insight came to me on the toilet. Not only relieved to take a pee, but also relieved to not find blood in my knickers. I realized that I had been living in constant anxiety of miscarriage. Every stretching pain, made me tense up. In fear, I had stopped exercising. We are all aware that the first three months of pregnancy are trecherous. This is reflected in our culture’s tradition of not telling your wider circle of friends until after you have made it out the danger zone.

I started to become more and more aware of how, physically, close I was living to death. Not only was I the container for life, but also a potential container for death.

The guilt that accompanies miscarriage is insurmountable. Was it something I did? Is there something wrong with my body? Will I be capable in the future? Having to go through the experience of somebody actually living inside you is weird enough, follow that with the shock of somebody actually dying inside of you, and there is absolutely no frame of reference or words to describe the immense emotion experienced.

My metaphorical death began to make itself conscious via the royal road of my dreams. Vivid death scenes (Three of Swords), murder, funeral homes, coffins and visits from deceased family members were a regular occurrence whilst un-peacefully slumbering. During the day, the residue of these fears manifested themselves in daydreams, more appropriately named daymares, about my future life as a mother. No more free spirit, no more travel, no more money, no more personal space, no more parties, no more attractive figure to flaunt. Visions of even not being able to go to the toilet without being accompanied by the baby bothered me.

After spending the last three years phasing out my partying days, I suddenly fantasized about going out with my friends and get smashed out of my face. Partying like the Three of Cauldrons. Itchy feet where usually the first sign of a new adventure on the horizon, but, now, my twisted imagination crippled them in to swollen sausages that were to incapacitate me. In the language of dreams, death is indicative of transformation. I was in the process of grieving for my younger self and life, as I knew it. Only after the maiden has been sacrificed, the mother can be born.

My spiritual and religious beliefs also took a spin in the wheel of fortune that was turning my life upside down. As my belly protruded, and I leaped over the threshold in to the second trimester, clambered out of my dark hole and began to build a connection to the life inside me. During a meditation, I dived in to my womb, and imagined my child. There I saw it, floating in blissful ignorance, growing all the limbs and organs it would need to survive in an outside world, that it knew nothing about and existed only an inch away. Then I was ripped from this cozy lagoon, plummeted painfully through a dark tunnel, and ejected in to a stark white piercing light. Smiling, welcoming faces appeared like ghosts as a new world came in to focus. As I returned from my meditation and sat in silence, my thoughts strayed back to death. Could it not be the same for us now? Instead of preparing physically for the next world, we prepare spiritually. Instead of limbs and organs, we grow spiritual qualities like compassion, tolerance and forgiveness. These are the tools that will equip us to move through the next plane. All the ancient religious texts seem to support this. From the many accounts of people who have had near death experiences, we are told repeatedly of the ‘dark tunnel’ and ‘seeing the light’ that accompanies death. What if we are blissfully unaware of this other world? What if it exists only inches away from us right now, but we have not the intelligence to comprehend it? And is it not a comforting thought to think there are people ‘on the other side’ waiting to ‘welcome us over’?

Once more, I was aware of how birth and death seem to be the opposite sides of the same coin. This seems to be reflected in The Close card, where the child looks upon death with an unbiased innocence.

As my pregnancy journey progresses and my life is dictated more by the physical weight, as well as the emotional weight of pregnancy, I am reminded of old age. Time has changed; I am a living countdown, on borrowed time, in a winding down phase, unsure of what will be waiting for me on the other side. The world seems to have forgotten me, speeding past like the roadrunner. I have retreated inside myself, absentminded and distant from the conversation. As I go further along, I anticipate that my pace will slow as my organs are unable to cope under the immense pressure. My heart will begin to race just from walking from the chair to the bathroom. I may fall asleep before I have read the first page of my book. Most of the day I will have no choice but to surrender to devotional dozing. Concentration will be hazy at best. Any time spent outside the safe cocoon of home will be constantly punctured by having to find the nearest toilet. Finally, there will be the in-between state. A place I am just beginning to inhabit. A curious place of being, not thinking, not doing, not being present, just in a state of existing. Just as older people totter on the threshold of their great transition, so does the pregnant woman. As with someone with a terminal illness, who may be exhausted from life and welcomes the end, I can imagine the pregnant woman lives out her final days begging for their end. Even the pain may seem like a bearable consequence to relieve the suffering being endured. Like in The Tower card, my body and mind are crumbling, burning to ashes. From the tadpole to the toad the baby has transformed, all must be cast out in order to be reborn – both mother and child. With the destruction of The Tower, new foundations can be built, ones that hold stronger to support a new phase of existence.

Having delved in to the parallels between pregnancy and death, I feel much more validated in my process. I am able to accept all these difficult feelings arising within me without reducing them to ‘hormones’. I expel the guilt that current scholarship imposes on me, telling me that I should have a happy pregnancy and if not I am putting my baby at risk, not only physically but also impacting its future mental health. Of course to be happy is a blessing, but surely we must also be freely allowed to acknowledge the blessings that respectively arise from the whole spectrum of feelings experienced in life. As mothers-to-be, we are the babies first experience of life. It is our responsibility to show it all the colours, transitions, ups and downs that come with the journey. Teach the child how to grieve as well as how to laugh. And, most importantly, to teach it to surrender, because the Wheel of Fortune stops for no one.