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Back in August, Dexter and I found ourselves sitting on a rocky beach, tucked away from the wind beside a swiftly flowing brook pouring its heart out into the ocean. This was the same beach I had come to to grieve and release the soul of the baby we weren’t yet ready for almost four years earlier. It felt important to me to return to the same place, to call in the next soul that we were now so eager to welcome in.
I don’t believe in any right or wrong way to conceive. There’s no sacred hierarchy. Conceiving very purposefully and intentionally can be beautiful. Conceiving completely by accident can be too. Today, as I speak about our conscious conception journey, I don’t intend to place any part of our process on a pedestal. It was simply our process, and what felt right for us.
I also don’t want to imply that there is any causation between the emotional and spiritual work we did to prepare for conception and how quickly it happened for us. I know people who have deeply committed practices and have been devoted to calling in a baby for years - physically, spiritually and emotionally - who are still waiting. My heart breaks for those people. And I feel so blessed by the privilege of an easeful conception. I want to be very clear that I’m not trying to say “if you take these steps, you’ll conceive”, or that I somehow think I did something “right”. So much of how these things unfold is beyond our control. Each of our journeys is different. This is just mine.
I’ve known I’ve wanted kids for my whole life. And I’ve also known that I wanted to be very intentional and prepared about inviting those children into the world. Many of you know that years ago I had an abortion. At that time, despite wanting children, I didn’t yet feel ready to give that child the best possible life they could have. I was struggling with my mental health, lacking financial stability, and simply not ready. (Dexter and I spoke together about that experience on a podcast episode here).
I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant again, as though the Universe might play some sick karmic joke on me for the decision I had made. I also felt I owed it to the baby we didn’t choose to very intentionally and deeply desire the next baby we called in.
For the past year or so prior to actively trying to conceive, I’d been feeling ready. But we were getting married, and still settling into our new home and some recent shifts in work, so we decided to wait until after the wedding. The months leading up to our wedding, I spent dreaming into our little family.
During one particularly profound cacao ceremony I envisioned myself, standing on the same beach I mentioned above, calling out this baby’s name to the wind - a name that had come to us many moons prior, and has since stayed with us. I saw that baby running toward me, and in that moment I knew I was ready.
And still we waited, until both Dexter and I were ready, until the wedding was behind us, and we could focus entirely on this next chapter. Over these months of waiting, I did everything I could to prepare my body for pregnancy. My naturopathic doctor guided me to take certain prenatals and other supplements, and we worked on boosting my chronically low iron levels. I began reading about pregnancy voraciously, especially about what to eat and how to nourish my body (most of which, I will admit, went out the window when I became pregnant and realized just how hard that journey can be).
We got married on July 22nd, and I had my IUD removed on August 9th. Since I had a copper IUD, my naturopathic doctor advised we wait at least one bleed before we began trying so the lining of my uterus could shed once in order to hopefully create a more hospitable and healthy space for implantation. The first day of my next period was August 22nd.
During those few weeks, I went to a local body work practitioner who I adore for a womb massage and some focused energy work to call in baby and create a sanctuary within my body. I did a yoni steam with herbs from my own garden as a way of offering support and soothing to that part of my body.
Then, on August 27th we drove out to Jordan River, to that same beach once again. It wasn’t perfect. We bickered in the car on the way there. As is often the case, my expectations for how amazing and easeful everything would be were too high, and I threatened to throw in the towel on the whole thing. But we talked it through as we always do. And we decided to do the ritual anyway, returning to ourselves and to each other… just as we knew we would time and time again in the coming decades.
We walked down to our spot on the beach, and Dexter made a circle of rocks, carving out a place in the sand for us to hide away from the wind. We named all that we wanted to release before starting a family. And we called in all that we desired to cultivate at the start of this new chapter, setting intentions for how we would each move into this unfolding.
We pulled cards. I can’t remember what cards I pulled. But Dexter, not normally one to engage in ritual space with me, pulled The Bardo, and it stuck with me.
We read the description from the guidebook so beautifully articulated by author Kim Krans: “It is said that The Bardo is a place between this life and the next, a liminal realm through which souls pass. Envisioning this inherently mysterious space creates the potential for us to rise above the concerns of this world and see our relationships through a cosmic and timeless lens. We may receive messages from those who are no longer with us or see visions of lives not yet lived… Its energy does not belong to Earth as we know it, but rather to the cosmic network of which we are a single thread.”
Dexter looked at me, tears welling in his eyes, and he said: “The Bardo. That’s where our baby is. They’ve been there waiting for us since we let them go, waiting for us to be ready to call them back.”
At the end of our ritual, I stood facing the water, and yelled as loud as I could the name that has been with us for this baby for the last long while. I called out to them, in the same way I had imagined myself doing in the vision I had in the cacao ceremony.
We’re here, baby. And we’re so ready to meet you.
Nine days later, I ovulated, and a little egg, that had already existed within me when I was in my own mother’s womb, found what it needed to create new life. And now, thirty-one weeks later we’ve grown more than I knew possible - into surrender, into the mystery of the unknown, and into the unfolding and becoming that lies ahead.