The Voice Inside

At night, Angela sensed fluttering movements inside her and smiled softly, inwardly. All was well. The universe made sense to her during these private moments. Her body was ripening, she was becoming someone, something meaningful, with a real purpose. No one could take away this privilege, this joyful expectation. When walking through the clamorous city streets, past obsidian corporate buildings, gaudy shop displays and threatened public libraries, she felt protected and guided by a higher force taking her to a mystery destination. Although an introverted person, it was in her nature to be optimistic. At least that is what her friends said about her.

What gave her unique satisfaction was visualising the industriousness of her gestating body: The hormonal surges, the incredible growth in progress from pre-implantation conceptus, the roaming embryo and its adnexa, to full-term baby; the increase of ruby-red blood pumping vital oxygen through her and nourishing the child to be; the 266 days of cellular organisation it took to shape a new human being. Fascinated by the science of human embryogenesis, she had spoken with multiple doctors, midwives and nurses about internal processes, foetal development, the formation of organs, sensory perception and life within the womb. She longed to take a fantastic voyage inside to uncover the miraculous events that conspired to make life happen but, as the White Coats all concurred, in spite of significant progress in the field of medical imagery, in utero space still held many deep secrets and perhaps, as they argued, some are best left unexplored.

Angela was now officially on maternity leave, away from her working-girl persona, Comme des Garçons black blazers and sheer shirts, Powerpoint angst, boardroom pitches and the C-suite leeches. She was relieved to be rid, at least temporarily, of the corporate imperatives, surveillance sold as team-building, ‘blue-sky thinking,’ uneventful ‘thought showers,’ ‘touching base offline’ and oppressively grey open-plan work spaces. Secure in her home environment, in a leafy London suburb, with space that she, and no one else managed ‘strategically’, Angela busied herself during the day, cleaning her flat that overflowed with gifted, mostly floral maternity clothes and neatly stacked pregnancy magazines and literature emblazoned with hope-filled, often mystical titles, The Hormone Cure, Embodied Progress, The Quiet Conception, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and Birthing from Within: An Extra-ordinary Guide to Childbirth Preparation, a book that enchanted her with its spiritual call to self-knowledge and one that she had recommended to her circle of friends, even those who had no intention of procreating. They openly eye-rolled their indifference at the book’s blurb which Angela had memorised, internalised and also used to playfully proselytise the uninitiated: ‘Here is a holistic approach to childbirth that examines this profound rite of passage not as a medical event but as an act of self-discovery. Exercises and activities such as journal writing, meditation, and painting will help mothers analyse their thoughts and face their fears during pregnancy’. With full faith, Angela embraced this method to the letter.

She had been given the last book from Joany, a university friend who suffered multiple miscarriages, one particularly traumatic, due to anencephaly, which she continued to blame herself for even though she took the prescribed doses of folic acid. Still haunted by the monochrome ultrasound images of a half-skulled foetus, Joany claimed she had now ‘learned her lessons’ the ‘hard way’. Through ‘necessary’ trials and tribulations she believed she had finally attained the optimal spiritual maturity to achieve the much coveted ‘live birth’. This is what Aasha, Joany’s fertility mentor, had told her. They had connected over fruitfulfertility.org and were now friends for life, bonding over oriental yoni wisdom and turmeric-coloured, Carnelian stimulating crystals that Aasha had brought over from family in Jaipur, gems reputed to boost planned reproduction.

Other friends had had other challenges, undergoing fertility MOTs to assess their fecundity, getting depressing results then panic-partnering before their underachieving ovaries fizzled out. Some girlfriends, who self-identified as ‘feministas’, believed that the appliance of science or ‘bio-hacking’ could perfect the art of conception and guarantee a premium pregnancy and child. Lina was convinced that freezing her eggs would give her control over life (and future partner). When the Cleveland fertility clinic called her to report a temperature malfunction and the subsequent loss of her 20 ‘immaculate’, ‘grade A’ oocytes, she lost consciousness in the boardroom and was ridiculed by male colleagues who leered at her ripped blouse. Marie-Therese had used up all her savings on multiple IVF procedures and nearly met her end when one of her overstimulated ovaries twisted around the tissues supporting it while she was driving over the Oakland Bay Bridge, ironically on her way to the clinic for egg retrieval. The pain was unspeakable and left her like a broken bird, paralysed and mute with sadness for days. Holding on to fertility came with risks and sometimes even macabre body scenarios; public bleeding, indelibly stained clothes and rattled wombs.

