Womb Companions
In the womb you were not alone. You were attached to your mother and shared in her life through the placenta. You were enclosed in your own amniotic sac and accompanied by your own umbilical cord. It could be also that you had other objects in the womb with you. This article will explore some of the ways in which all these objects left an indelible but very vague impression on your brain and became part of your dream of the womb.
A place to grow
First of all, we will consider the space where you spent those early formative months: your mother's womb. It was (and maybe still is) a small muscular space about the size of a pear, nestling between her hip bones. It was designed to be the perfect growing space for you. To begin with it was much larger than you. Gradually, as you grew and took up more and more space, it became small and cramped.
Your chorion
Your chorion was the first thing to develop from the mixing of DNA from your father and your mother. Eight days after fertilisation, the outer layer of cells developed into a membrane of minute fibres. It was formed from the trophoblast layer, that met with your mother's womb wall and enabled you to implant. Throughout pregnancy, until the breaking of the waters during labour, it contained all the growth and development going on inside.
Your placenta
Your placenta joined to the womb wall in a convoluted series of minute projections which provided a surface area of contact of about 10 sq. metres of surface in direct contact with the minute blood capillaries of your mother's blood supply. By means of your placenta you had a direct link with our mother, but you also had a relationship with your placenta as a separate object in your life. It was a source of good supply of nutrients and oxygen but was also a source of toxins if your mother smoked or took drugs.
As the quality of ultrasound images improves, we can observe the way that unborn babies use own placenta like a trampoline as they dance and swim about. We know from examining placentas after they are delivered that they are red and thick and circular, the size of a dinner plate and covered with a soft, smooth surface for bouncing on.
Following the birth, your umbilical cord and placenta were discarded as waste. The disposal of the placenta is a vexed question and one that may cause you concern even today, for some people become very attached to the concept of their own placenta. The most usual fate for a placenta is to be thrown into a bucket and incinerated. Some people have a problem with that, for in the dream of the womb is a loyal friend and companion who was there for you from the beginning, just as your mother was.
Your relationship with your mother is a straight reenactment of the relationship with your placenta that lies in your dream of the womb. Your placenta was an organ capable of multi-tasking, much like a busy working mother. Like mother, making mushy meals for you as a baby, it broke down food for you into a form that you could digest. Like an aqualung, it enabled you to receive oxygen and get rid of carbon monoxide.
Like your mother your placenta kept you clean inside and out, removing waste from your body and breaking down any toxins into harmless substances that could be eliminated safely. Like your mother giving you continuos liquid feeds -only to change your wet nappy six times a day - your placenta kept your fluids balance right by bringing fluids in and removing them.
You treated your mother like your placenta, and expected from her unconditional friendship and constant support - as long as she kept on functioning correctly. Like your placenta, she was less and less able to cope with you as you grew larger and perhaps life at home became a bit “toxic.” Then it was time to go. If you left a “toxic” home- perhaps is little prematurely- do remember the people left behind. Never forget that both your placenta and your mother deserve some appreciation for what they gave you in your earliest days, so honour them both.
The umbilical cord
Your cord was the vital link between you and your placenta, but as it grew it changed. It began as a little stalk at about 21 days or so, but this contained your digestive tract, for there was not any room in your thorax at that point. By 50 days or so, your digestive tract began to migrate into your abdomen, until all that remained in the cord were three blood vessels: two arteries to bring blood in, and one vein to send blood out.
By then, as a fully functioning human being, growing very fast, you needed more and more room to grow and move about under your own volition. The cord grew longer and longer as you grew. It became progressively longer until about 28 weeks of pregnancy, reaching a length of about 22 inches (50 cms) . At its longest it was as long as you. It was not smooth like a water pipe: it was corded like trunk of a tree. As it grew it twisted around itself and became coiled. It pulsed with the beat of your heart, and it had knots on it at various points. It floated about with you as you moved, moving with you and tethering you to the placenta.
The cord was as much a part of your life as the fluid you swam in. If the cord was long enough, it may have coiled around you and been in your way as you swam about, exercising your developing muscles. Some babies dance about so violently that they tie their umbilical cord in knots, a practice that can be fatal because it interferes with blood supply.
A very important moment in the process of birth is the severing of the umbilical cord. The cord is cut when it stops pulsing, and the small knobbly scar you now carry on your navel is all that remains of the life support system upon which you were once totally dependent.
The amniotic sac
The amnion is a thin membrane, made out of your own human tissue, but like the placenta and the cord, was part of the scaffolding that would one day be jettisoned. Inside the amnion - which was like a transparent bag - was the amniotic fluid that you swam in. The little puddle of fluid inside the sac was once your whole world. The fluid played a crucial role in your ability to develop normally. The liquid was clear. It cushioned and protected you and provided you with fluids. Everyone feels relaxed and sleepy in a bath of water at blood heat: this is the closest we will ever come to re-living those months floating in the amniotic sac.
If you like your own space, you feel as if you have your own private little “bubble” in which you prefer to live. It is the space where you feel safe and at home. This is your dream of life in your own little bubble of amniotic fluid.
Fibroids
It may be that other tissues were growing in the womb alongside you. The commonest growth of this kind is the fibroid, or Leiomyoma. These are benign tumours made of a muscle fibres. About a quarter of women of reproductive age have fibroids in their womb. If a fibroid was growing in the womb with you, the doctor would have been able to diagnose its presence by feel. Only about 10-15% of women with fibroids will have complications during pregnancy. In one study, only 40% of fibroids diagnosed during pregnancy were clinically detectable. When you were born, your “fibroid companion” was left behind. Fibroids may shrink but they never go completely. If your mother is still living, it is interesting to reflect upon the fact that the shrunken remains of the same fibroid that was your first companion in the womb is probably still there in some form.
IUD
As inter-uterine devices (IUD's) have been in common use now for over 40 years, it is possible that, you may have had as a womb companion a device to prevent implantation, but you managed to hang onto the womb wall and develop, nonetheless. If you were conceived alongside an IUD it would have stayed there all the time and would have been expelled from the womb along with you at your birth. If there is any impression of your IUD in your consciousness, it may have surfaced already in abstract paintings or doodles. You may find yourself making the same kind of simple T-shapes again and again and wonder why. This may be an image of your IUD in your dream of the womb.
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