I’ve frequently said I feel like my first son saved me. I used to think it was corny when parents said things like that. I felt like they were trying to convince people having kids was better than it actually was. I’ll credit that to yet another lovely side effect of a colonized mind. 

I had my first child a week after my 17th birthday. I had a terrible relationship with his father who was as typical as a 16 year old boy could get. My parents had just gotten a divorce. My mom had been a stay-at-home mom because of severe work injuries that made it incredibly difficult for her to work. This meant it was really hard for us to find stable housing so we bounced around a lot. By 17 and a half there was really no one guiding me. I was somehow tasked with being a mom to my baby and also feeling responsible for my three younger sisters and frankly also my parents because they frequently felt like younger siblings too. 

It was all too much for one type-A teenager to bear and by graduation I began to crack under the pressure. Mental health disorders and profound trauma shook my family to the core. Various forms of abuse began to infiltrate my relationship. I started to spiral along with the rest of my life. I contained it well enough to keep caring for my son but when I broke up with his dad I found destructive ways to cope with the grief I felt on weekends when had to hand my new baby over for visitation. 

At 19 when many people my age were having fun only stressing over college finals, I was blowing off classes and attempting to escape my existence. This peaked with an attempt at ending my own life one especially hopeless evening. Life had other plans and like my first year of college I failed that too. 

Finally, looking at my now toddler something in me awakened. I created this beautiful person and he didn’t see a broken teenager or a failure of a person. He saw his mom. Someone to love and value and trust. It dawned on me: if he could see that…I could be that. I could take all this pain, trauma, and fear and let it end with me. I could be more because someone already believed I was. 

Motherhood was my heroines journey. My son was my call to adventure, my supernatural aid, and my push across the first threshold. Everything I am today, and all I’ve accomplished he helped me to create. 

I reflect on this now as I rapidly approach my due window with my second baby. My life circumstances look dramatically different than they did in my first pregnancy. I am 31. I’m very joyously married to a beautiful man. I am a lawyer and founder of a business specializing in healing and community building. I have a pretty happy life with stable housing, food, and resources. Healing work is a regular part of my life from therapy to spiritual practice. I am very happy to be alive and I love who I am. 

Still, this pregnancy was very tumultuous from the beginning. I've been struggling with low progesterone, iron, and ferritin which made me extremely fatigued and stoked at depression. I felt severe back and hip pain that made it difficult to move or sleep. I had glucose issues that created frequent dizzy spells and weakness. It seemed like no matter how many changes I made to my diet and supplements I took nothing was working. I’d been feeling so hopeless, anxious and defeated. 

As if things needed to get worse I began having a surge in PTSD symptoms. Panic attacks and flashbacks triggered by smells and the fall of night. I had largely gotten these under control the last two years but they were back forcefully. My body was keeping score again and it was ruining my goal of having the serene pregnancy I didn’t get the first time around. Cue even more depression. 

I felt like I was being stolen from. Again. I had this amazing life but still I felt destined for stressful pregnancies. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out of this part. Maybe I was weak or defective. I was grasping at every resource I could - various birthing programs, stretching videos, nutrition libraries. All on top of working with our birthing center team and doing outside research. It's been A LOT. 

Finally the root issues began to come to light more clearly in therapy. We found a thread of sexual trauma that I hadn’t yet tugged on. Our midwife explained the way that trauma can resurface in pregnancy and especially in labor.

What I thought was a flaw in my body was really my psyche begging for attention and expression. I learned how unprocessed anger and grief get held in the liver - which controls hormone production and impacts glucose. I learned how the pain and tension in my hips and back was my body activating defenses that I didn’t need anymore indicating heartbreak that I never got to let go. As I began somatic sessions with a chiropractic masseuse and pelvic floor therapist I found myself being flooded with emotional waves I didn’t even know were living inside of me. Rage and anguish. Memories that I long blocked out surfaced in my mind. Painful experiences that my mind shoved away so I could keep functioning. 

After the waves of emotion and pain subsided, so did the physical pain. I could feel the release in my body. I feel more energized, more relaxed, confident, and like I can touch my joyful life even more. I didn’t realize how much my trauma was still dulling my day to day. These expired defenses had been doing their best to keep me from more harm and in the process were distancing me from feeling pleasure and joy. I feel more present and grounded in my life now. This was all by accepting an invitation that pregnancy had to offer. 

I am still in the thick of this journey. However, I see motherhood again showing up as my heroines journey. This pregnancy has been guiding me between thresholds in the shadowy world of myself. My baby gifting me with profound transformation and rebirth. 

In our modern, western culture so much of this experience has been tempered and stolen. The manufactured pressures to remain unchanged by pregnancy and motherhood. The crafted competition between trad wife or girl boss - an insult to our multi-dimensional nature. They praise the pregnancy but forget the mother. They tell us to take care of ourselves but make it impossible to access the resources to do so. They rush us and numb us and expect us to smile through it all. 

Pregnancy and motherhood is as beautiful as people say it is but in ways that colonial culture has sought to destroy. This journey is one of deep transformation that connects us with profound, primal power. It’s an awakening if you choose to answer the call. Much like the waves of labor pains that usher new life through our wombs, our rebirth lies on the other side of emotional waves and processing past heartaches. We are born again with our babies more powerful than ever. 

I have been tapping into this ancient wisdom throughout my current pregnancy and I have learned so much. You can access this inner power too!

Whether you are new to your mothering journey or an experienced mama, I have created a space where we can connect and tap into our fully power - not just what society has said we’re allowed to be. Multi-dimensional Mama™ is a community for moms who want to deepen their relationship with love, pleasure, abundance, and authenticity. A space where we can go beyond being a mom and support each other’s expansion by reclaiming the pieces of us that patriarchy and colonialism have repressed. This is where mothers become matriarchs. By joining this community you are setting upon a path to liberation that will be passed through your family for generations to come.

Feeling the call? Click here to fill out the interest form. I will reach out to you about joining!