Walking the threshold
Contemplating my final months of maidenhood + beyond
There is no predicting how early parenthood will be. How much sleep you’ll get. How your relationship will hold up. How the pets will behave. How much help others will offer. How your body will mentally and physically heal after birth. How the baby will land and adjust to being earthside.
It’s all up in the air, in the belly of the unknown.
My first pregnancy has so far been in a similar vein. So many things have happened that I couldn’t have predicted; symptoms so strange and specific that have sent me to the edge. Anxiety, nausea, endless vomiting, food aversions, water aversions, heartbreaking realisations about my parents, grieving my childhood and the wounds that still tenderly exist — I have been humbled in ways I didn’t think possible.
When I break the surface, I am greeted with flames of remembering: this is the transition, the final months of maidenhood hacking and burning away at the old to prepare my spirit for what lies ahead — the lifelong role and devotional practice of being mother.
Already, my body is being changed by this little human, and soon the rest of me will be cracked open, melted and reassembled into someone new. I’m glad I don’t fear it. I don’t fully know how it will feel, or how I will handle it, but at 17 weeks pregnant, I welcome it. The unbecoming. The ferocious bushfire coaxing seeds to bloom. A deep, cellular cleanse of all that I know, and all that I hoped to become.
With birth comes a new beginning. A new woman. An activation. An ancestral remembering.
At our monthly appointments my midwife asks me if I have any questions about what I’ve been learning. Each time I smile and tell her I haven’t been. Not actively, not seeking. After so many years of eagerly demolishing knowledge and theories and stories I am comfortable sitting in my own.
Our hour together passes quickly. There is always much to discuss, but it’s rooted in my experience, my needs and desires. It’s nice to come from a place of “this is what I feel and believe and want to do, how do I make it happen?” instead of asking “what should I do?”. The power is very much in my hands, and although I am happy and willing to surrender to the mystery of birth in the end, there’s still a lot I can do in the meantime to get me there on my terms.
Which has me thinking: how can I enjoy these final months of pregnancy? I am not quite halfway, but now that the challenges of the first trimester are largely over, I have a lot more capacity and energy to enjoy this magical season of life.
And by enjoy I mean basking in all the space I have. Space to read books for hours on end. Space to have two hour phone calls with friends. Space to take a weekend away. Space when my job doesn’t give me as many shifts as I’d like. Space to do laps around op shops and run errands in the middle of the day. Space to watch four movies back-to-back and barely get off the couch when I feel sick. Space to not cook dinner for days in a row. Space to let the washing pile up, to get to housework when I feel like it.
I am not out trying to get anything accomplished before this baby comes. We aren’t doing a nursery, or hosting a baby shower or going on an extravagant babymoon. Life is unfolding as it normally would, just with me a little less active and a little more prone to curling up on the couch.
There is a bunch of shit to buy, but most of it I am happy to collect gradually. There is no rush. We have time.
When I found out I was pregnant I declared to my husband: “well, that’s my project for 2026. Growing this baby is all I need to focus on doing”. And so far, I’m happy to report that I’m sticking to that intention.
There have been moments of creativity channelled beyond my womb. Releasing my Flower Essence collection, for one. It is softly out there (I’m yet to share any posts or be vaguely strategic about it) and I’m really proud, but it didn’t feel like an urgent now-or-never situation. I knew it would happen and it did (remind me to write about this concept soon!). And of course, this Substack. In spontaneous, inconsistent bursts, but new shoots are unfurling above the soil all the same.
For years, I have passionately believed in two things:
Babies bring abundance
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Motherhood uncovers a deeper well of creativity
I have never feared losing myself to this season. Perhaps that is naive, but after existing in the void for so long, to have so much of my life consumed with longing for this baby, the inevitability of change and crumbling hasn’t felt daunting. It makes me feel curious, enchanted, allured. To become someone new (or closer to my true self) feels like a good thing. Why would I resist that?
Perhaps it would be different if my identity was tied up in my career. At the time of writing this, I have no career. I work in a health food store. I have the skeleton of a business that I have rarely been tending to. I have several labels — Kinesiologist, Flower Essence Practitioner, Reiki Master — but none of them feel particularly alive for me right now. I know I will return to these modalities at some point, but I have no desire to “push through” or pressure myself into serving others while my body is in deep devotion to this baby.
Is that pregnancy working its magic? Preparing me for the dive, priming my lungs to exist without air for a while? To exist as a woman without work, without expertise, running off instinct and knowing. Tuning into her senses and her baby, forgetting what day of the week it is and what was once deemed important. Sinking into the bog of postpartum, never quite feeling clean or well rested or full. Rooted into the present, as if there was never any other way.
And then, at some point, whether it’s months or years down the path, this evolutionary, all-consuming season will soften and expand into one with more capacity to create. I know this in my bones. It has felt inevitable for the longest time. Being a mother will be my most creative season yet.
It likely won’t look or feel like it does now, and that’s okay. I am bizarrely excited about having less time. I feel like my time to create will feel more precious, more purposeful, more intentional. Something I’ve heard and witnessed time and time again is that mothers are resourceful. And efficient. If they believe it’s important, they’ll find a way to get it done.
I could use a little of that fire now, to be honest.
At the time of editing and finishing this piece, I’ve spent 22 weeks growing this baby.
I have entered the “golden window” of time where pregnancy feels good. And what a relief it is! My belly is blooming (but I still fit most of my clothes), my symptoms are under control thanks to an anti-nausea tablet, my skin is not currently irritated by hormonal eruptions, I can eat most things (still working my way up to eggs) and am maintaining only one nightly wake up to pee.
My baby girl (!!!!!!) is wriggling and kicking and booping me everyday. It is the most glorious distraction, I can’t help but say hello and talk to her whenever I feel her move. After weeks of waiting for obvious movement, her little wriggles bring me so much joy and relief. I haven’t felt this happy and content since taking my pregnancy tests. We have made it through the tentative months and so far everything is good.
Sure, the back of my pelvis might ache at the end of each day and rolling in and out of bed feels like a ten-step procedure (don’t even get me started on getting off the floor) and I still can’t take that damn prenatal but who cares!!
This feels like floating in cold water on a sunny day compared to the shitstorm of my earlier months. I would take an aching body over a nauseous one any day of the week.
Something I keep coming back to is to make the most of this time — because if we are blessed to have another baby sometime in the future, it’s not gonna be this chill! Every symptom will be accompanied by tending to a small child, with making sure she’s fed and emotionally nourished and gets to swimming lessons on time. I will once again adapt, but I know there will be moments of longing for the peace of my first pregnancy, so I’m doing my best to be in the gratitude now.
What a gift! What a blessing! What a joy! My girl is finally on her way after all this time!
We are experiencing so many firsts together; her quietly growing and discovering, me loudly narrating, celebrating and complaining. And that feels simply, cosmically, astoundingly, really fucking cool.
People kept giving me to do lists to “enjoy” my last child free months and I soooo wasn’t interested. People are so terrified of losing things that really are noise and distraction wrapped up as “me time” or self care… keep trusting yourself, you’re doing amazing! And don’t be afraid to do motherhood at your own pace, the whole rushing, overwhelm, no time to yourself can often stem from a mindset becoming a reality… it hasn’t been my experience really because I don’t allow it to be :-)