Pregnancy: The first five moons

11 May 2022

I want to share as openly and honestly with you as I can about pregnancy so far, my experience of conception, spirit babies, hyperemesis/nausea and the transition towards mother. Because to be honest I have struggled and it’s been intense! I have already heard from so many women who have felt ashamed for not 'enjoying' their pregnancies and I feel there’s room for a broader conversation about the complex range of emotions we can experience through this time.

When I go through life stuff, I tend to process very privately at first, and then when I’m not so in the thick of it I begin to share with my inner circle, and then, eventually, when it feels really safe and as if it’s all wrapped up in a neat bow of ‘past’, meaning assigned and insights tucked in my back pocket, I bring it here so you can be part of my experience. This community has evolved as a product of that sharing and everything I offer through my work is really just me saying “this is how I make sense of it all, this is how I move through.”

SO I’m here to try to let you in on how this year has been for me, where I’ve disappeared to for the last 4 months (the bathroom floor, mainly) and all the ways this pregnancy has absolutely ROCKED me - my body, my confidence, my faith. But, it feels a little more raw than usual because the experience is nowhere close to being tied up in any sort of bow. The wisdom of hindsight is yet to arrive, other than the fact I can gladly say that my predominant emotion towards this baby is finally hope and not despair.

I had two memorable encounters with the spirit of a baby that I felt was coming to us. When we decided to get married we’d loosely talked about wanting to open the portal for a baby late 2022. I imagined a period of pre-conception prep for us and had some spiritual work in mind that I felt was important to move through before we started the journey into parenting together.

This is around abouts where I had a big lesson coming in the power of the subconscious (which I’m using as a term to describe that part of us that is not our rational mind, but something more primal, or perhaps something more closely attuned to the divine).

Despite it not at all feeling like what we thought we were ready for, in the moment we conceived this baby in December we both knew what we were doing. It was really a powerful magnetic kind of ‘yes’ that took us both by surprise. I knew a baby had landed straight away and at first it was an amazing feeling, and then within about 30 minutes I thought WTF have we done! It felt suddenly very chaotic and naive. This is the moment where I abandoned my wiser self, which wanted (as it always does) to trust and be in a state of non-resistance to what is, and fell into a serious spiral of uncertainty and doubt that I’ve spent the last four months working my way through. I don’t know if my experience would have been different had I not become so unwell. I think the cocktail of nausea, starvation, vomiting and isolation definitely contributed to the shadowy places I went to, but I also know now it was a really necessary journey in that the lessons learned feel essential in transforming me into the mother I aspire to be. In a way it felt like I was offered an opportunity to embrace divine timing and trust what was, and I really did not take that opportunity! So I experienced the full brunt of being in resistance, questioning everything, feeling like I had somehow f**ed up my destiny. I felt no connection to the baby and overlaid a whole lot of meaning to that. I questioned my relationship with Lajos and felt generally like I had ruined my entire life in a reckless moment. I thought often about terminating.

I know this possibly sounds a little dramatic, but for those of you who share my deep restlessness and curiosity about life and how it ought to be lived I hope you can understand how I arrived at that place (assisted generously by raging hormones and sudden chronic illness).

This photo is me the day after we had a positive pregnancy test (which came after a negative test 3 days prior, the negative test was a huge relief to me and I was in total blissful denial of the pregnancy by this point even though it was undeniable in every part of my physical body especially my nipples which tripled in size a week after we conceived). We also bought a house the day we had the positive test. These are the figs from our backyard. It’s been a ride.

I want to add that I’m really not looking for any sympathy or advice. I have an incredible support network and only share this story from a place of wanting to connect and empower others.

I also want to acknowledge that I know we are so fortunate to be on this journey and growing this life, and my heart is there with all those wishing to conceive and perhaps not appreciating my experience at this time.