LIKE WINTER ~ there are some chapters that take us DEEP withIN
“The shadow is the greatest teacher for how to come to the light.” Ram Dass
I have traveled so deep in such a short period of time. I don’t know where to begin but I’m guided to just start writing and trust what’s meant to come through will. A year ago I received a strong message from Spirit “he’s coming through you” … I replied “who?” “what?” several times. I would continue to hear “he’s coming through you” … you’ll have a ☀️ sun.. The way Amaia came to be was similar but I kept hearing the words, “you’ll be a mother.”
Having one child wasn’t strongly on my radar, let alone two…but we took the leap, my partner and I embarked on what we knew would be another challenging journey, doing it with faith felt right. We had no idea life would take us where it did.. but sometimes, almost always, when we reach for something, it is delivered in a way we never could have ever envisioned.. I am still grasping it all…
Tender share ~
After failed attempts and a second loss we decided to try one last time. Early December I found out I was pregnant ~ the symptoms hit me so strongly, so much so, we started to question whether there was more than one in there. The level of nausea was unbearable, forcing me to stay in bed most days.
Two ultrasounds confirmed there was one little human growing ~ the symptoms persisted and got to the point where I was vomiting multiple times a day, I could barely hold food or liquids down and moving from my bed to the bathroom was a marathon. Things that I once did with ease ~ like shower, eat, drink and get dressed were so hard to do. My physical body was in so much pain, the sickness was 24/7, making sleep challenging and it was putting a lot of strain on my heart. No matter what I did, nothing gave me an ounce of reprieve. Not an ounce.
I started to really contemplate, how could something so exciting be so insufferable?
I often thought.. I can’t possibly be the only mother who’s struggled this much with pregnancy? ~ I couldn’t figure out if I was weak for not being able to push through or if I was courageous for naming how very hard it was to embark on this journey. I just couldn’t push beyond what was happening, it levelled me to the ground.
I am aware that no two women are the same, yet the difficulties that are SO present are rarely discussed. I can’t tell you how many times I was told nonchalantly “it passes” “but there is a child coming, you must be excited?” “don’t the meds work?” “you should try eating bland foods” “don’t ginger chews help?” There is a world of silent truths that exists for women but so much isn’t acknowledged ~ Is it guilt? Shame? The reality that women want this? It’s all worth it in the end… right? I wonder why two things can’t be simultaneously true. Why is it so challenging to admit how very HARD it is.
My mental health started to rapidly deteriorate, dark thoughts penetrated my psyche on the daily. I regularly started to wonder if it would be easier if I just disappeared. I contemplated often what would happen if I was no longer here.. What was happening? Who I knew as ME was no longer present. The strong, resilient, determined & joyful Nicole was nowhere to be found.
Was this normal? To feel so down, so discouraged & so out of sorts? Day after day of being a slave to the porcelain bowl, led me to really start to lose myself. I was in a constant haze ~ living in a body that kept me feeling trapped. Physically preventing me from mothering my beautiful daughter, being a present partner, friend, daughter, human ~ moving freely, sitting in meditation, journaling or doing any of my rituals that brought me solace. I had a continuous dizzying feeling that made it hard to focus, ground and do anything I once did with ease.
A layer to this dark chapter was the constant flashbacks of my decade + long journey with bulimia. After almost 17 years without a relapse, taking years to mend the parts of myself that led me to treat my temple with such hate. Vomiting was the way I harmed myself because I felt I wasn’t worthy of the nutrients food was providing me, getting rid of every meal, made me feel smaller and allowed me to feel in “control”. Then years later to be at an entirely different place, with a loving and grounded sense of self but yet I had to relive the act of being physically sick. This time around it was out of my control and so much more violent. The lesson? I am not sure yet but it shattered me, it made me access this dark part of me that I didn’t even know was still there. I know how to keep tricky thoughts at bay because I’ve been down in the dumps many times before ~ but when your physical body is failing you, you can’t think straight and you feel dizzy 24/7, things get really cloudy .
I barely made it to week 11~ I cried and cried and cried day after day begging Spirit for reprieve. None came, not a minute where I felt I could breathe normally or recognize myself.
It was a Saturday night I felt something was off as I laid there, I leapt out of bed and there was blood everywhere.. I sat on the toilet and what felt like a huge gush come out of me, I passed what I knew instantly was the baby.. I called for my partner, yelling for help.. How could this be? A year of trying ~ failed attempts, 2 months of being so sick and to make it this far, for a third loss? Absolutely nothing made sense.
Over the next few days ~ I wept, I was in a ball just wishing that it would all go away.. Yet I still felt pregnant, nauseated, spinning and vomiting. I could barely take it. I reached an edge where I truly didn’t think I could hang on anymore.
We begged for an appointment and I got in at a family center near our home. We prepared ourselves to get a D & C appointment. We waited and paced for a couple hours before it was our turn. I will never forget the Dr.’s face expression~ a smirk weaved with joy. Why was she smiling? She turned the screen so we could both see… the heartbeat, a baby moving ~ it was in that moment we realized there were indeed twins & there was still one little warrior in there fighting.
It took some time to wrap my mind around this shocking news amidst still feeling so incredibly ill, but a part of me thought it kinda made sense… For weeks I had been carrying life & death within me. Feeling so incredibly awful yet something deep and faint inside of me kept telling me to hold on. I continued to be unwell for another 5 weeks until one day, I was finally able to exhale.
I am sharing all of this because I am now on the other side of 3 full months of unimaginable turmoil and physical discomfort. I am also shining light on how very hard it is in many ways to be a woman. All women go through so much. We all have an incredible story ~ whether we Mother or not, our journeys with our wombs are hard, we travel into the darkest parts of ourselves because this is where we find our power, our light, life & where we can access our creative golden gifts.
I now see even more clearly, why there is such a persistent attempt to keep women small - it’s because our power is so fierce. Women traverse through so much in our lifetime all while holding the stories of our ancestors in our wombs. When we are initiated by these huge experiences, I feel they are an opportunity for a rebirth, to clear out what no longer serves and an invitation to do it another way.
When you feel something so deeply ~ it’s inevitable, it’ll change you forever. I feel it is my responsibility to be honest about my journey because who does it really serve to stay quiet? How does it benefit the collective if we continuously choose to pretend that being a woman is easy?
I’ll never forget the souls who heard how very loud my silence was. I’ll never forget the souls who had the capacity to hold me in the darkness, without trying to fix me. Deep experiences change us forever and shift our lens on life ~ this journey IN has altered how I view my surroundings, my connections and I know with certainty it’ll continue to reveal what it was destined to teach me.
May we never forget that we all come from the darkness ~ from a sacred womb. Only when we learn to appreciate the shadows women have to travel through to bring light into this world ~ will we value this unbelievably precious life we have been gifted.
It all starts withIN.
Our sun is coming at the end of the summer ~ I know their light will make sense of all of this, in ways I can’t yet grasp. He is coming through me ~ and he is already making his presence known.
Thank you for reading and receiving my heart in this intimate way.
Honour Your Goldprint ~ your unique tapestry holds the key to all you’ll ever need.
With love,
Nicole
A tired tender moment captured amidst my Winter storm.