Bravo did not intentionally set out to make a docuseries about matrescence. But somewhere between Luke Broderick counting down the days to “clearance” for sex and Danny Booko calling his wife’s laughter “performative,” The Valley accidentally produced one of the more honest portraits of new fatherhood’s blind spots I’ve seen on reality TV. Not because either man is a villain - I don’t fully think they are - but because both of them made the exact same mistake just in different fonts: they treated postpartum as a deadline instead of a season.

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Luke: Solving for Frequency

Let’s start with Luke. Why wouldn’t we? Afterall, his arc got the loudest backlash.

From the outside it looked like this: guy wants sex, wife says no, guy sulks on camera.

But when Kristen was on the “Not Skinny But No Fat” podcast, she said the sex conversation on the show made it sound like “sex, sex, sex,” when the real issue was something scarier… “We don’t have a relationship anymore. We’re just Kaia’s parents.”

She was just titrating off of an SSRI that had flattened her libido and on top of that, she didn’t recognize her own postpartum body. Luke telling her he loved her bigger boobs and fuller body wasn’t wrong per se… it just wasn’t aimed at the actual problem.

He was offering her reassurance about her body, when she was grieving her identity.

His line, “She shuts down every advance, at what point do you stop trying?” kind of says it all and is the perfect statement thesis on how many men view rejection - a verdict on them personally, , instead of hearing it as her body and brain telling them something real. He wanted a return to “regular.”

She was somewhere he’d never been and couldn’t see.

Months later in couples therapy, he said the quiet part out loud.

When Kristin reminded him that he “got down on one knee in the most beautiful way and proposed to me before I got pregnant,” Luke didn’t disagree. Instead, he said, “That was before I met pregnant Kristen.”

This single sentence highlighted the whole problem: he fell in love with a version of her, proposed to that version, and then experienced everything that came after: the pregnancy, the birth, the postpartum brain and body he’d never seen, as a sort of bait and switch.

He was not shy about it, either. When talking about wanting a second baby, he told her - on camera, mind you - that he wanted to “get it out of the way” so they could put pregnant Kristen to “rest” and move on with their life… as if the person she became while growing and recovering from THEIR CHILD was a phase to be endured rather than, you know, just her. He wanted his fiancee back. He just had not clocked that the fiancee he proposed to and the mother in front of him were never going to be the same woman, and that this new version was not going anywhere.

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Danny: Mistaking Joy for a Performance

Danny’s moment is smaller, barely making a headline compared to his main “Dark Side Danny” storyline, but it might be the sharper example of the two since he’s had a little more parenting experience.

On a rare kid-free outing, their nanny took Adelaide so Nia and Danny could have a few minutes to themselves with their friends. Danny read her excitement as “performative.”

Her answer to him is the whole essay in one line: “this is how my natural demeanor is without children, but I’m always with kids.”

That’s not neglect.

It’s something quieter, and in a way, sadder - Danny had simply stopped knowing what his wife looked like without a child on her hip.

He wasn’t dismissing her joy, but he no longer recognized it as a real because he hadn’t seen it in so long.

Postpartum didn’t just change Nia. It changed what Danny thought of as “normal Nia,” and he mistook a moment of her returning to her old self for a performance of a stranger.

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Same, Same, but Different

Here’s where I think the two stories actually cross - both men wanted their partner to just go back to who she was before. Luke wanted “regular” sex and less emotional Kristen back. Danny wanted Nia’s familiarity back. And instead of realizing they were meeting a new person, they both treated her like something had gone wrong with the one they already knew.

Neither man was “cruel”… just… misinformed, maybe?

They were impatient to rush a timeline that neither of them controlled, because it’s extremely likely that nobody had ever told them there was a timeline. Matrescence isn’t a two-week recovery arc, it’s an entire shift in identity, and their job wasn’t going to get their old partner back but to meet the new one where she was.

That’s the part reality TV never says out loud, but The Valley showed anyway: postpartum doesn’t just happen to the person who gave birth - it happens around her, to everyone standing close enough to notice. The ones who do best, are the ones who stop waiting for “back to normal” and start asking who’s actually in front of them right now.

This shook up my psyche because I had my own version of this. There was a stretch in that first year where my partner wanted more intimacy and I couldn’t give it to him. Not because I didn’t love him, but because I didn’t feel like myself in my own body. I remember having a heated conversation with him on the couch where I told him, “I get up every day and look at and live in a body I don’t recognize anymore. and my brain doesn’t feel right” I had no idea what was going on with me, so I didn’t have the language for it yet. I just knew something in me had shifted and it hadn’t shifted back.

What changed things wasn’t him waiting me out.

It was me finally telling him the truth - that last year was, by a lot of measures, the worst year of my life. That I was drowning in anxiety, guilt, resentment, and having a full blown identity crisis. Once he understood that, something in him understood me differently. He stopped trying to get the old me back and started making room for whoever I was - and still am - turning into.

He’s watched me want to do things differently, work differently, spend my energy differently, and instead of holding on to how things used to run between us, he’s let me go do that.

He picked up more of the load with his own work so I can put my energy into what I actually want to do, which is really to spend more time with our son and to write. He also is such a hands-on dad with our son - he gets up with him in the morning so I can sleep in, he keeps him occupied when I need to do something for me, and just shows up as real support.

Two things can be true. I wasn’t the woman he knew anymore. And he met her anyway.

You can always feel it - when you’re on the precipice of change. You can feel it in your body. Things sound different. They feel different.

That is not random. It’s your energy picking up something before your mind catches up. Something big is about to happen! The world around you shifts because it feels it, too. People show up differently. You catch 11:11 or 3:33 on the clock or something unexpected just drops into your lap. You are not imagining it. You’re aligning to a new frequency and everything in your life is starting to respond to it, too.

While it sounds thrilling and exciting, it can sometimes feel like anxiety. I know this feeling intimately from my current matrescence, the process of becoming a mother through pre-conception, pregnancy and birth, surrogacy, adoption to postnatal and beyond. But this is not unique to motherhood alone. Anyone standing at the edge of real change feels this deeply, too. You’re going to start to find that things that used to feel like you no longer “work” and your nervous system’s outdated alarms are ringing to alert you that your current reality is, to put it simply, different.

What worked to keep you accepted in your social settings, successful in your career, and safe in the wake of change… is now keeping you stuck.

I want you to know that, even though you feel so alone in this, you are not. Our brains have been coded to stay attached to what is familiar - we confuse growth with a threat of danger. Long, long ago when we were hunters and gatherers, we travelled in packs. Leaving that “safe group” to forge your own path, meant you were at a real risk of danger. Although society has significantly changed since those early days, the wiring of our brains has not.

It’s how something as simple as calling to schedule a doctor’s appointment brings Millennials the same anxiety as being hunted by a bear. We all fear the unknown. Known things mean you have survived before and you are safe there. Our brains like to feel safe and they like the predictability of knowing what happens next. It rewards itself for being “right” when they already know the answer. Unpredictability? = Scary.

That is why so many people are comfortable staying where they are and never explore anything new.

But here’s the thing, if we were meant to keep everything the same, we wouldn’t be designed to grow, physically and mentally.

When our bodies change and our brain creates new neural pathways, we have to honor those changes and grow, too. We are all continuously rewiring which is how we form memories, develop new skills and adapt to the world around us.

When we don’t get out of our comfort zone, neuroplasticity doesn’t stop but it actively reinforces existing behaviors and makes them harder to leave.

The rewiring for mothers happens in the most literal sense. Pregnancy and postpartum trigger significant neuroplasticity, largely from huge hormonal spikes, but also from a heightened sensitivity to our child’s needs. And in motherhood, this rewiring can span long after childbirth.

We owe it to ourselves to change.

And that’s what you came to this essay for, right? How to change when you know it’s coming but you’re too afraid to let it happen.

Ok, the first thing I want you to do is take a deep breath, in through your nose for a count of 4, hold the air for a count of 4, and exhale out of your mouth for a count of 6. As you exhale, relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw, and just focus on your breath.

Feeling better already, right?

The next thing I want you to do is - brace yourself - allow change to happen.

…

But since I know that is never easier said than done, the real next thing I want you to do is pull out a piece of paper and follow these tasks:

1. Write down what it is you are ready to change.

   1. Write down what it is that is keeping you there. The factors that are draining your energy.

   2. Write down where you’d like to put your energy instead.

2. Write down the worst things that can come from it.

3. Cross off the worst-case list.

4. Now, write down the best case scenario.

5. Write down what your days will look like.

6. How does that make you feel? What limiting beliefs come up?

   1. Triggers, limiting beliefs: often something like, “If I let change happen, I’ll lose control/safety/what I know/who I am”

   2. What are you afraid of, specifically, in this belief?

   3. What else could be true instead?

   4. Write the new belief you’d rather practice.

7. If you had a permission slip from a higher power in this area, what would you want it to say?

8. What are your next steps? You don’t have to commit to the big picture if it doesn’t fully feel “feasible.” Remember that the little steps can still make you feel safe with an end goal in mind. Take it 10% at a time if you can.

How do you feel now? I’m hoping you feel that there’s some sense of clarity here.

As with anything, sometimes jotting it down on paper makes it feel real and doable. You have a plan of attack. You have something to reference and come back to whenever you feel like you are getting stuck again.

Remember that change is natural and it is constant, especially when you can already feel it happening around and within you.

Change is never asking for your permission.

It is just waiting for you to realize you’re ready for it.

I said these words while holding my 13-month-old in one arm, and trying to scramble eggs on the stove with the other. My partner and I had just had what I can only describe as an explosive argument on Christmas Eve.

But my outburst wasn’t invalid or unwarranted. It was brought on by holding in way too much stress for too long.

I had just started not one, not two, but three jobs - a monthly retainer and two part-time jobs, though one was 28 hours a week and the other 20 hours. I had just come off of being a stay-at-home mom for three months. Those were actually great months for me, but we were barely getting by.

This had been a reoccurring theme for us. Every time we thought we were getting somewhere, something would hit the fan and we found ourselves struggling again.

That’s stressful. Going from no job to orientations and hours of content and learning? That’s stressful. Still trying to spend time with my family, meeting my toddler’s needs, and get food on the table? That’s stressful.

Add in the hormonal stress from being postpartum and you have a killer cocktail for a mental breakdown.

“I know I should be happy, but this has been the worst year of my life.”

You know how when you’re under a lot of pressure you say things you don’t mean? This wasn’t that. I meant that shit.

But I believe two things can be true. Two things can always be true.

2025 was the best year of my life.

I met the most beautiful, perfect human that the love my partner and I share created together. I had a full-time job with benefits right as the new year started. We saw family, we traveled, I visited the Jersey Shore house (my mecca), we watched my partner’s daughter graduate from an ivy league school, and so many things worked out for us in ways that I can only describe as divine intervention.

On the other hand, I was dealing with a hormonal crash, I had a new car payment, my job was taking away the most pivotal bonding time between me and my baby, my salary was just enough, I couldn’t nurse because I wasn’t set up for success, and I was just so sad and so stressed.

It was the worst I had ever felt. Worse than the years after my dad died and then after my mom passed away. And yet, I was so happy. I had felt less like myself and yet more like myself than ever. I realized I simply could not live the way I had been before and that this was the beginning of really discovering “me.”

This explosive moment on Christmas Eve was terrible timing, of course, but it was needed.

It was the turning point and the catalyst for what was to come.

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Adolescence is that transitional phase when we welcome children into what we deem “adulthood.” Puberty, cognitive development, becoming who they want to become by their own dictation, becoming sovereign beings.

This is a ginormous hormonal transition and it lasts over a decade.

But we prepare for it. We know what it is. We’ve named it. It’s “adolescence.”

Motherhood, though an entirely different stage of life, essentially brought on by choice for many, is also a phase when a woman transitions from “the maiden” to “the mother.”

We’ve just called it “postpartum” and we were led to believe that it only lasts through the first year after childbirth. Then we were told it could last a couple years. But many maternal mental health specialists say it can last for an indefinite amount of time.

Postpartum is no longer the right terminology for such a long transition.

