Aversion to Pregnancy

Throughout many societies and times pregnancy is revered as the ultimate human act of creation, the unique ability of woman to conceive and form life. Most, therefore, demand to know why, why, why I so adamantly declare that I would not bear a second child.

Pregnancy, to me, relegates a woman to a primal, physical state - the function of reproduction. Perhaps it is my own weakness and inability, but pregnancy has ensconced me in my physical state. My focus has become tuned to the physical challenges, the body changes, the frailties, needs, and strengths of the flesh. Seek as I may, I have not felt the soul of my child. I have not felt the spiritual bond within my womb as I had hoped and heard others could.

My own approach to life is best represented by my interpretation of Om - the balance of the physical, spiritual, and mental; no focus on any one aspect, but rather an awareness of how all affect each other. In harmony these aspects of the human creature can strengthen and elevate that being to something more than a beast. In imbalance that person is fragmented, locked in a struggle bound by the limitation of one element impeded, rather than aided, by the neglect and weakened state of the others. In pursuit of Om, I hope for human evolution; in absence of it I despair of degeneration and rot in the primal, animal form.

To be locked into such an extreme awareness of my physical form - especially so absolutely female - I feel squeezed into the mold of a reproductive organ, functioning as procreator of an already overpopulated, self-destructive race. Perhaps, then, it is my challenge to strengthen my spiritual side, to elevate it to the awareness of my physical state and dire processing of my mind.

Perhaps this challenge is answered after birth, when the spiritual bond between mother and baby is known most often to surge and unite the two as concrete family. Perhaps then the end result is a stronger awareness of the total being. I do not know; I have not reached the end. In this there is hope yet - to be more than animal, more than the ascribed female function.

Yet another experience from which to learn.

© Elven Lore 10/24/01