Angela was intrigued by bodies, her body, its achievements and limitations. Before her child was conceived she had informally studied the science of human reproduction, with help from medical expert friends, and kept a notebook where she wrote down her private thoughts about embryonic life, gene mutations and human perfectibility. She surprised herself with this yearning to understand biological complexities, the structure of the blastocyst, the functioning of the haemochorial placenta or crimson flat cake offering nutrition through its villous network of delicate blood vessels, stretching out like thousands of benevolent, miniature arms. Angela considered her placenta to be a unique character, as it literally was in her gestational story, serving many purposes, filtering out waste, delivering nutrients and essential antibodies like a faithful, corporeal assistant. It was a brand new part of her and genetically distinct, one of a kind, a bloody genius able to protect the foetus from xenobiotic molecules, infections and maternal diseases. ‘Early in gestation, the fertilised egg implants itself in the mother’s uterine lining and sends out a few cells to breach it’, Angela had read. ‘As the placental beachhead grows, its cells specialise to do the work of heart, lungs, liver and kidneys until the foetus can fend for itself’. How could one not be impressed by these internal intricacies she thought and even considered taking formal courses on mammalian biology at the local university, urgent to learn more about gametes, their improbable fusion and the complete gestational extravaganza. But what she desired above all was to talk to the foetus and have it reveal its thoughts and tell her about its saline, amniotic chamber, about breathing in the dark, breathing its mother in. Then it would become her true introspective voice, a living voice inside telling stories that augmented and enhanced her autobiographical self. These intimate, autobiological revelations she so wished for could then unveil her core identity through physiological, organic sensations and their possible connections to the kaleidoscopic, psychological impulses that drove human behaviour.

The chance to visually connect with her unborn baby came on a sweltering hot June day when her 3-month ultrasound was scheduled. Walking into the air-conditioned women’s clinic felt like going into a cool movie house with a difference. With smaller screening rooms and doctors and midwives to usher her in, Angela imagined she could watch her maternity-leave favourites in the clinic, like Domicile Conjugal with Truffaut’s quasi-autobiographical character, navel-gazing Antoine Doinel or sympathise with hapless, escapist Cecilia in The Purple Rose of Cairo. Seeing her baby was the special time she needed to escape the harsh realities of city life, memories of an unfulfilling career and to finally be able to focus on the important things: seeing the person inside, a tiny dancer in the dark, her very own silent movie star. As she lay down on a soft Ultra Pro™ ultrasound table, stomach exposed, Dr Jaupart, the prenatal gynaecologist, with her characteristic calm and perfect manners, began to explore the universe inside Angela with her transducer. On the screen beside her Angela saw the foetal skull, brain, two arms, two legs, its heart, stomach, bowel, pelvis and bladder.

‘Looks good to me. Excellent nuchal translucency measurement’ said the doctor who proceeded to talk rapidly, Ultra Pro style, into a recording device with the details of the examination, leaving Angela to admire the work of art inside her womb. She touched the dark screen and ran her fingers along the frozen image of the baby’s perfect head that would be printed out to take home and pinned up in her study, next to her fertility awareness notes. Watching her baby’s sonographic movements caught her breath, making her so tense with elation she could not speak. The foetus performed in fast motion, bouncing joyfully inside the uterine pool as if it knew it was being watched, evaluated, adulated and had to impress. It swung fearlessly around the umbilical rope, its very own robust corde lisse. Sliding gracefully up and down a confined yet nurturing space, her hyperactive, foetal acrobat then curtsied before darting swiftly upwards again within its gynaecological play area. I can see right through you thought Angela when she recalled catching sight of the busy valves within the chest cavity and the burgeoning ears, toes and tiny nose.