Matrescence.

It’s the psychological, physical, and social transformation of motherhood.

It was a word coined in the 70s by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael (who also coined the word “doula”), written in her book Being Female: Reproduction, Power and Change. It is still one of the most uncommonly used words in our language.

In fact, the red squiggly Spell Check line has flagged it as incorrect as I write.

This phase of life - this rewiring of the brain - that EVERY mother experiences and can last for over a decade has a name that’s remained unsaid.

When we can’t name something or have a language for it, we can’t study it or talk about it or even normalize it.

Motherhood challenges everything we’ve known about so many developmental domains:

• Biological

• Neurological

• Psychological

• Social

• Cultural

• Economic

• Moral

• Ecological

• Existential

• Spiritual

It can start in any phase of motherhood, from preconception to early parenthood, and it can recur with each child, potentially for a lifetime.

“Childbirth brings about a series of very dramatic changes in the new mother’s physical being, in her emotional life, in her status within the group, even in her own female identity. I distinguish this period of transition from others by terming it matrescence to emphasize the mother and to focus on her new life style.”

— Dana Raphael, The Tender GIFT: Breastfeeding

When we put language to it, we start to understand it, we can talk about it, and even give ourselves permission to play with it and explore it.

My hope is that more mothers start using it and allow themselves to see where it takes them.

My own journey into matrescence started off scary. I was becoming someone I just didn’t know.

Why didn’t I enjoy the work I’ve been doing for over a decade? Why was I experiencing so much irritability and rage? Why did I not feel like the version of me I had just uncovered? The version of me that was “settling in” to the role of the maiden, the archetype of becoming. Now I felt like the image of me that used to reflect peace and light, shattered into a million different bits.

I am the softest and most ruthless I have ever been.

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So many things have changed and opened up for me.

I want to burn the patriarchy to the ground. I want to Robinhood from billionaires and trillionaires and make sure people have healthcare. I want to fist fight anyone who does my family wrong - even if they are other family members. I want to fiercely protect my son, but also show him how to fiercely protect himself in this strange, scary world.

But not only that, I want to be soft and exude light.

I want to wear flowy skirts and try new fun things with my hair. I want to garden and own livestock. I want to collect dried herbs, make potions, and cast money and glamour spells. I want to make my own syrups for my fancy coffee drinks, bake bread and homemade Cheez-Its, and eat whole foods. I want to continue growing my relationship with God and read the daily Bible verse, and I also want to pull my tarot cards and get giddy when my astrology hits close to home.

I want to only work on creative projects for me and things I am passionate about because I don’t want to ever make my son feel like he has to settle for less because the world is telling him to.

I want to sit in women’s groups and talk about the scary and amazing shit that goes on in motherhood and beyond. I want to sit in the grass and gaze at the clouds every day. I want to go back to the wild.

I still think about that version of me in the kitchen, frantically making breakfast, baby on her hip, certain she’d ruined her relationship, Christmas, and her first year of motherhood. I’d tell her sometimes you have to lose your shit over some eggs to realize that you, too, have been cracked open.

I don’t know what your matrescence looks like - maybe it’s quieter or louder than mine. But I bet two things can be true for you, too. You can feel like you are both ending and beginning. The key is to embrace this phase of life, eyes open, and no longer asking for it to make sense.

This Substack is where I’ll be writing through my own journey. Personal essays about mothering, desire, and the everyday magic I’m now letting myself notice, the tarot cards and the bread that didn’t rise and the moments that felt like divine intervention anyway.

No guidelines. No censoring to fit what I think my “audience” might want. Just the soft and the ruthless, side by side, because that’s apparently who I am now.

It’s matrescence, mostly.

New essays land here regularly. I hope you stick around.

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My mom worked her way up the corporate ladder. She raised me by herself. My dad was in the picture, yes, but I was with my mom 95% of the time. She paid for my daycare and my Catholic school education… all 13 years of it. She paid for my college degree. She foot the bill for every extracurricular activity I was involved in - and I took a stab at many, many things. She left my dad when I was a toddler because he was in the grasp of an alcohol addiction and took his anger out on her. She gave up her marriage to protect herself, but most importantly, to protect me.

She set an example of feminism to me at an early age. She raised me to be an independent thinker, to challenge everything (even when the target was her), and to stand up for myself. Are there things about our relationship that I wish were different? Totally. But that doesn’t negate that fact that my mom was a total and complete bad ass and raised me to be one, too.

I thought, “I cannot wait to raise my daughter this way.”

Finding out I was having a boy was a rush of emotions.

I did not experience “gender disappointment", though. I was just surprised. Me, a girl? A BOY MOM?

Boy mom’s get such a weird rap these days. Now that we are in a pretty digital world, some boy moms are really open with how they feel about their sons. You’ll see posts like - and I’m paraphrasing - “I won’t like any of my son’s girlfriends,” “I’ll be so sad when my son spends the holidays with his wife’s family and not me,” and posts from said wives saying their MILs ruined their wedding or is trying to push her out of the picture. I’ve seen videos of gender reveals where the father’s mother will jump in her son’s arms before his wife gets to celebrate with him.

There’s a psychology behind the “boy mom,” that they never experienced real love with a partner, and so they replace that void with the love of their son - not in a physical way, but in an emotional way. Their sons carry the emotional burdens of their moms.

I think I felt a little scared.

I’m a really self-aware person. I am connected to my emotions. I trust my gut. Is it my Scorpio sun and Capricorn moon? Probably. It’s probably also the years of therapy and trauma work. I assumed I’d be really good at handling a daughter and raising her to be in tune with her intuition and vocal about her feelings while also channeling her most energetic and “get shit done” self, too.

But boys are different beast. How do you raise a son to embrace his God-given feminine energy in today’s world, without him coming off as “too emotional” or “acting like a girl.”

Also, let me just say, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with “acting like a girl.” More men should want to act like a girl. Girls are communicative. They get things done. They are natural problem-solvers. They prioritize self care. There’s more girlies in therapy than there are men. AND - they create LIFE. I love being a girl. I hope I’m a girl in every lifetime.

Boys are wired differently and that starts at a young age - and at home.

I did quite a bit of travel at one of my jobs. I usually went with my male colleagues and in those moments of downtime, we’d just connect. We’d talk about our partners - current and past, our childhoods, our dreams, our feelings. I’d even pull up their birth charts and talk astrology with them and you could see the wheels turning in their heads.

I remember a specific thing one of them said to me and it was, “Guys don’t talk to each other like this,” and it honestly made my heart hurt.

I couldn’t imagine going through life without confiding in my mom, my aunt, my female teachers, or my girl friends. I sat in women’s circles and red tents, meditated, drank cacao, practiced yoga, and experienced one of the most life-changing breath work sessions all alongside women. I’ve cried with other women - many of whom I barely knew - as we shared our fears, losses, careers, big T and little t traumas, and our faith.

Not only is this type of community just so natural for women, but it was instilled in me by my mom and all the women in my lineage who came before her.

I cannot even fathom how isolating it must feel for boys and for men to do that alone, or to tell themselves to push it down, that what they feel doesn’t matter.

I once heard a male friend say, “Anxiety is not real.”

There’s this perception that because you “can’t see” anxiety (which is entirely false if you start to actually understand what it looks like), that people with it are just choosing to be worried, or stressed, or to overreact.

Years later he apologized.

He said he didn’t understand it, but as he became a more self-aware individual, he discovered that even he struggled with his own anxiousness.

Is there a shift today in how boys perceive their self worth and emotions?

I think so.

More mothers are seeing how ignoring their son’s mental health is taking a toll. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for boys ages 10-14 and men ages 25-34. Since 2010, suicide rates for males aged 15-24 and 25-34 have risen significantly (26% and 31% respectively). If you look at the statistics of mass shootings, approximately 95% to 98% of them are committed by men.

Individuals in their 20s commit a disproportionate number of mass shootings compared to other age groups.

Don’t just take my word for it - do the research yourself.

And this is not even including how men treat women. There are still men, Andrew Tate, for example, who believe women are inferior to them and that they should know their role. They indoctrinate other boys to think this way, too, through podcasts, TikToks, and tweets. This is a very social, digital world. Young men consume this content and interpret it as truth.

A lot of this is because there is so much societal pressure for boys to suppress vulnerability and prioritize dominance.

• “Boys don’t cry.”

• “Only sissies talk about their feelings.”

• “You’re a simp if you do things for your girlfriend.”

• “Only girls do household tasks.”

Stoicism, dominance, self-reliance, anti-femininity. This is how some boys are raised. This is why having a son made me nervous.

How do we raise our sons to ask for help, to be empathetic, to want to be father over just want to be a dad, while also respecting their need to fit in with other boys and not putting them as a target for bullying?

I realized that, while I don’t have all (or really, any) of the answers, I do know this.

My mom poured into me. As I said before, she encouraged me to ask questions and to challenge something if I didn’t think it was right. We talked about our feelings. Both of my parents taught me to appreciate art in all of its forms, the importance of religion. I learned how to center myself, prioritize caring for my nervous system, and communicate my needs. Treat others with respect and with love.

While these were all things I wanted to teach my daughter, I know it’s just as important, maybe now more than ever, to teach them to my son.

I know we still have years ahead of us and that what I know now isn’t all. But it’s a start. And it starts with me.

Progesterone increases and estrogen decreases, this is the longest phase of your cycle.

I have paid attention to the seasons of my cycle for years and luteal has always been my least favorite phase because I turn into a monster. I’m hungry and never satisfied, I’m exhausted, I’m irritable, I get ridiculously nauseous now that I am postpartum.

I recently slipped into this season this week and, this time, I have decided to greet it with tenderness.

It is still early(?) winter on the outside. Temperatures here fluctuate from lows of below freezing to even more below freezing. For me, comfort is the goal. Comfort is the reward.

Going through this tender transition in my body while the outside world is quiet and still, it almost feels natural. Like ovulating on the perfect week of summer. Your skin’s aglow, the energy is high, you feel free, and you wish you could live in those moments forever — it just feel right.

And with my body yearning to calm down, I’m embracing it.

Warm soups, bone broth in a mug, slippers and robes, bread baking.

Today is bitter cold. The baby is napping in his room. The dog and the cat are cuddled up snug in their respective spaces. My partner, downstairs, catching up on work. I sit in the dining room, with a hot cup of coffee, reflecting on the seasons before and the seasons ahead.

The outer winter and my phases:

• Menstruation brought frustration. Discomfort.

• Follicular brought impatience. The desire to roam, but forced to stay inside.

• Ovulation brought awareness. Aware that play needed to be in the room. Energy used to tidy up and chase after my toddler.

• Luteal is bringing acceptance. This is what I need to be doing. This is where I need to be.

I’ll greet my next menstruation with kindness and treat my body with care.

I hope wherever your cycle is right now, I hope you let it guide you.

This is what it requires.

This is what it needs.

This is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately.

There’s so much happening that I want to record but I suppose that’s the hold up. There’s so much happening.

We packed all of our things up and put them in storage and moved to Ohio for a month. I’ll say that even though space was tight, we shared a small bedroom with the crib, I feel like life took off.

The eclipse season rocked me but in the best way. I left the job that’s been draining me with no back up plan. I can honestly say I had been exhausted. For two years I helped build an extremely successful social media presence for our brands, but I hit a point where I felt micromanaged into the ground. It was hard to perform at the capacity they wanted me to, and it seemed like I was being phased out. Every week felt like I was getting chastised and expected to move on with grace. Meanwhile, my son was starting to reach new milestones and I felt like I was missing them because my energy was being drained by a toxic environment.

As soon as I put in my notice, I felt a giant weight lifted off of me. Let me be clear, just because I don’t have a backup plan does not mean that the Universe has something in the works for me. I feel it and I’ve also never been more compelled to get back to this medium as well as many others.

In the meantime, I’ve been spending as much time as possible with my son while my partner works.

We went to the Toledo Zoo twice and I got to experience him study the animals with bewilderment and curiosity. We went to story time and I watched him take some of his first crawls toward the cute little baby girl next to us. We hit the trails of a local park which was actually so fun taking in this extravagant gift of nature. These are not only important activities for him to do, but for me as well. They are reminders that so much exists outside of the small box we confine ourselves into.

