‘Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.’

(Thoreau.)

…And, I would add, in our bodies.

My sister in law gave me a sweet book on pregnancy for the holidays. It says that in week 10 of pregnancy, a fetus has more room and dexterity than they’ll have until around 3 months after birth. They are floating in amniotic fluid, connected through the umbilical cord. The book compared this to being an astronaut, or “intronaut” as one person put it.

I love books, films, and art about space. I have a Dobsonian telescope, am an amateur astronomer, and have made three detailed lino cuts of Earth’s Moon. One of my first vivid pregnancy dreams, maybe the best dream I’ve ever had, was of looking through a porthole on the International Space Station and seeing Earth from above. It was awe-inspiring, and I love looking for ways to find that connection with what is happening to me internally. What a powerful thing.

A coworker also told me that amniotic fluid has much the same composition as seawater. Which makes sense– in some ways, I wonder if that’s the “primeval sludge” and really, this creature inside me is moving rapidly through some echoes of evolution. At first they’re just a few cells; then a tiny lizard-looking being, with a tail and “eyes” on the sides of their head; and later, fur; until finally they begin to look like a human baby. This is what we’re built of, what we come from. Reminds me, also, of a professor’s comment about Hobbes’ idea of “the state of nature” as a “war of all against all.” She pointed out that our first experiences of life are of connection and care, not vicious competition. This being is nourished by me, by my body, just as I am nourished by the life around me, which is nourished in turn by the sun, earth, and death and decomposition.

One aspect of this complex pregnancy has been its ability to teach me to admire (and even feel in awe of) my body in new ways. This is a gift.