The Abortion Chronicles Part 5

My body feels ragged.
My womb like a deflated balloon.
Cramping gently as it tries to pull itself back into shape.
Sporadically coughing up blood clots of varying sizes to be caught in my big mattress pads.
Naturally called to rubbing my tummy in small circles I remember why I feel this way.
The image of a tiny human resting in the palm of my hand flashes in my mind.
And I want her to have moved. To have shuddered. To have rested her hand on my finger tip. To have had more. More time with her. And I long to rush to the box and open up her bio-hazard packaging and hold her.

And my mind wonders if there is some way of preserving her? If maybe I could get hold of some formaldehyde? So that I could spend more time with her? Hold her again when I needed.

And another part of my mind is telling me "this is a little unhinged ..." and the Buddha story comes to me: "Bring me a mustard seed from a house that has not experienced loss, and I will bring your child back to life." Paraphrased a little ...

And she is not there. It is simply her tiny fragile body. And that body that so valiantly grew deserves to be allowed to return to the earth, so that she may complete her cycle on this Earth at this time.
And there's something about returning her cold fragile body to the warmth and darkness of another womb. Wrapping her in a blanket of soil that she might never be cold again. That she might be held and loved by the greatest mother of them all. And be allowed in her own way, to fulfil the role of mother in giving life to something else.

This was my choice. No matter how much I am angry at or want to blame the father, I cannot.
This was my choice.
This is the way it was to be.
I know and trust the voice that showed me.
The right way is not always the high ground.

I find it interesting that I add that bit as if in response to some attack. There has been no attack.

I still feel grief. My choice or no, it was the end of a life. One that I would have could have shared my life with. (Or had mine taken over by.)

It's like two side of me fighting: the one that disapproves of the decision and thinks, nay asserts that I have no right to feel sad; and the side that is present to it all. The side that took no painkillers. The one that refuses to do anything that involved anaesthetic.

The side that disapproves is telling me that that was actually its decision as a form of punishment. The one that is present laughs and says thank you: that it was glad to be fully present. That my child deserved it to be a "fully present" event.

And I agree. I honour my child by being fully present to its birthing, to its happening, to its death.

And it's true. No matter what anyone else says - including you Oh disapproving me - I have done the best I could. And I will continue to do the best I can in what is and was a hard hard situation.

And then the image of her flashes through my mind and I want to hold her again.

4th February 2012