And then we moved to a new house in Pittsburgh. Although there are boxes aplenty to be unpacked, wow. Just, wow. It’s cozy in all the right ways. It’s the perfect place to raise our son until we find a real place of our own. I’m so excited to snuggle up in the corners we intentionally created for reading, writing, entertaining, and spending time with our little man.

This is what it’s all about.

Being together, living and loving with intention, remembering that there’s so much more to life than the hustle and grind, this is the whole point.

With that said, September felt like the perfect time to release what no longer felt like “me.” Part of that was whatever I was doing with my branding on here. The logo, the paid domain, the content.

I was starting to feel pigeonholed and trapped in my own commitments.

But the purpose of this when I started it in 2022 was to create posts around how I was finding my way back to myself and how I could help others do so, too. Even though I knew deep down what my purpose has been - SHARING my experiences so others can feel seen and know what is possible for them, too - I still felt like an imposter because I didn’t feel like I knew where to begin. My life has changed SO much.

The only constant in life was all of it’s transitions and I have somehow been able to navigate through some of the most difficult ones and come out on the other side, better than I could have imagined.

And finally, after this transition into motherhood, it hit me that this was the great transition I’d been waiting for.

I had no idea when I’d get here, even though I wanted it so badly. There was a period of time when I actually didn’t believe I would get here at all. But all of the work and the effort I put into myself… it finally brought me here.

And you know what? It can be really, really hard, too. Motherhood can be hard - who knew?

I’d have these moments of guilt where I’d think, “Oh my God, I’m so overwhelmed and so overstimulated, but I wanted this so I have to get over it.”

So many things can be true at once. I LOVE being a mom, I’ve wanted this more than anything, and I’m so grateful to have this. I’m absolutely in awe of my son. He’s just amazing. He’s currently upstairs in bed, and I MISS THE HECK OUT OF HIM, but I cannot deny that I have some days where I cry when he cries, or I just want to yell, “MOMMY NEEDS A BREAK!”

It can all be true.

This transition requires quite a bit of settling in. I’m still me, but I’m totally different. And I can only be the best mom to my child is if I accept that there is learning here. Wounds that were once “closed,” may have only healed up at the surface and are reopening, begging for my attention.

The realization has set in. I’m settling into this great transition. I’m mothering him, I’m mothering me. I’m who I always was and someone completely new.

I’m teaching myself to try and have a little more fun, and to be open to the completely uncomfortable thing of just letting things move sweetly and slowly.

So, here’s the new journey.

Settling Inn… to Motherhood. Learning, living, experiencing it all through the eyes of a first-time mom.

Excited to go through this life transition with you. Hope you stay along for the ride.

let me tell you, dear reader, i was extremely embarrassed to post something so personal.

the truth is, the house we were living in since 2023 sucked us dry.

we had dreams of travel, dinner gatherings at our home, and the very least, the ability to buy things like new clothes or going out to dinner.

those dreams never really came to fruition, but we pushed through thinking “it has to get better than this.’

but then my completely paid off car died two weeks before my due date.

we worked extremely hard to make car payments and our bills so that we weren’t without basic human needs during sonny’s first months of life.

i had to return to work six weeks postpartum and give up my attempts at breastfeeding — and eventually giving up pumping when my workload and dealing with a postpartum OCD diagnosis became too much.

fortunately, sonny has always been taken care of. we had always been able to afford formula and eventually groceries when he started solids. plus, our family and friends have made sure he is styling with an abundance of clothes in all sizes. we love you all.

still, joe and i were drained. there was not enough money after our monthly rent, included utilities, and other bills like insurance, phone and internet, etc. before i accepted a full time role this year, i also had to pay health insurance.

it was a lot and i ran through my credit quickly.

we had a strict budget to get us ahead and the surprise of each month’s utility bills set us back every. single. time.

we kept looking for places but so many factors held us back: our lease was up a week after my due date, a short-term lease was unaffordable, we couldn’t afford the lease buyout, we had a newborn, and finally, we just didn’t have the finances to move.

i had to make a really difficult choice for us.

one that will ride on my background checks for years. but immediately, i felt relief upon judgement.

we were finally getting out of our lease.

we continued to look for homes. the homes that were rundown, soaked in cat urine, or came with the same safety concerns as our current place or wanted an insanely high deposit all wanted us, but the homes that we would’ve felt comfortable and “safe” wanted nothing to do with us. the fact of the matter is, we were not desirable candidates.

all we needed was someone to take a chance on us.

the month of july started winding down - we had to be out in less than two weeks. we made plans to stay with joe’s family in ohio - 3.5 hours away - until we could find a place.

i made my post the other week simply to air what has been haunting my brain.

that following sunday, we went to church.

now, i grew up a practicing catholic, but once i was on my own as an adult, i decided to stop going to church. i just didn’t feel like i was getting anything from it. truth be told, i hit a point where i just wasn’t sure there was something to believe in.

i started my spiritual practice a few years ago and directed my manifestations to the universe.

when i met joe, he was lutheran and was interested in us going to church together. i remember telling him that when i had children, i wanted them to go to church. i felt (and still do) that religion is important in a child’s upbringing because it creates intelligent, well-rounded individuals. i wanted my future children to understand that there is something greater than ourselves out there. that questioning different faiths and having conversations around it opens so many doors and brings them closer to self-fulfillment and enlightenment.

in the last few months, we started going to a lutheran church and bringing sonny with us. the first time we attended mass, we sang a hymn that my mom used to love — a sign from a greater power that i was exactly where i was supposed to be.

during the sermon last sunday, our pastor (who is young and extremely down to earth), asked us what do we call “god” when we talk to him.

• “teacher!”

• “father!”

• “holy spirit!”

• “creator!”

the names kept flying and it made me realize, no matter what name you call him, when you’re meditating and praying, you’re talking to god.

the pastor asked us what do we pray or meditate about (and he specifically said meditate which i greatly appreciated). “gratitude,” “peace,” and so many great answers were called out, but the main reason we pray is to ask god for something.

the reading, “keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. keep on seeking, and you will find. keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you.”

i thought, this is exactly what i’ve practiced since i started my spiritual journey. ask the universe for what you want, believe that it is yours, and it will come to you… or something greater.

this. or something greater.

i again felt this overwhelming wave of relief, that i was exactly where i was meant to be. sitting in this pew with joe and my son. no longer freaking out about my living situation. i would ask for what i wanted and i would receive it — or something greater. i had this feeling that what we wanted, a new place, was closer than i had imagined.

as soon as we got in the car, i pulled up the zillow app. the first home shown to me was beautiful and had just been listed. i read the rental requirements and reached out. the owner responded instantly and asked to fill out a form. after reading through it, i knew we wouldn’t be a fit. the second i’d put our info on there, we’d likely get rejected. i paused my search for the day.

we got home and i packed up my office. i snapped a pic and posted it to my close friend’s story.

i had a bunch of messages asking where i was going. every response i gave was, “i’m not sure!”

i kept saying, “i feel that something will come through in the eleventh hour.”

and then one of my friends said, “funny story — i was just with a friend on friday who got a new job out of town and they are looking for someone to rent their house to.”

she sent me the listing. it was the one i looked at and reached out to immediately after church. i had met her friend a few times before! she said she would put in a good word for me.

i messaged them and told them our story.

i got a message back basically saying, “i’d love to rent to someone i know who would take care of the property.”

there were still some caveats. they had others interested in the home - i couldn’t blame other applicants. the house was perfect. but we toured the home, explained our financial situation, gave our references, and then we waited.

we continued to pack for ohio and moving life forward the way we planned, but i still had faith that it would pull through.

and by an act of god and serendipitous divine timing… we got the house. we move in a few weeks.

we literally knocked on the door and it opened for us.

i am still going through a wave of emotions. gratitude, being the top one.

my baby gets a cozy home. my finances can get back on track. we get to keep our life in pittsburgh and continue to grow as a family.

i asked god for a roof over our heads and i received something greater than i could have ever anticipated.

once i let go and put it all in the universe’s hands and kept my faith, it all lined up. the sermon. the eleventh hour. the home. the chance we needed.

what i’ve learned and what i want to share from this experience is that sometimes the hardest choice is the right one. take comfort in knowing your prayers are heard and that the universe, god, is working in your favor. ask, ask, ask — and you shall receive.

this, or something greater.

it’s a struggle to write this right now.

in 2023, i signed a lease on a 3-bedroom house so that joe could visit me more and so that we could start a life together in pgh.

i found out quickly that this house would drain me - energetically and financially - for a year and a half.

i’ve tried to make it a home, but have felt trapped in every way.

other bills have gone unpaid so i could keep up with the rent & utilities which are billed together, with no transparency, no budget billing, no grace period, making it impossible to pay on time.

in October, i had to buy a new car because mine unexpectedly died.

between rent, bills, and car payments i’ve found myself drowning.

i once felt abundant but moving here has brought fear and lack back into my life. i’m constantly worried that i will never catch up.

my partner has struggled to find work. he does have contract work here and there, but not enough to move either of our lives forward. he’s submitted thousands of job applications and had a few interviews, but ultimately, the state of the world has made the job market extremely competitive.

we have not given up hope, something is out there, we can feel it… but there’s still the lingering reality of it all.

while it’s been the best year of our lives watching our son grow up here, it has also been a hard year for both of us. two things can be true.

it’s been hard to recover and paying for a home that has offered us no grace does not make it any better.

we’ve spent countless dollars making it feel like “home” - cozy, safe, organized - but instead, it felt crowded and unmanageable.

do not get me wrong, it was “home” where it mattered:

it was where we got our dog greta - little gremlin that she is. where i spent 39 weeks pregnant and soaking in the tub. it was where we brought our baby boy home & spent weeks curled up in the living room or the bedroom. his first home. it’s where we hosted our first family thanksgiving. where i saw my best friend from college one last time before he passed. where joe laid with arms around his faithful companion chester as he crossed over.

it’s been through a lot with us.

but, we are losing it.

by the time this gets posted, we will have started the packing process. but with no backup plan. nothing set in stone of what comes next.

i have lost sleep over it but i’m beginning to come to terms with the fact that i will no longer be trapped in this vicious cycle of living expenses.

i have a chance to start fresh — if i can.

and its equal parts terrifying and exciting.

i think leaving will cause a sigh of relief. though it will bring problems of its own, i must cross those bridges when i get there.

this is a hard position to be in.

this is a struggle. i am struggling.

but i have faith and determination that we will move forward with grace and gratitude — we have to.

when i can finally breathe i will be (i am) abundant once again.

Now as our world slips deeper into uncertainty,
I feel this practice is more necessary than ever.

A metta meditation is a prayer of compassion & connection.

It calls us to extend kindness to ourselves and to others.

If you don’t know how to feel in these times, or where to begin, start here.

Metta Meditation

This morning, as I put away another shirt that has not fit me since pre-pregnancy, I heard myself say, “I hate my body.”

No sooner had the words escaped my lips, I could feel my heart break - after all, my body’s heartbreak is my heartbreak. How cruel to devalue the worth of my home, the space my soul chose to inhabit during my time here on earth.

I immediately began to hold space for myself the way I would for a friend.

Placing both hands on my stomach, I whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

This stomach that has doubled in size, housed the uterus that built and carried a human life just 7 months ago.

This belly with its pattern of different color stretch marks expanded farther than I ever thought it could to accommodate constructing an entire existence from a microscopic egg.

These breasts that I hated for not making enough milk did their best to provide my baby with hydration, protein, and antibodies to help him grow in the first 4.5 months of his life.

These arms with their flab have held my son tight during all of his stages thus far. Instead of looking at them as unattractive, I remind myself that they are his safe space and I pray they always will be.

My double chin that I call “ugly” when I see it in the mirror or every picture I take, is the same chin that my son sees when I am looking down at him and he’s looking up at me. The same face he searches for in a room full of people and smiles when he spots it.

