Adventures of Zyggy the Wonder Zygote, First Installment

Initially, I wanted to begin a blog about BIRTH. Well, Birth, Death and the stuff in between. For what ever reason, my family and I have had a disproportionately large number of experiences with both ends of life. I've attended and assisted at a dozen births, though it is not my profession to do so. I'm neither a midwife nor a doula, but a bodyworker and friend to many women who asked me to attend them during this pivotal life experience. I love attending birth. I loved giving birth - the first time at home, and in a birth center the second time, when all the midwives in Los Angeles were being rounded up and jailed.

My husband and I are not hospice workers or medical personnel but we've been on hand for the last days and even the last breath of several folks. In one eighteen month period  we lost thirteen people who were close to us. We thought we'd inadvertently signed up for the "Death of the Month Club." It was a trying time. Our children were nine and twelve when the adventure began with the death of their paternal grandmother in 1989. We learned a lot. We cried a lot and at least felt familiar with the territory of grieving and supporting those who grieve.

Birth and death have a similar time table - meaning there IS no time table for either... each birth is unique; each death is unique.The practice of staying present to "WHAT is, WHILE it is the WAY it is" makes sense to me, but is challenging when our emotional stuff comes up. Returning to 'just this breath, just this moment' helps me. What helps you?

Since starting My Monday Muse on Blogspot, I've written pieces about my mom's illness, a family member's death, Ants! But nothing yet about birth. I notice myself squirming at the thought of committing my ideas to the wide world about birthing practices in the United States. I don't consider myself a radical, but acknowledge that some of my ideas are so far out of the mainstream of thought on the subject of birth as to be... well, radical.

I like to take the perspective of the person being born as IF s/he were a fully conscious, sentient and sensitive being. I wonder aloud here, for all who care to read, what the world might be like if we treated all emerging humans with the respect due them.

What follows is a fiction. It is a midnight musing from a few years ago. I share it with you: 1) to dip my toe in the water (not amniotic fluid) and, 2) to stay true to my initial intent which was to write about Birth... and the rest of it. I hope you get a laugh...

“Aaaaaaaaaaagh! Waaaaaaaiiiitt….nooooooooooooo! Not THIS couple; not THIS mom. Not THIS womb. I didn’t mean to choose this life!! Someone pushed me.Take me ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-ck pleeeeeeease!”

Faint sound akin to a squish as one reluctant soul enters the fertilized ovum. 

P.O.V.: INSIDE WOMB

“What are YOU doing here?” the sperm asks at the same time the soul and the egg are asking the same question. "For my part…  I was just so excited to get here! I had to fight off millions of other sperm, fight my way, elbow and nudge to be first and I MADE it! HA! Tetrus drivers have nothin’ on me!  You shoulda seen me swim the distance! Man oh man what a struggle. Then I get here and smoosh, smother, dissolve, Man… beware that zona pelucida… ain’t nothin’ lucid or peaceful about it. Got my cajones intact but barely. Stripped of my former identity as Manly Sperm down to the bare essentials of x-y-z. That’s z for zygote. By the way... I wonder what we’re growin’ here. An “x” or a “y”? Sure grows fast!”

A soft, curled feminine voice undulates in the velvet dark, sounding slightly echoey, 

“You think you had it rough, darling… let me tell you about the expulsion from the ovary and bonking down the tube. What a dizzying experience THAT was! Of course it doesn’t help that this mistress to whom I’m hand-maiden is pretty sloshed a good deal of the time. Makes it hard to know which way is up and how to choose a suitable mate. Looks as if you’ll do… at least until the baby is born, then all bets are off. You look like a possible 'donate and run' to me."

Both sperm and egg turn to the soul. 

“So, you?” 

“With all due respect… I didn’t mean to show up here at all! I’d give anything to get back home. I was playing around on the edge of baby heaven when someone pushed and here I am. What a predicament. I could see that your mistress,” turning to the egg voice, "really, really likes the sauce. Bummer. But then, I was a lush in my last incarnation so I guess it’s just desserts that I be born to one now. Let’s take a look around and see what’s what. Watch out there… cell division is a bumpy ride. I’m beginning to feel woozly… can’t quite remember what we were…zzzzzzz.”

At this time the newly installed soul undergoes radical amnesia – obliterating all memory of what came before and what its marching orders are for this lifetime. There’s only a thread of dread at the core of the forming zygote as it transforms from pollywog to fish to mammal to human mammal. As soon as it’s able it grabs hold of the umbilicus and tries to slow the flow of alcohol infused blood into itself.

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of “Zyggy, the Wonder Zygote.”