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.
I’ve always wanted to be a mother. That’s what I’ve always seen as my future: just being a mother and raising children. So, we fell pregnant at 18, not trying to, accidentally. Then my partner had a stroke, so he was in the hospital. He’s now permanently blind. We were financially in no place to be able to have a baby, and we actually ended up losing that baby, which was horrible. But it put us in a position where we thought if we ever got pregnant again, we want to ensure that we’re in a stable position to have the baby and take care of the baby.
So it was a big thing for us to get quite well established before we got pregnant with a second baby, just because we felt that fear of, “What are we going to do? How are we going to afford this?” the first time around.
I had PCOS, and there was a stage where it was really, really bad. I wasn’t handling it; I hadn’t had the diagnosis yet, but I guess I was doing everything to make the PCOS worse. Once I had been diagnosed with it, I could get the cysts under control. I changed my diet completely to support getting healthy ovulation cycles and making my period regular because it might be four months between ovulations.
When we were trying to get pregnant, I went to a naturopath to make sure my levels were right, and we tried to make sure all the physical health was there. So then when we fell pregnant so quickly, there was that excitement. There was also a little bit of fear after losing the first baby because miscarriage risk can be higher when you have PCOS, along with the risk of stillbirth and all that kind of stuff. I guess there was the fear around it potentially happening the second time. Trying to get my body as healthy as possible to sustain future pregnancies was a big motivator for us.
We had a really smooth pregnancy, which was a big relief. After having her and now being a mother, it’s like I’ve always had her, even though it’s only been 10 weeks. I just can’t even imagine a life where I didn’t have her.
I think we tend, especially as women, to overthink and try to plan for every possible outcome. I feel like you just got to go with the flow. I always say I’m on Pearl’s clock, not my clock. You read all the structuring about how to get her naps and feeds structured, and every website is conflicting. I Google one thing, and it says to do this, but then you Google another, and it says to do the opposite.
That’s when I eventually turned to my partner and said, “We need to stop Googling things. We can figure it out. We’re engineered to know what to do.” So just going a little bit more back to natural roots and allowing us to simply go with what we feel is the right thing to do. And if it doesn’t work, let’s try something else. Of course, you have to follow advice to a point, but it gets to the stage where mother’s intuition is best. You’re going to know what your baby needs, and if she’s sleeping a little bit longer than what they recommend, let her sleep. She’s growing at such a rapid pace. With feeding, just relax. Go with the flow.
I feel like you should take every opportunity you come to face with. Motherhood’s such a life-changing one. Just seeing how much my body’s changed, but then looking at her and looking more to honour my body rather than mourn what I’ve lost, because it’s incredible what it’s created and what it’s still doing. I just think women are incredible.