The dark circles under my eyes. I no longer try to hide them with make up. They remind me of the restless nights of rocking my baby in my arms, being his solace as he falls back asleep.

My body is both battlefield and victor.

I owe my body an apology for ever thinking it was less.

It’s been a while. The weeks go by so quickly anymore that I lose all track of my days. It seems that the only measurement of time for me is how much older my baby gets every week. At the time of writing this, he just turned 20 weeks old. When I was pregnant with him, I thought 20 weeks - the halfway point - would never arrive. All I did was blink postpartum, and he’s already past the 4-month mark. It feels like just yesterday we brought him home for the first time with no clue about what life would look like. Now, we kind of have some semblance of normalcy. We have near-dedicated nap times and a bedtime routine, and we’re loosely starting purees and sitting at the dinner table together.

There was this period of time where I couldn’t set him down long enough to work, let alone to write on Substack. Now he’s sitting in his chair yapping at me (it’s more of a squeal and blowing raspberries in the air) while I sit at my laptop. Don’t get me wrong, he still loves to be attached to me, but he is constantly finding ways to occupy himself - studying toys, kicking his legs, putting his finger in his mouth. It’s really wild how quickly these things shift.

One night, I put him down for bed expecting to see him in 2 hours for a diaper change and bottle, and I ended up waking up on my own 5 hours later in a panic because he was still fast asleep. Even though you pray for more rest, you just don’t know when your last 3am night shift is going to be… and when it does happen, you get a little sad because the transition is another reminder that these days are short.

I love being his mom, but I’d be lying if I said motherhood has been a cake walk.

Please understand this, it is the best feeling in the world to experience life through your baby’s eyes. Everything is brand new to them. Isn’t that amazing?

Knowing what your life looks like now, would you ever want to go back in time and see the world again for the first time? Would you hold onto your innocence a little longer? Would you appreciate the little things more than you did before?

However, even though I’m enjoying this experience, I was experiencing some days where I feel like I didn’t even know who I was anymore. I’ve never been so tired in my life. Even if I get a 6-7 hour stretch, it still never feels like enough. I’ve had anxiety before, but never anxiety like I’ve had postpartum.

At 7 weeks, just as I was getting back to work, I was diagnosed with postpartum OCD.

I had a fear that someone was living in our third floor room and was waiting for us to go to bed so that they could steal our baby. I had vivid visions of dropping him down the stairs, losing my grip on the stroller and him rolling into traffic, someone stealing the stroller at the grocery store, drowning in the bathtub… The intrusive thoughts weren’t just thoughts and visions though, they were genuine feelings in my body as if these events were actually taking place in front of me. My nervous system went haywire - often resulting in my fight-or-flight kicking in, or me completely shutting down.

My vagus nerve couldn’t tell the difference between me giving my son a bath or a lion eating me for his dinner.

I was so overwhelmed, I had to turn to an SSRI prescription just to get some sort of mental relief. I had taken such pride in getting myself off of SSRIs back in 2022. I felt confident that I had my mental health under control. After all, I finally left my job that I knew in my heart was not the career for me, I was meditating and working out regularly, my apartment was almost always clean, I felt good in my own skin… And even though I knew that you never stop healing, I really thought I had it all figured out.

Then I met my love, Joe. Being in a relationship opened up all new parts of unhealed wounds. It’s a lesson in communication, in patience, in understanding, in meeting someone (both of us) exactly where they are.

Just when I thought I had that figured out, I met my new love, my son. What a giant shift.

It feels like I was completely reborn right alongside with him. I’m me but I’m totally different. And some days I feel really lost. It’s extremely hard for me to sit with discomfort. I don’t want to process my emotions. I want to let it pass. Whenever I’m in a new life transition, my brain goes into panic mode.

“Maybe this isn’t where I’m meant to be? Maybe motherhood isn’t for me? Maybe I didn’t get enough accomplished before I got pregnant?”

It’s like I’m playing a mental game of Wheel of Fortune, but instead of cash prizes and luxury vacations, I’m spinning through different fears.

A common thought that comes up to me during these phases, these spins, is how scary change is. I spin and land on “run away.” Then I remember, wherever you go, there you are. If I run away, my problems don’t just disappear. They come with me and then I’m in some new place with the same unresolved problems back home. So, I spin again.

This time I land on walking off of my roof into the street below or standing on the ledge of a bridge and letting the wind take me.

It’s not what I want to think about, but my brain wants to take it there. Oh how easy it would be to just not be here instead of simply sitting with anxiety or fear.

And so, with all of the chaos happening in my brain, I had forgotten what it felt like to be present. I had forgotten what it felt like to breathe without reminding myself to do it, or what it felt like to place a hand on my chest and the other on my belly and take a deep juicy breath from my nose and feel it expand through my chest, then my ribs, then my belly… and what it felt like to release it back down into the ground.

My fears were screaming doubt and criticism so loud that I almost — almost — forgot that life is a series of ups and downs.

I think about the Wheel of Fortune again - but this time what it symbolizes in tarot. Life transitions. There is good and there is bad, fortune and misfortune. When things feel like they are at the lowest of lows, don’t get attached to this as your new way of being. Remember that change is inevitable and everything can start anew with just one more spin. “This too shall pass”- both good and bad. All you can really do is find peace in the present and know the wheel will spin again. It always does.

Remembering this, and partnering it with an SSRI and therapy, I have begun to silence some of the noise. To come to a more peaceful place and begin to exist fully in the presence of this new version of Me, the mother.

In this process of doing “the work”, I’m learning to surrender to the discomfort. In my unbecoming, I’m becoming a new, wiser Me. Working through my fears is healing the past versions of me that worked tirelessly so that I could finally have my own little family. I remember that placing trust in the Universe/Source/God to allow what’s meant for me to come to me, when I release control, when I sit in the discomfort, everything works out for me.

I acknowledge that I am exactly where I am meant to be. As tired and as uncomfortable as I may be, I love being a mom — specifically, his mom. I have no doubt in my mind now that every thing I have accomplished so far in my life was exactly what I was meant to accomplish before his arrival. Everything I am going to accomplish next, my next chapter, it all includes him. I have not missed out on anything in my life. As far as the spinning wheel, I have won the greatest fortune.

This motherhood business … it’s not easy, but it’s worth it. I’m still only in the early stages of it, but it’s the best place to be, and, well, actually, the best is yet to come.

“Do you plan on breastfeeding?”

…is one of the very first questions you get asked when you get pregnant, and you never really stop getting asked until your baby is here when it switches to, “Are you breastfeeding?”

I’ve known since I was young that I wanted to breastfeed my future children. I don’t know where I first saw someone breastfeeding to have even put the idea in my head, but I used to mimic breastfeeding my dolls. It’s like I understood how natural it was from the get-go.

Breastfeeding seemed so effortless.

I admired my friends who would just throw their baby on the boob and continue to carry on conversations like nothing.

My mom told me about a co-worker who brought her infant to a meeting (maternity leave in the U.S. is simply not long enough). When the baby cried, she popped open her blouse at the conference table, latched the baby on, and continued her presentation even while everyone stared at her - some in disbelief and others wildly impressed.

Like - that’s so bad ass!

When my midwife first asked if I planned on breastfeeding, I didn’t even have to think about the answer.

A few weeks later, a friend of mine who was a trimester ahead of me in our pregnancy journies mentioned that she was not sure if she would be able to breastfeed because of a breast reduction she had a few years before.

In all of my pregnancy anxiety and excitement, I suppose I had regarded my own reduction as a minor detail.

I had forgotten that the surgery can cause some serious trauma to the breast - specifically around the nipples and the ducts. I do recall that when I was weighing my reduction options, I asked my surgeon if it would impact breastfeeding. He assured me that the type of reduction he performed would not cause issues.

I then spent hours researching if it was even possible to breastfeed after a reduction. A lot of medical sites and Reddit threads said it was possible, but it might be very hard - some ducts may no longer be connected or may be scarred over, the areolas might not express milk, etc.

I told my friend not to worry and that she would probably still be able to, but it began to make me question if I would be able to “naturally” feed my baby when he arrived.

The thing about breastfeeding is that if you’re not doing it, people will make you feel like garbage about it.

“Breast is best!” They’ll say.

“Oh, you’re exclusively pumping? Well, your baby won’t get the benefits of being up to the breasts.” Is another thing they will say.

“INTRODUCING A BOTTLE WILL CREATE NIPPLE CONFUSION AND YOUR BABY WILL NEVER EVER LATCH!” They, who are not doctors or pediatric dentists, will yell.

This adds additional stress and struggles for mothers who are already juggling hormone dips and the overwhelming trenches of the newborn phase. My baby wasn’t even born yet, and because of everything I had been hearing about breastfeeding, I was panicking about whether or not my child would get fed.

I collected as much breastfeeding information as possible for the duration of my pregnancy. I learned about “liquid gold,” or colostrum, the first breastmilk to feed your baby. It is thick, yellow, and extremely nutrient-dense; you only need a bit of it to give your newborn the antibodies they need right out of the womb. Their little bellies are so small that they don’t need much colostrum. Your transitional milk starts to come in a few days later. It is yellow, too, but it gets whiter and thinner and comes out much heavier than colostrum. This process should last about two weeks when your mature milk, which will last your whole breastfeeding journey, finally comes in.

I wanted to get ahead of the game, so for the weeks leading up to birth, I tried to start expressing colostrum. First, was the hand expressing, then came using my hands-free breast pump to pull it out. However, I did not understand how to express anything from my breasts, and I definitely didn’t understand how to use my pump yet. I had no idea if anything would come out by the time my baby was born, but I was assured by so many people that colostrum is different from milk, and not producing colostrum is extremely rare, which made me feel a lot better.

When my friend delivered her baby, she told me she was able to produce colostrum for her baby. Realizing that she was able to feed her baby from her breasts, she began to breastfeed her baby exclusively. I now had confirmation that I could produce SOMETHING for my baby.

However, after her first visit with her pediatrician, her baby had lost weight - not over a concerning threshold, but close. She was feeding him often, but she was so tired from having a bit of a traumatic birth that her body desperately craved a break. She introduced formula early on and noticed a world of difference in her baby’s behavior and how he went to the bathroom. This made her feel more certain in her decision to formula feed.

I have heard horror stories from friends who have gone to their first and second appointments where their babies have lost their pre-birth weight, and were humiliated by their pediatricians and lactation consultants for not feeding their babies enough. Yet, the instructions they give them is to breastfeed MORE.

Here’s what sets me off - this shaming happens most of the time to first-time mothers who have never done this before! They most likely aren’t producing as much milk as the veteran moms; their bodies have literally never made it before. There’s also a giant learning curve between Mama and Baby regarding latching. Their little mouths can’t always take in as much of the breast as they need, and if you’ve never breastfed before, you don’t necessarily know how to get a deeper latch without consulting someone. Mothers who have experienced some birth trauma or extra stress also struggle to produce milk right away. There are also a plethora of conditions that make it hard for babies to latch, which makes it hard for them to feed.

Breastfeeding, though one of the most natural things you can do for your baby, is not as easy as you’ve been led to believe.

At the hospital, I learned how to breastfeed from my doula not even an hour after I delivered. My nipples are pretty flat from the reduction, so it made it hard for my son to latch. The hospital provided a nipple shield, a little silicone cover with little holes in it that goes over your areola, to help with the process. He latched immediately and began feeding.

However, whatever I was producing was not much, because by the time we made it to the maternity floor, they told me his blood sugar was low and suggested supplementing with donor breast milk (which can add up in cost) or formula for the time being. Since he was a bit on the bigger side when he was born, they had to check his blood sugar every two hours. Whenever I gave him formula, his blood sugar increased. Whenever I fed him from the breast, his blood sugar decreased. I felt shame about my body’s inability to feed my child.

Before leaving the hospital, I made sure to meet with the lactation consultant, keeping her in the room for a full hour, asking her questions, and having her show me how to use the hospital-grade breast pump. We tried to pump colostrum, but it didn’t look like too much was coming out.

Once I started actually pumping, - after hitting a snag when we left an important piece of the pump at the hospital - I noticed my transitional milk came in. It was not a lot at all, but it gave me hope.

