Zwiggen: A Mother's Walk into Death

As we approach my son's first birthday, I feel as though I am living in a strange ballet.
I know the steps, I dance them through the rooms of the house, except this time, the baby is in my arms instead of inside me.

Fifty one weeks ago, I was forty one weeks pregnant.

I had appointments for two doses of induction medication waiting for me the next week, and I had a full fledged induction scheduled for the Friday.

I remember feeling like I was in suspended animation then. Zwiggen is what the Germans call it;
a kind of twilight realm where the mother has to walk slowly into the realm of death in order to fetch the soul of her baby and bring it back. It is an altered state of being, where the mother is neither alive nor dead. She is between worlds.
As she voyages deeper into this space, labor begins. In order to touch the spirit of the baby, she has to get closer to death, so she goes closer, unquestioningly, unfailingly. She goes closer until she is barely alive, until she is mostly spirit herself, only then can she touch the baby's soul and grasp it.

This is why so many women, if not all women, reach a point in birth where they say, "I can't do this."
They feel fear like an animal, fear not of what they are doing, but fear that they are too tired to come back out of death. It has taken so long to get there, so long to reach the baby's soul, that bringing it back out feels impossible. Physically, this is the most critical moment in labor, the point at which the baby must pass through the pelvis. This moment is the reason why humans are born after only nine months gestation.
The first three months of a humans life are the most touch and go because technically, a newborn should still be in the womb, but we have evolved to be born prematurely due to the size of our infant heads. A baby at proper full length gestation could not pass through its mother's pelvic bone, and both mother and child would die, so we are born before we are finished being made.
Our bodies are not finished yet.
The souls have not made their way to them yet.
So the mother, must go get the soul, bring it back, and in this last, crucial moment, split her physical self down the middle to all at once let out the baby while giving it its soul and put back her own spirit at the same time.

This is why we falter. The moment of return of knowing we can never go back to the way we were before, it is too big, too intimidating.
A woman is never the same after she gives birth because she has gone into death and back.
There is no being the same after that journey.
It does not matter if you have a c-section. It does not matter what medical interventions need to be taken. If you have had a child, you have walked into death and come out again, and there is no going back afterward.

So I look forward to celebrating my child's birthday.
I am so excited to give him presents, watch him eat cake, and delight in his celebration of life, but for now, I am mourning the last memories I have of being a girl before her walk into death, because I am different now. I have never felt more different, and more alive.