‘And I can see right through you’ replied a voice that came from a visceral place or from the busy high street outside. Angela was frightened by this new, whispery someone. She quickly dressed, paid for the sonogram and took the bus home, carefully reading the results of her test. Sitting comfortably in her living room, reading about amniotic fluid in a scientific journal, Angela thought she heard the muffled voice again:

‘I know you from the inside. Your secrets, your shame, your past and future hopes. Don’t fear me because we are one. I know your true self’. She slowly put the journal on the coffee table beside her and instinctively placed her hands on her belly. ‘Feel me!’, said the foetus. Angela massaged her warm body with small, circular movements and hesitatingly entered into a conversation with the person inside her. Her deepest wish was about to come true. She was going to talk to her baby. ‘How does it feel being inside?’, she began. ‘Is it not too noisy? Too cramped?’

‘All is well. I am getting the nourishment I need and growing in so many ways. Your heart beats strongly and your belly is welcoming and warm. I am strong and your soul speaks to me’.

Angela was disturbed by this last revelation. It made her uneasy. Her hands took a break from their maternal massaging. She had been on many spiritual quests in her life, filled countless diaries and notebooks with ‘lessons’ and ‘aims’ and ‘gratitude’ in order to overcome the demons (real and imagined) from her past. She had tried and failed to fully ‘know herself’ during trips to Rishikesh, Dharamsala and Vrindavan. The ‘Yogini Wisdom Brochure’ that accompanied one such pilgrimage had said ‘through a process by which the self is interrogated and in a sense interviewed through its concrete experience of otherness, attendees will achieve supreme self-knowledge’. Sipping sweet cardamom chai in the Himalayan Shangrila vegetarian restaurant, after several days of meditation, Angela sadly accepted that moksha and higher consciousness were elusive. Sensing her distant thoughts the baby called to her again.

‘Forget the past and look to the future and please, no more spicy meals!’ Again Angela was taken aback by the directness of her unborn child, but this time she laughed out loud. She had indeed been enjoying masala meals but her baby was clearly less enthusiastic about coriander, turmeric, black pepper and feisty ginger. The baby also informed her that the strong perfumes and luxury shower gels she used were disagreeably perceptible in utero and that, if Angela didn’t mind, would she please use safer alternatives. Angela cleared her cupboards of all noxious cosmetics and hastily disposed of all the fluorescent detergents that lit up the bathroom. She listened attentively to any advice the baby gave her and stopped reading the glossy maternity magazines with their superficiality, sanitised perfection and annoying adverts for unnecessary supplements. The voice inside guided her choices now and she was overwhelmed with love and pride for the small human being and the wisdoms it calmly divulged. Angela told no one of these private conversations. What would people think? That pregnancy had compromised her mental health? Or that she was overthinking a perfectly natural process? Stigmatised an ‘elderly primigravida’, a label that had deeply offended her, she did not want to suffer judgemental eyes and cruel tongues.

The lengthy conversations between Angela and her foetus continued on a daily basis. Its voice grew stronger and more assured by the day. These in-body exchanges traced key moments in her life, often focusing on family relations. The baby knew so much; with its deeply intuitive mind it understood that Angela was estranged from her own mother and not close to her siblings. The small sage inside listened to Angela’s soft utterances, tales of masked solitude and taut smiles in the midst of sparkling social events, where the conversations had were soulless and predictable. Angela possessed the income to experience distant countries and complex cultures, but her deep loneliness was palpable to the baby who could taste mood fluctuations in its aqueous bubble. Angela could not keep any angst hidden from the baby, the inevitable heartaches or the ‘thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to’. Even the mighty, miraculous placenta, her internal sentinel, could not block these intruders out. The rising tide of pregnancy hormones amplified her consciousness of these emotional risks, making her feel vulnerable and powerful at the same time. It also made her dreams more surreal, more vivid and sometimes frightening.

