Pre-Motherhood and the Other Side of Grief

Of all the human experiences, motherhood is probably one of the most polarizing and unionizing. That is to say, those who are mothers or parents are usually not apt to hearing advice from the childless population, and thus unionize to find support from those that get it. 

And I do - well… to an extent. I won’t deny that the birthing and child rearing experience is one that is exclusive to those who have gone through it, but I’ve been toying with my understanding of motherhood, and have journeyed to consider motherhood as separate from birthing, and thus able to transcend and possibly even pre-date the birthing experience all together. Perhaps this is why some people feel instantly bonded to motherhood, and some find themselves invested in serious self-work to be able to parent at all, even years beyond their birthing/child raising experience.

Birthing is probably the most potent proof we have, when it comes to the existence of other dimensions. As those who have children will tell you, their souls already come fully formed - It’s the body and mind that childhood and nurturing helps to develop. So in this way, birthing is a literal portal from which these new creatures in fresh bodies come to earth and try out the human experience.

Quite extraterrestrial in nature, birthing is the physical catalyst to parenthood (for some). Bio-parenthood itself is two fold: it is birthing, and it is also the manifestation of the relationship you have with the child that you share your body and blood with. But that manifestation has to be a choice, and this choice is one that comes attached to soul agreements, and many other factors. This, I believe, is where spiritual parenthood becomes perceptible. 

In my experience, my journey to motherhood has been a silkily spiritual one. One that slips around me in ways that is transparent and there. If I can be specific, I was born with a companion spirit, who has slowly and steadily connected with and communicated with me, as we grew together. My earliest memory is me sitting beside a family friend as she breastfed her baby, and as I mirrored her by fixing my stuffed animal to my own chest, I wondered to myself OK but in all seriousness, where is my baby? 

As a teenager, I experienced an interesting sort of body euphoria and dysphoria that I have never shared, aside from with a few close friends. When the coast was clear, I would enmesh plastic shopping bags under layers of tank tops to keep it in place. I called it “the belly”, and I would wear it  every chance I got - cosplaying pregnancy in a way that felt as visually and physically real as it could. I knew it was strange, and the undeniable joy to see myself in a body that made sense to me, both delighted and disturbed me. I wasn’t pregnant. So why did that feel like a personal loss? My fixation grew. 

By 15, I had a babycentre.com profile, and would spend my weekends scouring the site and reading forums message boards, in an attempt to study. I learned infant mortality rates for Black women, studied countless live-birthing videos,  I massaged my perineum nightly, and to sleep, I would open my palm to my lower-belly. It wasn’t normal, and I felt… empty. I filled in the gaps with heterosexual daydreams of marriage and stability, as I figured that would be my entry into the coveted population that I desperately wanted to be apart of. Soon, I began to feel an ache on holidays and during quiet times in the morning. I realized that this was more than an odd fixation, it was a yearning. A yearning that was met with a completely invisible, and nearly completely silent response… But a response, it was.  I could thinly make out the shape of the misery I felt - it was as if I had lost something that never existed in the first place. It was a silent torment that I didn’t dare delegitimize by speaking of. 

And then, it finally happened. I met him. I was 19 years old, home for the weekend from university. I had been sitting up on the bathroom counter for over an hour, hovering my hands above my head, twisting sections of my hair into knots. Clear as cold, a simultaneous presence and name quite literally fell into my head. Like the way an envelope falls through the other side of the mail slot. This being, this familiar presence that I was used to feeling in the form of those pining aches had returned, and this time with a name. I instantly knew whose name it was, and I remember sitting back in complete overwhelm, after the fleeting moment that had only lasted for a few seconds. I had just been visited by my unborn, unconceived child. 

Even I struggled to understand the strength of that visit, and since, the visits have grown in viscerality and in frequency. The sadness and yearning developed into full-blown grief, for a spirit that was as real as rain, but was just not here. I struggled with this grief. I told my lover most recently that the dead and the unborn have so much in common, and the ones connected to them suffer in similar ways. To grieve someone is to have had them with you, and experienced their transition onwards without you - But what happens when I miss and yearn for my loved one, who I have never lost, yet never met. When he comes to visit me in an empty room, and when I can see, feel, kiss and hold him in my dreams, I feel our bond. And yet, I still grieve over the barrier of my humanness and his ephemerality. I have been nesting my whole life it seems, preparing for this visit, tidying my many minds, mending my child wounds. I feel like we were sent here on earth together, but I just made it into the material before he did.

I heard that anyone longing to be a parent should be able to answer the question: “Why do you want children?” without centering themselves in their answer. I’ve had a few years in spiritual parenthood that has helped me to my answer: There are souls coming here to earth. This is a solid fact. These souls will make it to earth, if that’s where they are meant to be. I believe that part of my role here on earth is to help facilitate and welcome these souls into the human experience. And I am so unbelievably blessed to have already been chosen and have developed a loving awareness with one of these souls.

I won’t pretend to know anything about him - I don’t even know if the pronoun “him” will be applicable - But I do know that there will be a grand recognition when we finally meet in this realm. And I do know that I savor every dream, every vision and every visit. I do know that this soul is real, and so is my grief.

But there is another factor,  sitting with the otherside of grief. The truth is that despite its deeply  expansive and beautiful nature, “pre-motherhood” also feels… intrusive. I felt like I had no right to take such an identification with an experience I never even came close to having. I don’t know the struggles of squished organs and aching bones. Though I have parented in my life, I still don’t know the all-consuming nature of raising a newborn, or the terror and honour of respecting and protecting a brand new human. And thus reinforced my disidentification with “birthing” and “parenthood”. Although connected, I learned that the two experiences were not as synonymous as I once believed them to be. 

I  started to understand… of course I had the capacity to feel connected to child rearing. Did I not just return from the battle of childhood and infancy myself? Even now in my mid-twenties, I shy away from child and parent-focused education, in fear of the scrutiny of my child-less life, and the audacity to have a say in raising a family. But then I remember - I am 25 years old. I was a child for most of my life! In fact, I’ve only been an “adult” for 7 years now! And it’s not as if adulthood starts instantly after 18, so we can round that down to 5 years. How is it that my 18+ years of experience as a child is less valuable than my measly 7 years as an adult? My vision on this matter started to clear. 

Pre-motherhood has also unlocked a level of empathy that I didn’t know existed, as it pertains to my own mother and hard-feelings about childhood. I don’t believe that birth absolves parents from the mistakes they made during motherhood, but I do understand now that birthing is a near-involuntary process. It’s a bodily function signaled by hormones, fluids, gestational periods, and internal functions that we can mostly monitor, and not always control. 

It is parenting/motherhood that is the preparation period assigned to all parents who decide to witness the alchemy of birth. This preparation period is a tandem energy exchange between parent and child that ultimately helps preposition these new humans, in one way or another, to fulfill the purpose they have here on earth. 

Spiritual parenthood and pre-motherhood has allowed me a sacred opportunity to work with my unborn and to allow us the privilege to co-create their life and entry into this world. And even if we are not meant to meet here in this world, in this life, I still would have known the joy of existing in their orbit - I have felt the essence of their soul and have been granted enough time to create familiarity and so much love. And if this love stays in the ether, then that is fine too. I will be there soon.