Theo turned 2 last weekend so we’re celebrating big time at my house. Today I’m sharing a story about how despite a 5% chance, I got pregnant with Theo.
It’s a story of a miracle and I hope that it uplifts your heart.
I wrote a draft to share with you shortly after he was born then sat on it until now. I’m going to name that I’m feeling a bit nervous to share. Maybe it’s since it includes more details than I usually share or that it reveals the depths of my spiritual practice and how it came to be.
I’m sharing it for a couple reasons..
In case you know someone struggling with infertility so that you can share a story of hope with then, or if that person is you that you’re not alone, or if it’s not pregnancy but something else you desire with all your heart that it pays to trust your intuition and endless possibilities life has to offer.
You may or may not know my story to motherhood. The recap, Vince is an IVF baby after 4 years of fertility treatments, a blissful pregnancy, then an epic 48-hour labor he entered the world.
I still had hopes for a spontaneous pregnancy for baby number two and life had another plan.
I ignored the whisper of my intuition to try an unmedicated IUI before using our last embryo and placed my trust in our overconfident doctor. We had our embryo shipped from Atlanta to Charlotte since we had moved and it was back to shots, hormonal and emotional ups and downs, and bloating only to find out it did not work.
We were devastated.
The thought of it not working didn’t even cross our minds. The week of Vincent’s third birthday we found out. We had a big party planned for him and we hadn’t told anyone about the procedure so we grieved in silence.
After a few months, we began fertility treatments again with a round of IUI with meds. Since I had lost a fallopian tube with an ectopic pregnancy we could only go through with the procedure if I had ovulated on the left side and I didn’t that cycle.
My body was tired and our hearts were tender as we knew the doors were closing on our dream of being a family of four.
My intuition started speaking louder and this time and I listened.
No more fertility meds. Our doctors were pushing IVF and for us, IVF was out since it was such an undertaking the first time around.
As a hail Mary, I asked Jay to trust me and we put our faith in an unmedicated IUI. The doctors recommend drugs to stimulate increased egg production which didn’t connect for me. For our original egg retrieval that included drugs to stimulate increased eggs, my left side (the one we needed for IUI) didn’t produce any follicles big enough for retrieval and it was important for me not to overstimulate my system.
Jay’s loving support provided me with stable ground as we embarked on another wild ride. A few months went by where I ovulated only on the right side and we had to pause 2-3 cycles because of the Covid shutdown.
This Sacred pause led to a couple Divinely guided maps.
I had a session with my trusted advisor, LeeAnn, who I worked with throughout all the years I tried to get pregnant with Vince. I believe that there is more to fertility (health and well-being) than physical.
It would be wonderful if fertility centers and more medical professionals used a holistic model that incorporated the mind, body, and spirit.
Yes, what you eat and how you exercise matters.
Yes, we need to tend to our hearts, mental health, stress level, conditioning, and nervous system for a holsitic approach.
Yes, the energy behind what we do matters.
I dove deep into this work while trying to get pregnant with Vince’s and there was more to learn. During our session, LeeAnn again mentioned an underlying root cause to my infertility and suggested looking into herbs – not as a solution but more as a way to open up possibilities.
I want to be mindful that my story isn’t to follow this protocol and get pregnant. Or that just because we want something with all our hearts that it will come to us as we envision.
The essence of the message is to encourage you get to know yourself through curiosity, compassion, patience, and love. You need to care of your mind, body, and soul so that it’s fertile and open to an abduanct life (regardless of a baby). It helps to trust the invisible and visible support ushering the way.
My curiosity led me to pull out Dr. Christine Northrup’s “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom,” book that I referenced many times before. This time I reviewed her guidance on herbs, which led to a Google search and finally to Julie Indichova’s Fertile Heart website.
Intrigued, I read Julia’s Inconceivable memoir where she talks about her journey bringing her second child into the world. Calling on wisdom traditions, visualizations, dream work, herbs, nutrition, body truth practices, taking care of ourselves as if we were a new baby, creating lives we’ve always desired, and meeting our children halfway. I was inspired and jumped in with two feet devoting everything Fertile Heart had to offer including her live, group calls and program.
I was hesitant to put my heart on the line again. Getting my hopes up only to get disappointed and choose to do it anyway since my desire for our child was so strong.
On one of the calls Julia said to do the program for 3-months like my life depended on it and I did. Each morning and night, I’d do the visualization of breathing healing energy into my uterus, fallopian tubes, and womb. I imagined being pregnant again.
I journaled and worked with my dreams while feeling into what was needed to take ultimate care for my body, heart, and mind. I talked to my baby and consciously created space in my life and belief system for him.
There was one practice that I was subtly resisting, the body truth practice.
The practices and habits we resist usually are the most needed. I stood listening to Julie’s voice as she instructed me to listen to my body and move in whatever way it was called to move. I’m all into the woo and even this felt strange for me since it’s not something we’re taught to do in our culture.
After a few practices, I had the most powerful experience that I know sounds bizarre. Throughout this journey, I had been working with my third chakra, my solar plexus. It had always felt like I had a knot or I was being punched in the stomach. I felt it more when I was making decisions that were outside of the box but right for me.
As I stood it was almost like someone punched me in the stomach. My shoulders hunched forward as my belly drew back and a heavy surge of energy swirled from left to right, then up and out. It was weird. So weird that I tried to recreate the experience the next day, thinking maybe I made myself move that way.
Nope. My body was moving junk out and creating space.
The next month, I ovulated on my left side! Tears rolled down my face as I told Jay. Proof I could trust myself, trust my body. Obviously – she did create a human from scratch.
We got pregnant, 2 years after the original plan, and couldn’t have been happier.
Theo is a spirited, red-head that lights the world up with his smile. He entered the world like a bullet with 4.5 hour labor and I’ll share that story another day.
Looking back and processing this season of life, I know I was meant to go through this initiation to strengthen my connection to my body and intuition.
It gave me a chance to embody the work I do today on a deeper level. It’s such a gift to be able to teach women how to trust themselves, their body, and how to become co-creators of their lives. After all we are both human and Divine. The sparks of our soul are here to guide us and to provide lessons along the way.
Thank you Jay for walking alongside me on this journey and trusting me as I dove deep into the woo. Thank you LeeAnn for being my trusted advisor throughout it all and Julia of Fertility Heart for sharing your wisdom with me and other women.
Thank you for reading. Please share with someone that could benefit from this story.
Now go out there and share your gifts with the world.
xo Jackie