motherhood; a shedding & a beginning
motherhood; a shedding & a beginning
the loss of an identity while a new one unfolds
It has been approximately 90 days since I found out I was pregnant with Baby S.
In those 90 days, I have been:
overwhelmed with joy
overwhelmed with nausea
overwhelmed with planning
overwhelmed with fear
overwhelmed with body dysmorphia
overwhelmed with my loss of identity
Are you noticing a theme? I’ve been overwhelmed!
I want to be perfectly clear ~ I have never wanted anything more in this life than to be a mother. Even when I put my career and my dreams first, every menstrual phase I had felt like “grief.” With every bleed, my body and my spirit mourned the fact that I was not yet a mother and had to accept that I also had no control over the timeline of when it would happen.
Now, I finally get the opportunity to be someone’s mom.
Baby S is growing so beautifully. Every ultrasound shows them growing bigger, and their heart rate perfectly syncs to a natural, healthy tempo. And yet, I feel the person I’ve been so used to being is shedding away.
Many things can be true at once—I am so in love with Baby S. I can’t wait to hold them, give them smooches, see life through their eyes, and learn from them. I am so honored that I get to have this experience, truly. But I am also so sad for who I am leaving behind — me.
~ The me who got to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to.
~ The me who was learning to be comfortable and confident in her skin.
~ The me who fought demons to be here still today.
Motherhood is a shedding.
Even though I’ve felt that I’ve been shedding layers of myself for a long time, this is the ultimate one. This is when I fully give myself over to a new beginning. I always knew that would be the case, but I suppose I’d convinced myself that it wouldn’t really happen until my baby was out of the womb. It really started the moment I found out I was pregnant; my body was no longer just mine.
Now, every choice I make is centered around keeping someone else alive and healthy ~ how beautiful and, yet, how strange. It is a life I’ve never known before.
I am no longer living for myself and my dreams; I am living for me AND someone else so they can have dreams, too.
At first, I felt very overwhelmed because I would never be who I used to be, the girl I had always sort of been trying to get back to, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to actually let that go.
But my whole journey up to this point has been unearthing new versions of myself with new, unlimited potential. I discovered this on my Tulum trip in 2022, and I’ve been discovering it repeatedly since then.
Motherhood is a beginning.
The most exciting part about the shedding is discovering the person that awaits underneath it all.
Not just Baby S’s mom but a higher version of myself sits under this last layer. The powerful, magnetic Attractor who spoke this life into existence. The Warrior. The Nurturer. The Wise Woman. She’s always been here, but now she can reveal herself even more.
Even my earthly roles will change - Baby S will arrive as I complete my 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training. I will be a certified teacher, a stronger meditator, and a better coach as I can connect with women more deeply than before. I plan to spend more time creating - a dream of mine for so long, but now I have the power to make it happen, put my trust in my partner, and let him be the primary provider for our family while I nurse Baby S and settle into this new life.
I am looking forward to sharing the journey with you. Thank you for witnessing this version of me and for sharing my joy with me. To even greater days ahead!
All my love.