I continued to pump exclusively while we fed the baby formula and whatever I had pumped. My mature milk came in around Thanksgiving, and I was able to feed him with the nipple shield and pump about an ounce per breast.

I thought this was impressive, but I later discovered that it’s really not all that. I started taking Brewer’s Yeast, drinking Mother’s Milk tea, eating lactation bars, and doubling down on hydration. These all seemed to help, but I still didn’t feel like I was feeding enough.

We had multiple pediatrician appointments during my son’s first month home. Even though he only lost a small amount of weight from birth, they still wanted to make sure it was going up. It was down again at the second appointment when we were formula feeding and giving him what little I was pumping. By the third appointment, when we increased the formula and I started to see my transitional milk, he was back to his birth weight.

I finally had some days where he was almost exclusively breastfeeding, but the following day it felt like I couldn’t keep up with his demand. I know the body doesn’t stop producing milk, but I was not confident that he was getting enough. He also had full days where he couldn’t find the nipple and he would get so upset - too upset that I couldn’t console him long enough to feed him.

I met with another lactation consultant who weighed him, had me feed him with the shield, and then weighed him again. From his weight in under half an hour, she determined he had gotten about 2oz. She told me to continue breastfeeding with the shield and topping him off with formula if that made me comfortable while my milk supply continued to increase.

Finally - the light at the end of the tunnel! I thought I was at the end of my breastfeeding battle. The shield was doing wonders. And then I noticed he started having miserable gas pains. He was so irritable and upset, which in turn, made me upset. I just kept feeling like I failed him. I knew he was getting fed from me, but at what cost?

So much of my self-worth has been tied to my ability to breastfeed my child.

I KNOW I shouldn’t be giving this so much thought, but the days when he seems satisfied with my supply are the days when I feel on top of the world. The days he is fussy or visibly uncomfortable are the days when I feel defeated. I KNOW this is ego that is making me believe I have to do this a certain way, even though it’s been hard for me to keep up with.

We had his one month pediatric appointment and his doctor asked how breastfeeding was coming along now that I had the lactation consult. I told her it was definitely happening but it was still slow and we were still supplementing. I was almost fully expecting her to tell me to keep trying or to give up.

But you know what?

She told me it doesn’t matter - all that matters is that he is fed.

“So many people will tell you that ‘breast is best,’ but ‘FED is best.’ It’s old school to think there is only one way to feed. Ignore all of the stuff you hear about formula vs breastfeeding and nutrition and weight. You are his mom; you clearly care about him and want to make sure you are doing the right thing. From what I can see, you are. And you’re breastfeeding and supplementing formula - you’re giving him the best of both worlds with your antibodies and he’s getting all the nutrients he needs.”

It took everything in me to not start bawling right there in the office.

“Thank you,” I said. But what I wanted to say was, “Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for understanding that this is taking over every aspect of my life. Thank you for recognizing that I love my child so much that I’m willing to sacrifice my pride to make sure he is fed and healthy.”

I thought about my friend and her formula-fed baby. That baby is SO happy and she is an excellent mother for making that call.

Some women cannot feed how they want to, and that doesn’t make them any less of a mother. If anything, it makes them bold and brave to choose to do what is best for them and their baby.

So, we as a society, need to mind our own business regarding how women feed. And if we do ask, we need to agree not to pry or meet them with judgment.

We should just let each others exist and be the best mother they can be to their children - nipples or not.

As for me, my breastfeeding journey is NOT over. I plan to keep feeding and pumping and trying new things for as long as my supply allows me to do. Who knows, maybe we will be supplement-free in a few months… I don’t know what lies ahead for the future, but what I do know is that my baby will be fed.

On November 14, 2024, at 10:36 AM, I became a mother.

No one tells you how lost you feel the second they move you into a room to recover with your baby. I had a nurse come in and pretty much shame me for letting almost two hours pass without feeding my son. I hadn’t even realized so much time had escaped us because most of that time was spent in the delivery room waiting for a room on the maternity floor to open up, and the other part was spent getting me cleaned up because I, like, just gave birth.

Then, that same nurse made me feel guilty for not producing enough colostrum or milk to keep his blood sugar up within the first few hours, so I had to switch to formula on his very first day of life. I’ve never done this before, for crying out loud! Can ya give a girl a break!?

I didn’t know to ask about these things, so no one told me. Or if someone did tell me, I was too busy dealing with an array of feelings from overwhelm to exhaustion to bliss. They don’t tell you a lot of things, so your first few weeks are just filled with Google searches such as, “How long do newborns sleep every day,” “How many poops are normal for a 2-week-old", “When can I introduce a pacifier to my newborn", “what’s the difference between a ‘heh heh heh’ cry and a ‘neh neh’ cry” (apparently “heh” means they are sitting in a dirty diaper or they peed through their jammies, and the “neh” cry means they are ready to eat and pissed off that you haven’t offered them something yet.)

There’s a huge learning curve with your first baby. Sometimes, I wish I was on baby #2 so I would already be a professional at this, but I still have to learn from baby #1 as he grows. Even though I wish we were a few months into this process, I also bawl whenever I think about him growing up. He’s already grown a full inch since we brought him home three weeks ago, and it makes me so sad that time is flying. I now understand why parents post “I can’t believe you are x years old” about their kids on Facebook. Time moves quickly when you have a little human.

That’s why everyone tells you to savor these moments - they disappear in the blink of an eye.

It seems like yesterday I was in the hospital, still pregnant, counting down the hours until I could meet my baby. Would he come out crying? What would he look like? Most importantly, what would his astrology look like? Would he join us under the Taurus moon on November 14th?

The only thing I didn’t really think about was birth itself.

To be honest, I spent most of my pregnancy worried about everything BUT delivery. I had written the most perfect birth plan —

• let baby come naturally when he is ready

• unmedicated birth with interventions only if medically necessary

• NO FOLEY BALLOON, NO PITOCIN, NO BREAKING MY WATER / NO INDUCTION

• freedom of movement

• ability to labor in any position I wanted

• food and drink are permitted

• skin-to-skin immediately

• delayed cord clamping, cut by partner

• minimal staff in room, no students

• calming music & dim lighting

Although these were requests I really wanted and the situation I had dreamt about for years, I constantly reminded myself that I needed to be open to change, even if it meant my natural birth required to shift into a c-section. I created an affirmation for myself that I repeated almost daily, “I surrender control and accept changes to my plan as long as it is beneficial to both baby and myself.”

But you know what? I had to make some major adjustments to my plan.

I went in for my 36-week OB appointment and could barely walk. I was in so much pain from carrying my “above the 97th percentile” baby that it hurt to even form thoughts. That morning alone, I had peed myself on the way to the bathroom because it felt like my legs had completely disconnected from my pelvis; I was clutching every surface and taking the tiniest steps to get me across the bedroom.

At the appointment, my OB recommended an induction at 39 weeks with the intention that it would save me from giving birth to a 12-lb baby. Without hesitation, I said, “Let’s do it.”

I left that appointment with a prescription for a muscle relaxer and an induction date of November 13th.

After a couple of days on the muscle relaxer, I felt so much better and began questioning my decision to get the induction. I was haunted by social media posts about how awful inductions can be — once you introduce this intervention, it becomes intervention after intervention after intervention. Many end up in emergency cesareans, which I knew I did not want but would accept if it came down to it… it just terrified me.

I had a preconceived notion that inductions were scary and my brain wanted me to get out of it. When I asked the CRNP at my doctor’s office if I could cancel my appointment, she basically said I’d likely lose medical status (the VIP of the inductions), if the baby didn’t come naturally, I would have to schedule an induction for 41 weeks, and by then, he might be too big to deliver vaginally.

Up to that point, I had been drinking all the raspberry leaf tea, curb walking, eating spicy foods, and doing the miles circuit to induce labor naturally, and I still wasn’t even one cm dilated. I was pretty much just huge and uncomfortable. I knew my body was ready, so I opted to proceed with the induction and let my birth plan change in whatever way it needed - even if it meant interventions leading up to an epidural and/or C-section.

Joe and I welcomed Santino James into the world after hours of labor. Although the delivery was quick, the labor had started almost 24 hours earlier. Overall, it was an experience I wouldn’t trade for the world.

My Birth Experience

I arrived for my induction on November 13th around 11 AM to find the registration area extremely packed with only one person working the desk. The rooms were backed up and it was taking a while to get people into labor and delivery.

Joe and I joked about November being a very popular month to give birth with all of the Valentine’s Day babies coming into the world.

A few couples came in for an elective induction and were turned away because it was so busy. Since I was the only medical induction, I had celeb status. Even though I had to wait for a bit, they were at least expecting my arrival and getting a room ready for me.

We first went to the unit that specialized in inductions to get a cervical check and determine what intervention needed to happen based on my dilation.

The nurse informed me of the different interventions they might take - the Foley Balloon (ugh) and a suppository to ripen the cervix were the top recommendations. She noted that this process could take HOURS. This was already not what I had wanted as part of my birth plan, but I said, “Bring it on.”

The doctor proceeded with the check, and no sooner had she told me, “You’re not even a centimeter dilated—” her face changed, and I saw the surprise in her eyes.

“Actually,” she said. “You just opened up to about 1 cm, and you’re about 70 effaced."

If you don’t know what any of this means, it’s basically how thin and short your cervix lining is and how wide it is opening up to prepare for labor. My numbers were in the very early stages, but they were definitely an improvement from my last cervical check.

Impressed by this quick development, she suggested skipping the suppository, trying the Foley Balloon for an hour, and then seeing where I was. I needed to be 3cm dilated to go to Labor & Delivery (L&D) to get the process started.

When she returned an hour later, the Folley Balloon popped right out, indicating that I was 3 cm dilated.

She asked if it hurt, and to my surprise, it didn’t. It felt like a very mild cramp. This gave me the confidence to believe that if I could handle this, I could probably still handle an unmedicated birth, even with the induction.

When I got to L&D, they reviewed my birth plan with me one more time. I insisted that I wanted to go unmedicated with nitrous oxide as my primary choice to help me through contractions and the epidural as a last resort.

They began the Pitocin almost right away.

Just so you know, Pitocin starts the labor process. The reason people don’t love it is because as the dose increases, so does the frequency and intensity of your contractions. It is also an intervention that can lead to a fetal heart rate drop if the process doesn’t move quickly enough, hence why interventions like this tend to end in c-sections.

I was feeling contractions, but the first round wasn’t so bad. Around 3 pm, they checked my cervix again and - with the help of the Pitocin - I was 4 cm dilated and 50 effaced. Baby had also moved down the birth canal and was stationed at about a -3, which means his head was above the pelvis. We were moving and grooving.

Joe and I walked a few laps around the unit so I could try to dilate more.

I ordered some juice and broth to eat because you’re only allowed liquids once you’re in labor mode. Part of my birth plan was that I got to eat the snacks I brought, but good thing I didn’t because I was not in the mood to eat just a few hours later.

The doula I worked with through the hospital checked in a couple of times to determine when to send the doula on call in, but at this point, I felt I could do it myself. I didn’t need a doula! I had this!

“Are you sure?” She asked one more time.

Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe “future me” took over, but I guess I changed my mind and said, “No. Send her in.”

While waiting for her to arrive, a doctor came in around 9 pm to check my cervix again.

“5 cm dilated, and 60 effaced.”

Since I was making progress, she asked if I was ready to have my water broken. Remember, this was another intervention that I feared, but without my doula, someone to advocate for my decisions or tell the doctor to wait, I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I just said “yes.”

Once my water broke, they upped the Pitocin. I started getting pretty uncomfortable. The contractions were really coming, and every time they occurred, I leaked so much amniotic fluid that you could probably mop the floor with it.

My doula arrived and between her and my L&D nurse, I started to feel more comfortable — even though I was beginning to experience more discomfort, I knew I had two people to coach me through my pain and to advocate for me the next time a doctor asked me to do something. I asked them to send in the nitrous oxide, and my doula massaged me through each wave of contractions.

They upped the Pitocin again.

