Pregnancy: reflections on growing two souls

Before I begin I'd like to share that I'm going to focus on the positive aspects of my two pregnancies in this post.  I want to make that clear because I felt guilty often while I was pregnant for not enjoying every part of it.  But in the interest of being honest about my experience for any woman yet to travel that path it was not all roses.  There is lots of magic in creating new humans but also lots of challenges and it is okay to not love all of it all the time.

I take the concepts of "know thyself" and "your body is your temple" as close to heart as I can.  They are a pillar in the fundamentals of my spirituality.  That is why as a pagan I feel immensely overwhelmed at times by the awesome power that nature has in the creation of life.  It amazes me to plant a seed and see it turn into a seedling and then a vegetable which I can eat.  I am amazed by the will of life, by how fragile it is, how particular and also how random it tends to be.  And so the fact that two human beings have lived inside me and were created by two of my eggs and my partner's sperm still blows my mind.  Nature is magnificent.

When I was the home to these two souls there were many crazy and emotional moments.  When I was in the moment it was very much about staying there.  With my first pregnancy, Kyan's, I remember rushes of energy.  My blood moving through my veins faster than usual.  Feeling attuned with everything around me, feeling a part of a bigger plan and power.  I was very grounded while he was with me.  I slept deeply and did not dream.  I felt round and earthy and rooted.  Interestingly he is an earth sign.  And having the pulse of that inside me did alter how I saw things for those 9 months.  I was always warm no matter the temperature.  I set up an alter dedicated to growing and fertility and motherhood as I imagined it to be.   I read this book, I read many more on breastfeeding, childbirth and mothering.  I took a spiritually focused pre-natal class and I searched for pagan books or articles relating to rituals during pregnancy(and didn't find much).  And I read hundreds of birth stories from women in all walks of life.

With Elliott's pregnancy there was little that was the same.  Having a different soul inside was indeed different.  He was born a water sign and that is the same as my own.  That made a huge difference.  He told me early on that he was a boy.  I dreamed intense and deeply.  His name was called out by a mother at a playground and was instantly the only boy name he could have.  I felt the desire to make art often which surprised me because my first pregnancy had taken all desire to create anything other than the baby away.  I kept things simple and celebrated Imbolc with his arrival a month and 16 days away.  There was less time to feel the magic in my body but there was also always someone there to share it with me.  A little hand on my belly outside and in.  Two souls, two lives to unfold around me.

The temple of my body grew my sons and now will create new ideas and new plans for me.  I know myself enough to feel that I will not again experience pregnancy's magic.  What a glorious gift it is, what a complex and ancient wisdom that it holds.