In the Belly of a Fish – A Poetic Memoir of Surrender and Becoming

by Alexis Brunstedt

There are moments in life when we are swallowed whole—not by a literal fish, but by circumstances so vast and consuming they become their own kind of belly. For me, it was the year I was 33. Pregnant. Unmarried. Alone in many ways, and yet surrounded by a swirl of well-meaning people who didn’t know what to do with my grief, my shame, or my strange sense of faith.

What follows is not just a poem—it’s a piece of my personal story. A modern-day Jonah, I spent months tucked away in Orange County, carrying both a child and a crisis of identity. I lived with my aunt and uncle, selected an adoptive family from their church, and surrendered my daughter into the arms of strangers I prayed would love her well.

What I didn’t expect was that in giving her life, I’d be forced to reexamine my own.

This poem is for anyone who has known the dark silence of waiting, the ache of decision, and the holiness that sometimes only emerges after everything has been stripped away.

In the Belly of a Fish

I was 33 when the water broke—

not just from my body

but from the illusion

that I knew who I was.

They sent me to Orange County,

where the air was scrubbed clean and polite.

My aunt stocked the fridge.

My uncle stayed out of sight.

I was a guest of the gospel,

carrying shame in a floral robe.

The fish came in the form of a family

who couldn’t have children.

They prayed for me,

held my hands,

spoke in soft tones

as if grief could be tamed by tenderness.

The mother—nervous,

talked my ear off

about diapers and sleep schedules,

about how her mother would cry

when she met the baby.

She meant well.

But every word landed like a pebble

in the pit of my gut.

I smiled. I nodded.

I learned how to disappear

while sitting right there.

The sea was wide with silence.

My family meant to help,

but treated me like a contradiction—

child and adult, sinner and saint,

a girl caught between miracle and mistake.

No one told me

that surrender isn’t soft.

It scrapes.

It hollows.

It demands a funeral

with no flowers, no guests.

I lived inside that fish

for what felt like a century—

dark, breathless, holy.

The kind of dark where God

starts whispering again.

And maybe this is the miracle:

not that I gave her life,

but that I found mine

in the aching echo after.

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

—Julian of Norwich

If this poem spoke to something in you—if you, too, have lived through a season that felt like a swallowing—know that you are not alone. The belly of the fish is not the end. It’s often the beginning of something truer, deeper, and more whole.

With love and honesty,

Alexis Brunstedt