Contractions were happening much more frequently. A doctor came to check on me at 2 am and I was 70 effaced but still only 5 cm dilated. Still not ready to give birth.

I started hearing blood-curdling screams. I wasn’t sure if it was something on TV (we had brought our Apple TV and it was running through random shows) or if it was someone in the hospital, so I asked my nurse and doula and they said it was the woman next to me having an unmedicated birth.

I couldn’t form many thoughts because the contractions were even closer now, but I remember thinking, “Will I be in that much pain when I give birth unmedicated?”

I could be wrong, but I think they upped the Pitocin again. I kept trying to relax because I knew I needed to, but I was getting grumpier by the minute. At this point, I was experiencing a pain sensation unlike any other. It was like menstrual cramps but stronger, waving through my pelvis into my stomach. I was covered in cold sweat. I felt like I was going to puke. I had an overwhelming feeling that I was going to have an accident in the bed because there was so much pressure in my lower half.

Surely I was ready to give birth.

It was now 6 am, and a doctor came in for a cervical check. I was praying to be way more dilated. The pain I was experiencing HAD to have meant I was at an 8 or 9. She asked if I was ready for the check and, wincing, I aggressively said “NO.”

“No?!” everyone asked. Perhaps no one has ever been so quick to deny an important check, but with the contractions I was having, the last thing I wanted was more pressure.

I apologized and said I needed a second. After a deep breath where I told myself it would only hurt for a minute, I gave her the go-ahead.

90 effaced and baby stationed at -2… but still only 5 cm dilated.

By this time, I had had enough. The contractions were building. The pressure was becoming unbearable. I hadn’t used the nitrous oxide in hours because it was doing absolutely nothing for me.

They were about to administer more Pitocin when I cried out, “I want the epidural now!”

It seems my birth was going to be intervention after intervention, after all.

Even though I was throwing away my birth plan, I still felt like I was in the safest hands. The attention my L&D nurse and my doula gave to me was unmatched. They quickly got an anesthesiologist in there who put in my epidural in between contractions. I literally had to hold on to Joe to keep myself from wincing so that she could get the placement just right.

I felt immediate relief after she administered the first dose. She told me something about pressing the button to administer more on my own, but I was too tired to pay attention. I fell asleep almost right away.

When I woke up, it was about 9 am. Joe had stepped out for some coffee, I had a new L&D nurse, and my doula was taking notes and watching my monitor. I had had doctors in and out all night, but I was so grateful when the next doctor to knock on my door was my OB.

He asked how I was feeling - and I wasn’t lying when I said I felt great. The rest was much needed, and the epidural took away all discomfort that I had experienced up to that moment

Since I had the epidural, he thought I might not be feeling contractions, so he informed me that they would hook me and the baby up to an internal monitor that would show them when I was contracting while keeping an eye on the baby’s vitals and movements.

He was about to get it set up, when my doula looked at the current monitor and said, “Why don’t you wait until Joe gets back from his coffee run?”

“Oh yeah… sure.” I said. Since she was my advocate and also since she’s seen plenty of births, I trusted that my doula knew what she was talking about.

We all agreed that waiting for Joe was best, and my OB said he’d check back in a few. After we were all in the room, he informed Joe about everything he had already told me.

“Let me just do one last cervical check before we get you and the baby all hooked up,” he said.

No sooner did he put his fingers in that he pulled them back out, saying, “Well, actually, we won’t need to be doing any of that. You’re completely effaced, 10 cm dilated, and your baby’s head is right there.”

“Really!?” I asked. I was in disbelief, partly because I had been at 5 cm dilated for so long I was expecting to be there still, and partly because I was so pain-free I would not have known that the baby was stationed so low.

“Yeah,” He said. And then,

“Are you ready to push?”

As he went to collect some delivery nurses and the newborn provider, my doula told me she knew by looking at the baby’s heart rate on the monitor that baby was getting ready to come out. She wanted me to wait for Joe so that we could find out together.

She encouraged us to have a moment of just the two of us and stepped out of the room.

I held his hand and thanked him for allowing me to carry his child and be a mother to our baby. I thanked him for the journey so far. I thanked baby for choosing us to be his parents and for picking my womb to grow in. We shed a few tears before everyone came back into the room.

I still got to have parts of my birth plan - they dimmed the lights for me and let me put on my birthing playlist, something I curated for months leading up to birth with meditation, mantras, and high-frequency music. One of the nurses and my doula even commented on how peaceful it felt in the room.

Even though I had gotten the epidural, I could still feel minor contractions without the pain and discomfort, which allowed us to begin pushing.

I pushed for a total of 10 minutes, ~2 minutes if you take out pausing in between contractions. I felt the pressure but no pain, and then, with a gratitude mantra in the background, the most beautiful baby boy entered the world.

Joe and I both cried as they laid the screaming infant on my stomach.

“9lbs 1oz,” they told me. My OB joked that if I had waited any longer, he really would’ve been a 12-lb baby.

My son was beautifully developed, with a full face and eyes already trying to open wide. The baby I spent 39 weeks growing and nurturing was finally here, and he was perfect.

I know birth can be traumatic for many women. I know that interventions alone have made women hate birth and never want to do it again.

I feel so lucky to have had the experience, the doula, and the nurses I did, and to have had a great OB. I am grateful for my resilience and openness to pivoting away from the plan and for listening to my intuition and body. I am blessed to have had my parents with me in spirit as I wore my mom’s favorite ring throughout the process.

I realize some parts may not have seemed positive; however, there will always be parts of birth that are uncomfortable. The experience is what it is and also what you make of it. I just wanted to share my story to remind moms-to-be that it doesn’t have to be scary.

I do not have any advice to offer other than to be open to a change in direction and to advocate for yourself, or at the very least, have someone in the room who can advocate for you.

As crazy as it sounds, I wouldn’t trade my birth experience for the world — I learned what works for me (at least this time around), I got to try going unmedicated for as long as possible, I was given just enough epidural to relax and still move my legs but not feel the pain of birth (or my second-degree tear), and it brought me the most amazing human being.

Thank you for letting me share my intro to motherhood with you. My whole world has rapidly changed, and I suspect there will be a lot of mom musings soon.

Just For Fun: My Birth Playlist

For moms and moms-to-be about to give birth. I hope you find this playlist calming and encouraging as you push your baby into this world.

Fun fact: my doula even asked for the link to this playlist so she could share it with other patients.

It was the first birthday that didn’t FEEL like it was my birthday.

I think because I have been so wrapped up in this whole baby thing, it’s been hard to remember that there’s still a person behind (well, currently… around?) the baby.

There’s been so many moments of pregnancy where everything I’ve heard or understood about mother starts to click - and I know there’s a lot more ahead of me. I’m inherently a deep thinker so for months, I’ve sat here like, “OMG, you really become a mother way before the baby even comes out of the womb.”

Like you monitor your caffeine intake, you stop drinking and eating certain foods cold turkey (pun intended), and you focus on “how will this decision affect my pregnancy and my future baby.” You think it starts when you give birth but it starts the second you see that extra line on that stick. And it never really ends, does it, moms?

Somewhere between surviving three trimesters, planning a baby shower, getting life ready for baby, trying to complete my 200hr yoga teacher training, and working up until my maternity leave (which, as a contractor, is just extended unpaid time off), I turned the page on another year.

I usually wake up on my birthday and begin to think about how far I’ve come and how much more is ahead of me. I wake up with a sensation of hope and optimism, and for some odd reason, I have more knowledge than ever. Which … I suppose, does track? We have more knowledge today than we did yesterday.

This year I woke up and just felt kind of neutral. I had had a really overwhelming week leading up to my birthday, which involved a trip to Labor & Delivery triage for a scare, my car’s transmission failing, and not knowing if I was going to have a contract job to return to as major shifts were happening within the department — all on a Monday, mind you. I ended the week on a very high note as I was able to trade in my car for something better for our family and I got a full-time role offer to come back to when my leave is done.

I guess I just woke up on my birthday exhausted but relieved that the week worked out the way it did.

Plus, one of my best friends brought me tea in the morning and sat and caught up with me for a bit, and another met Joe and me out for dinner — hot wings so I could sweat the baby out. There was no big celebration that I usually crave. I desired to share a birthday with the little man this year, maybe, but he wasn’t so keen on the idea.

As of writing this on November 11th, he’s still in there cooking, which now I can say honestly feels like a good thing because I can be selfish for a little longer and talk about my journey to motherhood.

I struggled with fear during my entire first trimester.

I don’t often talk about this, but I have had two miscarriages in my life.

The first was when I was a teenager. I never wanted to be “16 and pregnant,” so instead, I got to be “17 and pregnant.” I’m not proud of it. The experience itself was damaging in many ways - it put a strain on my relationship with my Catholic mom and family, it was tough to be nauseous in biology while dissecting a pig, it hurt my reputation at school, and I constantly felt like I was fending for myself because the father wasn’t even my boyfriend.

I remember my prom date calling me and telling me he didn’t want to go to prom with me anymore because he didn’t want people to think he was the dad. I bawled my eyes out but instead said, “ok, that’s fine.”

My mom had already forced me to tell the school and so many of her friends and our family without my permission because I was only 17 years old, and I didn’t “get” to have any say or authority in how it all went down. The only thing I asked of her was to not tell my dad, who was fighting stage 4 liver cancer.

The last time I saw my dad alive, I was in my first trimester, and I slept most of our visit because I couldn’t keep my eyes open. He was so sick - shriveled down to bones basically - and there I was, sound asleep on the couch.

A few weeks later, when I should’ve been about 12 weeks, I went for my viability ultrasound, and we discovered that the baby had no heartbeat and stopped growing at 8 weeks.

Even though this was a huge point of contention between my mom and I, we both left that appointment in tears. I have always considered it a blessing in disguise because it gave me my life back. Sure, I still had to do damage control, knowing my name would always be associated with being a pregnant teen at a Catholic school, but I felt like this was my greatest redirection.

The second miscarriage, we still aren’t sure about. I was in my 20s and had been experiencing a month-long menstrual cycle and abdominal pain. I went to the emergency room, and they determined it to be either a ruptured ovarian cyst or an ectopic pregnancy that, fortunately, saw its way out. I still don’t know which one it is, but I say “miscarriage” to err on the side of caution.

When Joe and I started trying to conceive, these past experiences began to haunt me. What if these blessings in disguise were actually hinting at a greater problem? What if I was infertile? I miscarried twice when I was supposed to be the most fertile. What if I continued to miscarry?

I got on anxiety medicine and made an appointment with maternal-fetal medicine to see if I could even get pregnant; however, during that time of planning, I got pregnant.

Even though the news was exciting, I was still skeptical. They make you wait SO long for your first OB appointment, figuring that if something happens in that first trimester, then there is nothing they can do to stop it. At my first ultrasound, I couldn’t help but prepare for the worst. I had conjured up repressed memories from my first ultrasound at 17, where the tech said she couldn’t find a heartbeat and that this “would not be a good pregnancy.”

This time, my tech scanned my belly as I lay there with my fingers crossed.

“There’s baby,” she said. “And looks like we have a good heartbeat.”

Instant tears. Instant gratitude.

We began sharing the news in the following weeks, yet I couldn’t shake that something would happen. I would have constant panic attacks and nightmares about losing the baby or someone being so disappointed in me all over again.

I started going to therapy once every week to get my head on straight. I told my therapist how I’d been feeling, and she offered to work through it with me in an EMDR session.

During the session, I saw that last visit with my dad. I saw the many arguments with my mom. I saw me bawling and burrowing myself into my closet trying to make myself as small as possible when my prom date said he didn’t want to go to prom with me. I could feel the embarrassment and humiliation and deep, deep sadness return. And in working through it, I said, “I finally get to control the narrative.”

This time, this pregnancy was about ME. I’ve wanted this my whole life and on my terms. And this was finally my time.

I spent years watching everyone else in my life have babies, and even though I always shared in their joy, I couldn’t help but feel so sad that I didn’t get to have the experience yet. Now, it was finally happening, but with someone I love and admire so much, and I was finally in a place to receive this blessing.

I get to have this pregnancy for me.

What I’ve learned…

There will always be fear.

