My first birth and the weeks that followed were a pivotal time in my life. I remember telling my mother after birthing my baby boy, “I felt like I was just a little girl before this.” For me getting pregnant was easy. The pregnancy was easy. The birth was smooth and short. And now all of a sudden I was starring at this baby. I was absolutely shook by the reality of such a deep love now in my life, and inevitably the risk of losing it. I had to devote my time, my body, my attention and my love to this person that I didn’t even know yet. You can think and and feel that you are ready to have kids, but there is no possible way to know how it will feel until you do it. It took me some time to adjust, to let go of my Maiden and to step into this new phase of my life, the role of Mother. I could no longer relate to the person I was before. I had to leave her behind, be brave and meet my new self every day that followed.

As I relaxed into motherhood and the absolute bliss of having a baby I began to remember. What it was like to think about someone other than myself. What it was like to live a life of devotion. What it was like to want to hold so tightly on to each passing moment, while learning the importance of letting go. I learned that in order to give my absolute best I had to first treat and love myself to the best of my ability.

I found out that I was pregnant for the second time when my son was one. I had a completely wild and free pregnancy, leaning into my body’s wisdom and trusting nature. I had no ultrasounds or checkups and hoped to manifest my dream free birth. Ultimately I compromised my birth plan in order for others to be comfortable. I am blessed to have had another uncomplicated and beautiful birth in my own home. But looking back I do recognize where I gave away my power and believe that maybe I wasn’t yet ready to take full responsibility for that power. Falling in love with my second baby boy was a euphoric bubble of love and we felt complete as a family of four.

After a year and some months of regular breast feeding I started to get my period again. I knew I didn’t want to go back onto birth control (I had been on it for six years up until deciding to start a family) and wanted to learn how to track my cycles. I thought that I was ready to read my bodies messages and started tracking without putting much time into research or trusted sources. I soon became pregnant and was shocked, and not at all ready to accept this reality. With time my husband and I warmed to the idea of another child and were determined to support each other and carry out the dream birth that I still yearned for. At seven weeks I began to bleed, and continued to bleed for days, then weeks that followed.

Both of my pregnancies and births brought me into a new version of myself. Expansion of my heart, trust in my body and my innate intuition, and permission to be myself. My miscarriage gifted me the heaviness that comes with being a woman and choosing to dance with life and death. Until then I had never known how deep loss and sadness could be exactly what I needed. It taught me that truly trusting my body meant believing in the rightness of things that felt so wrong. It taught me that allowing that deep sadness in was the only way things would ever get better. I look back at it now and can still feel the pain and shock of that first wipe of blood. With the pain I also feel deep gratitude and relief that my body does know whats best for me.

After my miscarriage I was ready to do my research and commit to first learning all the ways that my body should optimally function, and then doing everything I can to ensure that it does. In my reading (primarily the book The Fifth Vital Sign) I was amazed by the perfect design of our reproductive organs and the monthly cascade of hormones that gives us the magical ability to create, sustain and birth new life. I became passionate about encouraging women to consider this simple and effect way to achieve or prevent pregnancy. For me it has not only been a natural birth control but has also deeply strengthened my relationship to myself and to my femininity. Because my family and I are traveling every few months, my charts can be influenced by the constant change of environments and habits. I do the best that I can and learn something new each month. Some cycles I feel less confident than others, but I always make sure to grant myself grace and kindness. I feel blessed to have found this method of natural birth control and even more blessed to have started down a path of life long body awareness and reclamation of what it means to be a woman on this earth.