This story is part of The Wall of Wombs, our 2024 exhibition sharing honest, deeply personal journeys of motherhood.
What you’re reading is a direct transcription of a spoken story — shared bravely, in the speaker’s own words.
Listen to this story and explore others at wallofwombs.com.
My journey to motherhood started about five years ago. I started trying to conceive with my partner for a year and a half and we had multiple miscarriages, which felt all consuming, I would say. And then we fell pregnant with my son, who’s now three. It was a very long road to get there, and I didn’t really feel ready to have a second one, or to try it all again, I think, because the first time was such a difficult process. But when my son turned two, I was feeling ready, and, thankfully, fell pregnant pretty, relatively quickly. I guess most people would call it that. I think that six months was a pretty average time to fall pregnant, but yeah, and so now I’m 31 weeks pregnant with my Daughter, we know.
I am a lot more excited about it than I think, with my first pregnancy. Comparing the two, I think because I had multiple miscarriages, I never really enjoyed my pregnancy. It was, like, full of anxiety. I was always thinking of the worst possible scenario. Never really got to enjoy it, where I feel like this pregnancy I’m really soaking it in, able to enjoy it more.
I’m also, I think, thinking about things that I didn’t think about the first time, like my postpartum time. Which I feel so much more prepared for now, and I think just being prepared for it and building a community really around myself to support myself during that time is really exciting. And not having a pandemic that will also help, yes, because my son was a COVID baby, so we had very little in the way of the postpartum services that are available now.
So, what I’m doing differently this time around is that I am really, I think, just supporting myself in the ways that I want to be supported now that I know how I’ll want to be supported.
So we’re having a birth doula this time around. I’m also, having a postpartum doula, so someone to come, bring me food, having a bit of a meal train for when I don’t have a doula around, and massages, just really celebrating the time slowing down,
I’m excited! Yeah, I know it won’t be a holiday, but it will feel like at least someone’s looking after me, and it’s hard for me because my family is overseas. My mum is in Canada, and for my first baby, she wasn’t able to come because of the pandemic, and this baby, she’s not able to come for family reasons, so, I kind of need that nurturing. And again, I didn’t really know that I needed that the first time around. I didn’t know that a mother needs to be mothered. Which I think is so important.
In my medical life, so as a GP, I think that definitely colours how you approach pregnancy, and, birth, because, , in your training, you are trained to expect the worst, or to look out for the worst, or to always be thinking of any possibility. So I feel like that kind of adds to the anxiety, almost, as a medical professional when it comes to trying to conceive if things don’t go, I guess, the way that you thought that they would go.
But as well, it has given me a different perspective as a doctor to be a mother. Because now I see my patients who are either trying to conceive or pregnant or postpartum and there’s like a level of relatability that you, you have that you didn’t have before. And you may have been like really academically switched on as a doctor, but without that like personal human experience, I don’t think you can connect in the same way.
The reason I came here today, a couple of reasons, is one, because of, with my first pregnancy, I was so anxious, I didn’t enjoy it at all. I didn’t take any photos. I took a couple, but I have very little memory of What my body looked like of that precious time. And I know now, being on the other side, how special it is to have images of yourself, photos of yourself, belly casts of yourself. So I will leap at any opportunity to do any sort of commemoration of this, such a short but special time. It’s so incredible to think about what your body goes through.
Motherhood to me means, I think the opportunity to shape and almost impact the world in a little, in a little way that is lasting and meaningful, I think, to have influence over the next generation of people and keeping that in mind and being sort of mindful of raising them with kindness and compassion. I think how differently the world would look if everyone. was raised like that. So I feel like this is really one of the small ways that I can contribute to the future. That’s what I would say. When people ask me what it is, it’s an experience. It’s just another life experience. It’s not for everyone. I don’t recommend everyone do it, but for me personally, It’s been such a wild, wild experience. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.