There was a period of time at about 26 weeks when I couldn’t feel baby fluttering around like I used to. We raced to triage and as soon as they set me up on the monitor, baby began his activity for the day… way to start at 4:30 pm, buddy.

As long as I’m alive, I will be worried about my child and his safety.

I’ve told myself that this is OK, as long as I wasn’t allowing it to consume me in the way it did in my first trimester.

It’s wild to think I spent so much time becoming more grounded, more mindful and aware, yet this experience has opened up new territory for me. I find myself praying for faith; for more strength to trust in the Universe and God’s plan much more than ever before.

Even thinking about my birthing plan - I’ve had the most perfect plan laid out since the beginning of my pregnancy, but I’ve also had to remind myself to be open to change as long as it is in my and baby’s best interest.

The things I used to preach and coach people on have become some of the hardest things for me to practice, and it’s OK.

I have moved on to a new chapter.

I have new lessons to learn.

I have new fears to unlock.

But I also have gratitude and a willingness to let each day be what it is.

Maybe that’s why closing out my 34th year felt so different. Because I, myself, am different.

In a sense, I’m who I’ve always been, yet I’m a total stranger all because of someone I have yet to meet.

I am so excited to ring in my 35th year with Joe and our baby.

Of all the roles and positions I’ve held in my life, “Mom” will be the most rewarding.

Hopefully, the next time you hear from me, it’ll be during feedings and nap time. I hope you stick around!

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

• 1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped

• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

• 3 garlic cloves, smashed

• 1 pound carrots, roughly chopped

• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

• 1 serrano pepper, seeded and sliced (optional for heat lovers)

• 3 cups vegetable broth

• freshly ground black pepper

• coconut milk for garnish (optional)

• pepitas for garnish (optional)

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, salt and pepper and cook until softened, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Add the smashed garlic cloves, serrano pepper (if you’d like), and carrots to the pot and cook 8 minutes more, stirring occasionally.

Stir in the ginger and broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Let cool slightly and transfer to a blender or use an immersion blender to blend until smooth. If your soup is too thick, add a little more broth.

Serve with a drizzle of coconut milk and a couple of pepitas, if desired.

Seasonal favorite from The Get Well, November 2023 Edition.

One habit I’ve been able to maintain with each change of the seasons is my journaling practice.

I love to start each new season by reflecting on the season before and writing down my anticipations for the one ahead. So here are the seasonal journal prompts that I come back to repeatedly.

Let me know if you use them!

1. What were some of my stand-out experiences from last season?

2. Where did I direct most of my energy over the last season?

3. What do I wish I did more of?

4. What do I wish I did less of?

5. What am I ready to release and leave behind going into this next season?

6. What are three things I want to accomplish this next season?

7. How do I want to spend my time?

8. How do I NOT want to spend my time?

9. What do I need? What will nourish me this season?

10. What is one act of self-care I can do today to help me reset for this new season?

- if this is how you’ve been feeling, let me assure you, you are not alone.

Admittedly, I fell off the wagon for weeks - ok, more like months.

I used to think I had it all figured out. Between my routines, daily walks, meditation, and journaling practices… I spent two years of my life really getting locked into a life that felt juicy and exciting. From last November into this August, life has been very exciting, but it’s been moving forward at rapid speed. Joe and I moved in together in a new place, the holidays happened, the new year started, we brought a new dog into our home, and we made a baby who is still brewing and taking a lot of my personal energy; in addition to taking on as many hours as I can for work, holding space for clients and friends, and figuring out my coaching and contracting business goals.

I know that I need to fit all of these changes around my routines instead of trying to make my routines fit around these changes, but honestly, once the first-trimester exhaustion hit, I was down for the count. My energy, productivity, and spiritual practices have ebbed and flowed since March, and I surrendered to the undoing of it all.

In the surrendering, I’ve assessed how much I miss my practices and realized how much I have actually relied on them to keep me afloat.

I’ve been returning to my journaling, yoga, and meditation practices, earlier wakeups, morning preps, ritual showers, menu prepping and cooking meals, audiobooks, writing, and self-care practices, and in doing so, I have discovered that these ways of grounding myself benefit not only my mental health but also my physical health.

Sometimes, you must inevitably fall out of line to get back into it. But you must get back into it. The outside world moves too quickly not to have practices to help you attain inner peace.

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how to return to you & your routines

When you fall out of any behavior, your best bet is simply to begin again. You don’t have to start right where you left off—that can be really overwhelming—but you’ll find that little baby steps will guide you back to where you need to be, exactly when you need to get there.

The first thing I want you to do whenever you recognize that you’ve been away from your routines for too long is to permit yourself to have that break. Sometimes, falling out of these behaviors can create anxiety and feelings of self-sabotage, so just permitting yourself to exist can be enough to relieve some of the tension. We are self-sovereign beings, meaning we get to choose how we show up in the world, for others, for ourselves. If we’ve chosen to shift out of our routines, perhaps it was needed, and we don’t always need to know why. But by saying, “OF COURSE, I’m feeling this way. I needed to ‘take this time to rest and recoup my energy/to experience familiarity and comfort in this old pattern/etc.,” we can begin to show ourselves compassion, forgiveness, and allow ourselves to start again.

I’ve broken the details into sections per habit so they are easier to scroll through:

• If you’re struggling to journal…

• If you’re struggling to exercise…

• If you’re struggling with personal care…

• If you’re struggling to meditate…

• If you’re struggling to eat well…

• If you’re struggling to sleep…

🦋 if you’re struggling to journal…

First, let’s acknowledge that when it feels like you have NO free time, committing to journaling can feel like another task. But a few minutes of brain-dumping a day can be the perfect segue back into your journaling practice.

You can literally start by jotting down your thoughts, your to-do list, 3-5 things you’re grateful for, a list of things that piss you off, a book review, an idea you had for a home project; the possibilities are actually endless. Taking 5-10 minutes a day just to jot can get you back into the swing of journaling and remembering why you liked it in the first place.

🦋 if you’re struggling to exercise…

Kind of the same concept here. A few minutes a day can get you back into it. Start small, like taking a short walk down the street. If you have pups like I do, take them for 8 minutes around the block. Or find a 10-minute workout on YouTube. My trainer used to say, “Start with 10.” 10-minutes is a day is enough to make a difference in your movement goals - and you can continue to increase it by ten as you feel better and can create more time for your workouts.

Exercise doesn’t have to be black-and-white/cardio and/or lifting. It can also be deep cleaning your bathroom (the way I’m up and down scrubbing that bathtub sometimes, you’d think I was doing a HIIT challenge), bringing your fall decor upstairs from the basement, doubling down on laundry. Consider movement exercise and something to cross off your list. Trust me, you’ll feel really good about this!

🦋 if you’re struggling with personal care…

This is something I’ve shared before on other platforms, and it’s sometimes met with confusion. If your nervous system has never been dysregulated to the point of neglecting personal care, consider yourself lucky. Believe it or not, when someone is dealing with anxiety or depression from big or little “T” trauma, taking a regular shower does not always cross their mind. Their systems aren’t prepared to take a moment to care for themselves. I have been in this position before; at the height of my depression in 2021, when I was pretty religiously working from home and staying home for days at a time, I would go days before taking a shower even crossed my mind.

I discovered that for me and many others, we are raised believing that the habit of showering must take place in the morning before our daily activities (work, school, appointments) or at the end of the day before bed. When you’re already in a “freeze” state, your body goes into a protective state of detachment. You can be experiencing sensory overload, exhaustion, or even overwhelm. Your brain can struggle to break down tasks into steps - so yes, taking a shower in a “freeze state” might actually require more emotional resources than one would think.

I taught myself that it’s OK to break the conditioning of showering when we are “told” to. To get back into my habit, I started using showering as a way to break up my day. Instead of saying, “I HAVE to do this first thing in the morning or right before bed,”
I started saying, “ok, after I send this email, I am going to take a shower and make some breakfast.” or “When I get home from the store, I’m gonna put my groceries away and hop in the shower.” Since I was working from home, I started taking morning 8 AM baths as a way to relax, and it naturally transitioned into a shower after my bath.

I once shared this with others on TikTok, and I heard from a college student who said, “I’ve been really struggling to prioritize myself, but I’ve been going to class; I just realized I could do this the second I get home from my classes.” Someone said, “I guess I never thought that this is actually something that’s been conditioned in me and that I can fit this in wherever I can.” And a social worker even hopped in and said she was going to bring this up to some of her clients who really struggled with hygiene during their mental health episodes.”

Just know if you struggle in this area, you still deserve love and care.

🦋 if you’re struggling to meditate…

I want you to be as compassionate as possible with yourself here. I feel like if you’ve fallen out of your meditation practice, you must be gentle with yourself when making your return. It creates intention for your mediation and starts your practice off on the right foot.

Start small. The last time I fell out of my practice, I found that 4 minutes was just enough to get my mind centered, and I was able to hop back in with a 13-minute meditation the next day. For you, this might mean 1-2 minutes of mindful meditation every day until you feel like increasing your time. Sometimes, diving into a guided meditation can feel like too much, especially when you’re busy, so even making your meditation time a time to focus on your breathing can be a great start.

Your meditation doesn’t have to look like sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat if you are not there. You can begin by setting up a cozy space in your living room or even lying down in bed (I know - I am taboo). You can practice while sitting on a park bench. You can meditate while you walk or stretch. You can connect with yourself while you eat, shower, or drink tea. Just focus on your meditation, your breath, your body, and the present. Rebuilding your practice is all about being patient with yourself and recognizing that all steps - even the smallest ones - are progress.

🦋 if you’re struggling to eat well…

…and you don’t know where to start, start by visualizing.

There was a time when I fell out of my habit of eating well, so I started to visualize plates I wanted to see more of—fancy oatmeal with fruit and nut butter, steaks with fresh salad, pasta with fish, etc. I then allowed these visualizations to guide my menu planning and grocery shopping.

I’m not someone who can eat the same meals every day, so if that’s you, know that you can menu plan smaller “just for today” portions of anything. Your ‘planning ahead’ can be creative, and you can save money by buying foods that can be turned into multiple recipes. A single pack of chicken thighs could be lemon chicken thighs over rice and chicken alfredo, and leftover roasted chicken can be cut up into chicken salad.

Food is another area in which to start small! Just focus on making a different, true-to-you choice every day. Bulk up your cereal by adding almonds, hemp seeds, and a piece of fruit. Make a sandwich with extra pieces of deli turkey and add lettuce, tomato, and onion drizzled with olive oil and balsamic. Focus on balance and what you’ll ACTUALLY eat over a picture-perfect recipe.

Gradually ease yourself back into structure. You have permission to try as many times as necessary to reach your goals.

🦋 if you’re struggling to sleep…

Sleep is a hard one to get back into. When you tell someone you’ve fallen out of your sleep routine, the most common suggestion is “set a consistent bedtime!” And while that is great advice, you can hop in bed by 10 pm every day and still struggle to sleep if your circadian rhythm is off.

The first thing you might want to consider doing to help your sleep schedule is changing your mornings. As soon as you wake up in the morning, get yourself outside for 10 minutes just to get some sunlight. This alerts your internal clock that it’s morning. Taking those 10 minutes to walk is also a great way to introduce movement into your mornings.

Work on gradually adjusting your sleep schedule rather than jumping right into it. Try going to bed half an hour earlier and getting up half an hour earlier. Even adjusting by 15 minutes over time can be very helpful in resetting your circadian rhythm and getting back into the swing of rest.

Another thing to focus on is the language you use during bedtime. My therapist taught me that something about telling our brain it’s time “to sleep” makes our brain fight it like a toddler who wants to stay up for another hour. Whenever our brain starts sending us noise when we are winding down, as it is wont to do, practice using language like, “Not now, right now I am resting.” “Rest” takes the pressure off of sleeping but reinforces calmness and relaxes the body.