After one particular fitful night of obscure, ghoulish dreams she could not translate, nor was inclined to, Angela sought rational reassurance in one of her ‘evidence-based’ pregnancy textbooks. ‘Bumpology’ and ‘Expecting Better’ actually cited their sources and discussed the ‘quality of scientific research’ related to common pregnancy queries, the kind that often made expectant women panic. She preferred the first text though, which offered ‘strong data’ and made her forget the hackneyed yet addictive information offered on web forums which she could not keep herself from accessing. Moreover, thought Angela, the suffix ‘ology’ sounded like hard science. ‘Bumpology’ also provided information about monthly foetal development. She read an excerpt out loud to clear her head but also to create a conversation piece with her child: ‘At the 4-month stage, the baby’s head is large in proportion to the rest of its body, its face takes on human features, many bones have ossified and eyelids, eyebrows eyelashes, nails and hair are now well defined’. Angela then waited for a confirmation from within. But instead of responding directly to its mother’s provocations the baby evoked obscure thoughts and memories in the manner of a crystal gazer or clairvoyant:

Who is the shadow-man that you fear? I sense a thought fox inside, rummaging around your mind. Who is this companion that I have never heard in the world outside my liquid home?

Again Angela was taken aback by the direct questions, and this time she resented the perspicacious voice which compelled her to look inward and revisit her dreams. For as long as she could remember, this ‘shadow-man’ was a protagonist in many of her dreams, a mutable figure, taking on multiple guises. Angela was now forced to interrogate one particularly pernicious image from a recurring dream in which a strange, youngish–oldish man lingered by the school gates, waiting for her, and just her, after the playground made no more sound and the classroom doors were locked shut. Did she know him? Had they spoken? Was he simply a made-up memory fuelled by reading too many fairy tales or were his recent, increased visitations induced by her ‘pregnancy brain’? The baby told her she needed to confront the unseemly shadow but she recoiled at the idea. She wanted to regulate her emotions, not be overwhelmed by them. For a moment, Angela visualised her worn-out amygdalae, like a second pair of eyes, partially eroded from working overtime trying to process these untidy memories saturated with disquiet and malaise. There were so many of them, she sheepishly admitted to the baby, like intimate journals with frayed edges, swollen with cryptic notes.

That night, heavy with fatigue brought on by rising progesterone and the day’s probing conversations, Angela tried to resist sleep with rational readings of the daily news. She feared a nocturnal confrontation with her shadow-man. Inevitably though, he appeared and she, like a lucid dreamer seemingly in charge of her narrative, made her way to him. Contrary to her diffidence when awake and the diurnal reluctance to face up to him, Dream-Angela now brazenly sought to closely examine the man’s face so that their noses nearly touched. His face, heavy and waxen was bloodless, the eyes, dark voids. They were now both outside the school gates, like equals. But, as she knew too well, the shadow-man was a cunning shape-shifter. He first resembled men she knew from the real world, sharp-suited, fast-talking financiers, the sterile, hollow men she called ‘friends’ but who were not. He then morphed into a lupine predator raging with libidinous hunger, thrusting himself upon her, but Dream-Angela showed no fear and smashed the wolf’s slavering jaw with a supernatural force that surprised her and the beast who howled in anguish. She lay beside the wounded creature and caressed its heaving chest, then perused its impotent eyes, lolling tongue and further down, between its hirsute thighs, noticed with medical detachment its hypertrophied member, still functional, awaiting satisfaction. It was grotesque, an aberration and she felt no desire, only pity and in this she manifestly disobeyed the natural order of things. The wolf face mutated into a handsome human one, yet Angela felt no urge or arousal. What kind of an emotional trial was this? Had she vanquished her shadow-man? Was she supposed to? It was not her intention. Contemplating the power she possessed, Dream-Angela found herself in a lavish boudoir with antique mantels decorated with fin-de-siècle odalisque tableaux and gilded mirrors. In the same room, a dozen cloaked handmaids looked on. The shadow-man reappeared wearing a solemn countenance and offered her a ruby choker, a reward perhaps for Angela’s recent valour. She placed it around her throat and it stung her, leaving an open, arterial wound. The shadow-man responded to the gash, an entry point, and planted a perfunctory kiss on her bleeding neck, a gesture that Dream-Angela did not object to as there was nothing tenebrous or morbid about the act; it created a profound connection between them both. Their beings were now merged through this cellular fusion of a kiss which was not abject or ominous, not sexual or life-sapping but rather adding something to it in a transactional, impartial way. Here the opaque dream narrative ended as Angela became aware of familiar voices and fragmented sounds emitted by the bedside radio. Its materiality was reassuring as was the factual stream of news and its accompanying logical syntax and flow which distanced her from the night’s disturbing, lycanthropic scenario.

