Shona Bridge | Apprentice Yoga Teacher

I was about four months pregnant when I had the miscarriage. It was 2007 and I remember being on the lounge room floor in severe pain; an ambulance had been called and while I didn’t know it at the time, the amniotic sac was caught on my cervix, forcing my body into labour.

I knew the baby was dead. It was an instant, sharp knowing. The moment I realised this, I seemed to lose my automatic capacity to breathe. I had to consciously force myself to take each breath, and I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to breathe.

Simultaneously I felt myself surrounded by tremendous vibration. The vibration wasn’t just around me, it was all through me. It was very loud; a whooshing, thrumming, pulsing hum – a sound that was familiar, resonant and profoundly beautiful.  

As I was drawn deeper and deeper into the vibration – upward, as if through a tunnel – I felt the presence of the unborn baby beside me. We were all the same thing – the vibration, the unborn soul and myself.

We soon reached a point where the vibration changed in frequency. It shifted to the frequency of pure light and formed into a portal of sorts. I could go no further but the unborn soul slipped through the portal and was gone.

At that point I heard a voice – it wasn’t male or female but it was clear and direct. The voice told me I must breathe.

I took a breath and instantly became aware of my body on the lounge room floor. I turned to look at my body and was immediately drawn down into it. From that moment I could feel my physical pain and my breathing came of its own accord. The ambulance came and I was taken to hospital. Inevitably, the baby was insufficiently formed and lifeless when it was eventually born.

At first I didn’t understand the far-reaching effects of this experience. I grieved the loss of my baby and couldn’t find a language to explain the intensity of what had happened or how I felt changed by it. This knowledge and awareness sat somewhere deep inside me until the following year when I became pregnant again.

About midway through this pregnancy I realised the soul I was carrying was the same soul I had lost during the miscarriage. It was the most extraordinary feeling of recognition.

This pregnancy went full term. The process of birthing this baby reconnected me with the miscarriage and simultaneously rearranged these experiences into what I can only describe as a new awareness.

What I mean is, I no longer had any fear of death or dying. Instead I had a deep curiosity about death and the unchartered possibilities that might be available to us at end-of-life.

I still wonder what death might have to teach us, not just at the end of our lives, but right here among the changeable currents of living.

Exploring this territory is something I will continue to do.

—Shona Bridge (2017)

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