Falling out of routines is a natural part of life, especially when things get overwhelming. But what matters most is how you choose to get back on track. By embracing small steps, practicing self-compassion, and recognizing that you have the power to start again, you can return to the habits that nourish and ground you. Give yourself grace, and remember, it's okay to ebb and flow - what’s important is that you keep moving forward at your own pace. Rebuilding your practices isn’t about perfection; it’s about progress and finding balance in the chaos of life.

I posted something on my Instagram this past weekend about an experience I had with a maternity photographer. To be clear, I’m not repurposing this because it sent me into a rage or anything like that. I’m actually grateful it happened because it woke up this piece of me I’ve been dying to put into words. It perfectly illustrated the topic I want to explore: the limitations of conditioning.

I emailed a photographer about getting some photos of “me and my partner, Joe” (specifically “partner,” I don’t vibe with the title “boyfriend” at our big age) before our baby is due in November. I signed it, “Adele Stewart.”

I received a proposal back from her addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, noting how excited she was to take pictures of my “husband” and me.

The language raised an eyebrow. Not that it offended me that she called us husband and wife (and apparently that Joe has taken my father’s last name), but more so, I was disappointed in her disregard for the intentional language I used, instead highlighting her conditioned way of thinking—anyone wanting to work with a maternity photographer is, OF COURSE, a married couple.

Just the week before, I saw someone post on Threads:
”MARRIED WOMEN: How long did it take to conceive after you started trying?”

~ as if to imply that only married people “try” to conceive intentionally. I looked at the original poster’s bio - it said something about being Christian and married. Right away, I knew how she had been wired to think. I resisted the urge to respond or react to her Thread because I told myself, “Hey, she told us exactly who she wants in her audience, and I can’t fault her for that.”

That’s how I felt about this photographer. I know she didn’t intend anything malicious or rude by it; it just gave me a clear insight into her conditioning around what “family” looks like.

I could’ve easily sent an email back correcting her that Joe and I aren’t married and to put some RESPECT on our names. I could’ve also sent an email back, playing up the bit by saying, “The husband and I would love to work with you - let’s settle on a date.”

Instead, I just told her we were going in a different direction. (To be fair, at this point, I am not sure that I want maternity photos.)

I don't mean to disrespect her; she takes great photos, but I didn’t feel the need to work with her or correct her because I honestly felt like I wasn’t her audience.

I told her exactly how to address me, and she ignored it to address “us” in the way that she was most familiar with—how she’d been conditioned to view her clients.

I’m not mad at her; she is certainly not alone in this conditioning. Perhaps I was the first unmarried mother-to-be to contact her and use the “partner” language so she didn’t know how to interpret it.

Many view “family” as a husband and wife and their children. We are hardwired by religion, pop culture, and our environments to believe that family - that life - must look a certain way.

We are so heavily influenced by our conditioning and what’s familiar to us that we often forget (perhaps, sometimes, by choice) that life is not black and white and that the road we take, believe it or not, is not the only one in sight. If it were, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” would be a very short poem that goes something like, “Two roads diverged in the woods and I took the one everyone else took, now here we are.”

Look - I’m not against marriage and the traditional path. Invite me to your wedding! I’ll buy you something great off of your registry, and I’ll be on the dancefloor all night (if my feet aren’t swollen from pregnancy and not drinking enough water).

Plus, Joe and I do plan on getting married—just not tomorrow. I knew I loved him from the beginning, and we talked about our eagerness to start a family, no matter what it looked like on some of our first dates. Personally, I’ve spent years deconstructing old beliefs to create a life of freedom and autonomy, letting go of what didn’t feel like “me” and focusing on what my soul has been craving. I did not want my family life to be an exception. I wanted us to have our own story.

Breaking Free From Conditioning

Conditioning comes with limitations.

In the Threads girly case, her conditioning quite literally limited her audience. There are plenty of unmarried couples who conceive intentionally, who could’ve weighed in on their successes or perhaps found common ground in their struggles.

The photographer’s conditioning limits who works with her. Many couples don’t use the same last name, or “my partner Joe” could mean “my wife or girlfriend Josephine.” I mean, I hate to go all woke here, but we are living in modern times. Not everything looks the same as it once did, and it’s on us, as service providers, to be up to speed with our changing demographics. This photographer could wind up losing work because of her oversight.

Think about conditioning in other areas, such as what “work” is supposed to look like.

“You must work a 9-5. You don’t have to like your job, you need to work one for health insurance and money.”

Because of this conditioning, we believe working ourselves into the ground and suffering from burnout is acceptable. So many of us limit ourselves from the freedom of living a slower, more balanced life because we were told our work had to look a certain way.

The thing with conditioning is that it doesn't take into consideration our individuality and the need for authenticity.

You cannot live an authentic, true-to-you life if you do what everyone else does. I don’t know the meaning of life, but I’m CERTAIN we were not all put here to play one big game of “copycat.”

We were born with self-sovereignty. This means that we get to choose what our lives look like—WE get to design it by hand!

Isn’t that so exciting??

When you can take a step back and question your conditioning — “Who said that?” “Where did that rule come from?” “Are there any negative consequences to changing my way of thinking?” — you begin to connect with your soul essence and reclaim your power, encouraging a life of free-thinking and soul-aligned action.

And oh, how empowering it feels to make decisions for YOU and what you know to be your best interest.

My partner Joe and I are about 90 days away from meeting our little man, and that boy will not suffer in love because his parents chose their own path.

In fact, he might even feel more of it, knowing we chose a path entirely out of compassion, authenticity, and wholeness. It is my hope that he will know flow, ease, and freedom of choice from the very beginning.

I am grateful to that photographer for opening up this conversation for me. Who really thought I’d make something spiritual and empowering from that? — and allowing me to recognize I am always, always, always on the right path.

So, to say I have welcomed the energy of my second trimester with open arms would be an understatement. My brain is working faster than ever, though sometimes it skips over tiny details like what time my eye doctor appointment actually starts and the name of that “thing” at the boardwalk that spins (“Ferris wheel”).

I figured I could make a lil roundup of the things on my mind that I don’t feel like writing a giant post about. I think you guys might like something concise every so often, yea?

So… here we go.

Ego’s kind of a b*tch…

Is it not?

I’m not talking about someone having a big “ego” - I mean, I am, but I’m not? I’m really just trying to talk about the root of it.

The ego is the part of you that essentially creates you. It is behind every “I” statement, belief, and thought. Its mission is to protect the “you” you’ve built up throughout your life. It develops early from how we perceive and interpret the world around us and works by reason. We literally all have an ego - even the most enlightened have an ego, albeit one that has greatly transformed.

Ego can be a good thing! The ego is responsible for our confidence, emotional intelligence, curiosity, and sense of self. However, ego can be a big f*cking b*tch. Why? Although it is responsible for many of our positive human traits, it is also responsible for many of our negative ones. Feelings of judgment, inferiority or superiority, hopelessness, anxiety, and resentment… all come from the ego. Whenever we feel like we need to rush something or are out of time, ego can be found behind these thoughts holding the timer.

It’s actually kind of annoying how much ego can stand in our way.

I spent so much time letting my ego take over. I was anxious, constantly on edge, self-conscious, judgy, and honestly pretty miserable. I felt like I needed to be this blunt, overly confident on the outside person to avoid getting hurt. It sucked the joy out of things; I fell into patterns of self-sabotage. My ego created a desperation for validation and success. I began to crave the timelines other people had set up for themselves. My ego then became a manifestation of negative thought patterns.

The day I told myself I wasn’t that person anymore was when I started to chip away at a huge chunk of my ego and create a more fulfilling life.

When ego starts to talk its sh*t, I want you to remember who the heck you are and do the following:

• Remind yourself you have time and that you are on your own timeline!

• Acknowledge that you are allowed to make mistakes!

• Shower yourself in affirmations and compliments about your strengths! You have SO many!

• Don’t place weight on others' opinions—seriously, don’t give them any thought to whether they are good or bad. Validate yourself.

• Laugh off what is not in your control.

• Believe in your light so deeply that no one can blow it out, not even yourself.

Not in my control, not on my mind

This is gonna seem so silly, but last Monday, our power went out for 27 consecutive hours during the hottest week of the summer. Pittsburgh had a massive outage due to record-breaking heat storms, and for some reason, our neck of the woods took a pretty great hit. In fact, some folks were still out going into the weekend.

It went out while I was finishing up my work day with this giant to-do list for the week. As someone who gets paid for hourly work, my budget (which is meticulously planned out from now until right before my November due date) relies heavily on me meeting the time I allot to get the work done. And so the power went out around 5 p.m. while I was working on something I get paid to do, and it was still out Tuesday morning when I left for a 10 a.m. therapy appointment.

On my way to the appointment, my phone died, and the charger I kept in the car decided it no longer wanted to work (I feel ya). I was immediately hit with anxiety:

• “What if my therapist is trying to reach me to tell me she needs to cancel due to the power outage?”

• “What if I go get breakfast and I’m late to my appointment because I don’t know what time it is?”

• “What if work is blowing up my phone about something that needs to be sent out right this second?!”

• “I just spent a good chunk of my budget on groceries that will all go bad in the fridge!”

• “What if the power doesn’t come back on today?! Where will we go?”

So many thoughts were piling up in my brain in such a small amount of time. I knew that focusing on them would dictate the rest of my day, so you know what I did? I changed my thought process right then and there.

I just started laughing as I drove in my car with the “dead battery” logo flashing at me on my phone. I literally said aloud, “How funny that we don’t have power at home, and now I have this dead-ass phone! Ok, Universe - I see you! I surrender. I’m just gonna focus on what I can control.”

Like, legit, I didn’t cause the power outage? Nature did. I do take responsibility for not getting off my phone the night before when Joe said, “You know if that thing dies, you can’t charge it,” but it kept me entertained throughout the night while I was tossing, turning, and overheating in bed.

If my therapist was trying to reach me, I’d find out when I got to the appointment, and she wasn’t there. If someone from work needs me, it’s literally not my fault that I’m unreachable right now; they’ll have to wait and make do without me. I’ll ask my therapist if she has a charger I can use when I get in there, though just in case. The food in the fridge can be packed up in coolers for the night, or I can ask a friend for fridge space.

What if the power doesn’t come back on? Well, thank you, Universe, and thank you, God, that I have money in the bank to get us a hotel room for the night, just in case.

After I shifted my thought process and arrived at the parking lot, I’m not sure why, but I plugged my phone in one more time and closed my eyes. I planned to meditate in the AC for the next 9 minutes before going to her office.

A few minutes into my silent retreat, I heard my phone buzz next to me.

The phone charger that didn’t work or connect the entire 15-minute drive there was working perfectly, and my phone was turning back on. I let it juice up a bit more, noticed I hadn’t received any calls, texts, or emails from my therapist or work, and said again, “Okay, Universe. I see you.”

I ended up having a really great day! I had a good therapy appointment, and I ended up going to a friend's for a bit to charge my phone and drink an iced coffee. He helped me look up local dog-friendly hotels with availability that night if Joe and I needed it.

We ended up getting a room not far from home. We could sit in the AC (which the dogs fully loved), charge all our devices, answer some emails, and eat takeout in bed. I was taking full advantage of the hotel’s indoor/outdoor pool and having a staring contest with a beautiful cardinal bird when I received a notification at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night that our power at home was back on.

I had almost forgotten that’s why we were on a tiny staycation. I was having so much fun with my day that I lost sense of everything that had stressed me out earlier that morning.

Everything resolved itself regardless of whether I was anxious or relaxed.

All this to say, if it is out of your hands, it deserves freedom from your mind, too.

I realized that the things that are not in our control should bring us more joy. Obviously, when these things happen, you feel unprepared for a bit! How could you have prepared for something you didn’t know would happen? Why self-sabotage when you literally did not do a single thing wrong? You were just existing as one does.

Remind yourself that nothing you did could’ve prevented it from happening! But it’s happened! So now what? What is your next move?

Because life is gonna keep on doing its thing whether you’re curled up in a ball catastrophizing or sitting in your car’s AC laughing at the “of course that would happen” of it all!

When things happen, take at least 90 seconds to consider what opportunities opened up for you.

I promise you, your perspective is going to shift so fast that you'll be like, “Wait, what was I crying over?”

fyi—

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.