A Birth and a Sacred Story

I’ve held onto most of this sacred story for a year now, holding it like the newborn it was.  Just as you too, were once my newborn. Something that feels so long ago and yet I can feel your warm, squishy body being placed on mine as if it were just seconds ago. I’m still not sure if I’m ready to share the story in full, but throughout the next few days, I will be sharing short stories from my labor and Wilder’s birth.

But first, there are a lot of you here who are new who don’t know much about my story, so let’s start from the beginning.

No, I mean like, the VERY beginning. Start to finish, maybe even? I make no promises, but, let’s get started. 🙂

Some things that I often get asked are, “How long did it take you to conceive Wilder,” and “How did you choose Wilder’s donor?” For almost a year a spent dodging questions around how Wilder was conceived out of shame. You see, I wasn’t trying to conceive nor do I know who Wilder’s donor is.

I was one week shy of celebrating a year sober from meth, something I hadn’t been able to put together in my four years of struggling to get sober. And then it happened; a two day relapse in my meth and sex addiction. But this one was different, I had never relapsed on meth for just two days, it had always led to months. But this time, I stopped and I couldn’t understand how at the time, but now I realize why. That two day relapse at the beginning of 2020 changed my life forever.

Shortly after my relapse, the world went into lock down and the pandemic took hold. The same week we went into lockdown, I got sick. Really, really sick. And then I got tested, post for COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic when fear was at its peek. I was a month sober when I got sick and spent the next month being cared for by a dear friend, who has been dubbed my Emotional Support Canadian and home doctor because she basically kept me alive.

Then I got well and after a month of COVID, I finally felt better. But to be clear, even almost two years later, I still have symptoms and am not fully better. I packed my stuff up and went home after spending the last month being cared for at my friends home. I was also able to finally get back to work caring for horses, including my own, after missing them for a month.

But two days later, and I was incredibly ill again. So ill that I could’t get to work, the place I loved and that was healing and had to call in again and and again. Until one day, I no longer had a job to call into. After days of endless vomiting and dehydration, I made the call and explained to my doctor that I was still sick with COVID somehow. After explaining my symptoms she asked if where was a chance if I could be pregnant.

I immediately knew that I was. You see, just before COVID hit, I had the random urge to take a pregnancy test. I wasn’t having any symptoms, but my period hadn’t come back after my relapse, which was odd. I asked a friend to get a test for me because it felt hard to do for some reason. But then we both forgot, until the moment my doctor asked the question.

As I stood in my Emotional Support Canadian’s bathroom peeing on one stick, and then two, I could feel deep in my gut just how much my life was about to change. But I had no idea just how much.

To be continued in a few hours. 🙂