It was 8 a.m. and, feeling hungry, she prepared breakfast quietly, trying to make some sense of the preternatural stories she had created but could not yet completely decipher. She was hoping that the baby would talk to her now and help her interpret her exchanges with the shadow-man but it did not. She rubbed her swollen belly gently and now warm thoughts overtook the strangeness she had just experienced. She turned her mind to the mundane tasks that lay ahead that day. There was shopping to be done, laundry to collect and she needed to do a routine blood test to check her ferritin levels.

At the end of the day, as the street shadows grew longer and commuters returned hastily from the city’s innards, Angela lay down on her living room sofa, intending to read ‘Bumpology’ on the meaning of pregnancy dreams but was soon overtaken by drowsiness. Then she thought she heard a voice, though barely recognisable. It was as if it were coming from the other side of a padded door. It lacked the clarity and conviction of her baby’s confident expression, but the torrent of words was coming from inside like an uncontrollable gush:

Intermittent light breathing you in lines are broken cord is cut glabrous walls sliding down inevitable necrosis, tick-tock goes the body clock womb at low tide breathe out let me out cannot stay in internal flaw not your intention not mine venous restriction placental more lessons to impart but how cannot move clouded visions human tissue torn apart you from me-me from you stitch us back together deoxygenated chamber pressure building up time to impact cardiomyopathy incalculable remember me as ideation-creation-sensation-contractions baby-by-design hypovolemic shock what illogical science is this? uterine tetany – you loved me – contract-release contract-release – you made me – unmoored untied free-floating captive inside breathing in breathing out let me out.

Angela’s heart rate accelerated dangerously as she listened in horror to her child’s broken, breaking narrative. Her abdomen ached and something from inside leaked out onto her thigh. She sat up and instinctively extended her hand towards the liquid warmth to discover her own fresh blood now trailing slowly down her leg and out over the smooth leather sofa.

What had defeated the immaculate dream, the perfectly mapped-out pregnancy and interrupted the deeply private mother–child conversation that no one would believe? Abruptio placentae, premature, placental detachment from the uterine wall had swiftly silenced Angela’s in vitro miracle baby. Miraculous indeed, because it gave voice to her covert truths, compulsions, sexual predilections and intimate biology. The child she had desperately wanted, planned, identified and purchased the ideal genetic material for and successfully conceived all-by-herself, but would not deliver. Her faithful assistant, her unique placenta, turned out to be a flawed genius who had un-nurtured her pristine, supernatural embryo, endowed with extraordinary cognitive and sensory abilities. The textbook scenarios Angela had wilfully overlooked in her optimism to successfully procreate had come to pass: ‘Problems with the placenta often begin in the spiral arteries of the mother − the arteries that the foetus commandeers to feed itself. If they are blocked or too narrow, the foetus may not get enough oxygen and nutrients, and the mother’s blood pressure may spike toward pre-eclampsia’. Angela’s contrived life project, her idealised, visceral romance had come undone and her unique autobiology had thus unexpectedly devolved into autopathography, a blood-filled, amniotic testimonial, steeped in the all-too-natural truths of reproductive failure.