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.
When I first found out I was pregnant, I was in shock because it did happen very quickly, pretty much the first try.
So I was in quite a bit of disbelief, but I did know that I was pregnant because my dog would come up to my belly, which he never does. I also had to go to the toilet a lot. And that’s probably the only thing I Googled: “Is going to the toilet a lot a sign of pregnancy?” And it said yes. So that was when I said, “Yeah. The dog, the toilet. I’m definitely pregnant,” and we confirmed that night with a couple of tests.
Pregnancy has been really kind to me, I should say. I remember initially saying to my naturopath, “I don’t think I’m going to enjoy being pregnant.” And at that moment she said to me, “It’s okay if you don’t enjoy being pregnant. It doesn’t have any bearing on how much you’ll love your child. “ And that kind of genuine reassurance just set me off in terms of, “I can do this.” I really just focused on the trust that I had in my body. I didn’t get so consumed about what was next. It has been a very positive experience overall. I think a lot of preparation went into it.
Many years before it, that has enabled me to, I think, really just enjoy and soften into this time. Usually I’m someone who reads a lot and wants to know about everything, but for this time it’s been about just tuning into my body, what I need, what I want. I haven’t bombarded myself with lots of media, so that has just meant a lot of trust in my body and myself.
The reason why I did, I guess I looked at the journey from many years ago, was actually having a difficult relationship with my mum and seeing that my body didn’t do her any favours. She didn’t tend to her needs. She didn’t have that capacity to look after her needs, I think, in a lot of ways. That translated into not being able to be there for me emotionally.
And so, seeing her struggle in her life and her journey really impacted me very early on when I was in my twenties. I made a commitment to myself to do the work that would enable me to, I guess, be the best possible mum that I could be for my future children. It’s important, I think, to stick with that, which is when I come back to that journey of investing in yourself to really know who you are and what you value. I understand that the baby has needs that he or she cannot attend to themselves, but if we aren’t looking after ourselves, the costs that it has eventually at some point on the baby or family and our loved ones, we cannot pull from an empty cup.
And I think having a mum try to do that and see the very real effects of how it impacted myself and my brothers really drilled into me at an early age the importance of self-care. There’s nothing wrong with putting yourself first and listening to your intuition. You don’t have to read every book, every course, every single thing that’s written on birth to go through this journey.
Your body ultimately knows what to do.