My Pregnancy Story (Part 1)

Reflections on Preparing for Motherhood

Content advisory: This post includes themes of pregnancy and miscarriage

A lot has changed in my life over the past few months.

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, I’m pregnant. It feels surreal to be writing this, knowing that in just a few weeks, I will be giving birth to a tiny human. I still can’t fully wrap my head around it.

I feel honoured, grateful, and excited. I’m also terrified of all the unknowns.

Trying to get pregnant was an emotional rollercoaster.

My partner and I discussed having kids early in our relationship. We both knew it was something we wanted, but we didn’t want to rush it.

When I finally decided to go off birth control, I made a deal with myself that I would try not to pressure myself and instead just allow it to happen if it was meant to. 

Despite this, comments from my doctor about how I would be “advanced maternal age” when I got pregnant lingered in the back of my mind. It was hard not to wonder if my biological clock had passed its prime. I would often come across pregnancy announcements of friends and loved ones (and let’s be real, the occasional stranger on the internet that popped up on my feed) and feel a deep longing, followed by a pang of guilt for feeling something other than immediately overjoyed.

After more than a year of trying to conceive, in April of last year, my period was late. I took a test from a box of cheap test strips I bought on Amazon and waited for the results. A faint line appeared. Naturally, I began Googling “faint line on pregnancy test” and looked at images of other tests to try and decipher whether I was, in fact, pregnant. I tried a few more strips. Each time, a trace of a line was barely visible.

By the time my partner got home from work, I had worked myself into a frenzy. I shared the possible news with him and insisted we go to the pharmacy to buy a few more tests just to be sure. We bought the name brand early detection ones and this time, the lines were dark and pronounced. It was unmistakable: I was pregnant.

The next two days were a blur. I excitedly messaged a few close friends and began celebrating quietly. I made a doctor’s appointment. I kept putting my hand on my abdomen to send some love to my little embryo.

On the third day, I had an early miscarriage. 

The grief was a lot to process. I had barely processed that I was pregnant, and now I had to accept that I wasn’t.

It’s hard to find a silver lining in an experience so painful, but if there was one, it showed me what an incredible support network I have around me. It also gave me clarity on just how much I wanted to be a parent.  

Before I got pregnant, there was a part of me that thought that maybe I didn’t actually want to have kids – it’s an enormous responsibility, after all. I now understand that part was protecting me in case I wasn’t able to conceive. Having a miscarriage shone a spotlight on what I knew deep down to be true: I wanted that baby more than anything. I wanted to be a mother.

They say that after you have an early miscarriage (a loss that occurs in the first five weeks), your fertility rate increases for the next three months. While part of me desperately wanted to get pregnant again, there was a louder part of me that wasn’t ready. I was heartbroken and needed space to grieve.

In the months that followed, I surrounded myself with people who lifted me up. I booked a last-minute trip to Colorado to visit my long-distance best friend for my birthday, which turned out to be an amazing decision. (I highly recommend celebrating your birthday in a hot spring.) My partner and I also spent a lot of time in nature (my favourite way to heal), and I gave myself permission to cry whenever I needed to (even if it was in the grocery store).

By the end of July, my partner and I decided to go on a week-long canoe trip to Temagami, one of the most beautiful parks in Ontario. The trip was magical, and two weeks after we got home, I found out I was pregnant again.

I was excited, but scared. I didn’t want to tell too many people, and the first few weeks felt like an eternity.

There is something incredibly humbling about being pregnant. So much is outside your control, and it’s a true act of surrender. Your body is constantly changing, your mind runs in a thousand directions, and ultimately, you have to trust that things are working out the way they are meant to.

I’m grateful for tools like therapy, Reiki, meditation and breathwork. They were my saving grace during those early days and helped to soften the constant spiral of “what ifs…”  

I did my best to relax as I waited to find out if my pregnancy was viable. I will never forget getting to see our baby’s heartbeat on the ultrasound for the first time, the relief I felt when I crossed into the second trimester, or the first time I felt my baby move. Each of these moments made it feel more real, and it’s wild to think that in just a few more weeks, we will be meeting our little rainbow.

There is so much more I want to share about my experience with pregnancy, but judging from my word count, I’m going to need a part two.

For now, I want to conclude by acknowledging that pregnancy and fertility are deeply personal subjects. Society puts a lot of ideas into our heads about pregnancy, motherhood, and having children. We are shamed if we don’t want kids, yet criticized for our parenting and priorities if we do decide to become parents. We are made to feel inadequate if we struggle to conceive, and we are vilified if we choose to terminate a pregnancy. I could add so many other things to this list, but you get the idea. It’s no wonder we go through so many complicated emotions as we make decisions about the futures we want to lead.

Throughout my own pregnancy and fertility journey, hearing the stories of others helped me feel less alone. They gave me hope. To every mother / birthing person who has bravely shared their story: thank you. I hope this post can do the same for whoever might need it.