Transitioning Into a New Season of Motherhood: Handling it Gracefully When You Don’t Know How To

Sometimes, life just does not go according to plan. This is something that has really hit home for me in 2019. An unplanned positive pregnancy test while I had an IUD in place. A seemingly never-ending number of blood tests to confirm and monitor said pregnancy. The ultrasound showed that this same pregnancy was not viable. Then to top it all off, not one, not two, but three cancer treatments that injected poison into my body to do away with a baby who had no chance.

Yeah, that wasn’t in my five-year plan.

Yet, sitting here today I realize that while the last several months of my life have brought hell and heartache, they have also brought with them a new season of motherhood. A season, I didn’t know I was ready for, yet one my own mental health needed.

Roughly eight weeks following my first doctor’s appointment to confirm that I was, indeed, again carrying a child, I was a mess. Having had three substantial rounds of poison injected into my body to medically treat a pregnancy threatening to rupture internally, I was seeing side effects I had never imagined.

My hair was coming out in handfuls. My fingernails were so brittle and flimsy that it was nothing to rip them off while folding towels. And to top it all off, I had lovely cysts developing all along my jawline and back where the “medication” was still exciting my system. All of this was occurring just as I had started to crawl back out of the dark, depression filled hole I had allowed myself to crawl into at the thought of losing another baby, and honestly, I didn’t know how to make the bad stop.

Therefore, when the conversation arose as to what my next steps were following the confirmation of the conclusion of my ectopic pregnancy, I was ready for things to just be done. I wanted to jump right into that next season of motherhood, didn’t I?

Having had two successful yet incredibly rough pregnancies in the past, me having any more kids would have been a bad choice. Plus, having had one ectopic pregnancy, my body was prone to another. Therefore, when the talk of sterilization started, I was ready to go under the knife as soon as possible. Yet, the reservation was still in the back of my mind. Leaving my childbearing days was incredibly hard to consider even if it meant preserving my health.

My transition into the next season of motherhood was starting, and that train wasn’t going to slow down any time soon. Therefore, after weighing the immediate pros and cons, my sterilization was scheduled.

Nothing I was doing by opting to have surgery was something that had never been done before. Nothing should have had me as anxious as I was for this new season. I was not nearly as confident as I would have thought I would be when my time finally came to make this transition in my life. So how did I handle it?

I asked every question I could think of

Because seriously, I am a seeker of knowledge. The more I know about something, the better I feel. Thus, my amazing doctor got to listen to every question I could come up with, and she gracefully provided me with every bit of information that she could.

I walked into my procedure knowing exactly what to expect. It was still going to be a huge thing that I was doing, but I knew what the end game was going to be.

I centered myself

More than any other time in my life, I needed to be centered moving through this time.

Therefore, most nights before my procedure, you would find me taking a long walk, or practicing yoga in my living room. Before bed, I would set sleep meditation recordings to play to redirect my thoughts. Of the mornings, I would listen to podcasts from incredibly motivating women. (Check out Your Kick Ass Life Podcast and EmpowerHER if you are looking for some new podcasts for yourself!) And when the day became overwhelming, I would simply stop and breathe.

It is amazing how much of a change a bit of reconnecting with the universe can make.

I found support wherever I could

Having never really been one to go out and seek a support group, this one was hard. Yet, as I realized how big this transition would be, it was something I knew I needed.

Therefore, my friends and family became my cheerleaders during my move into this new season. I also had the support of thousands of other moms through social media who had been through similar situations. Shit, I was even talking to strangers by this point about my story and feeding off the support or similar stories they too had.

It was crazy where all the support and uplifting vibes started to pour from, once I allowed it to happen.

I celebrated and embraced

This one sucked when I first started, not going to lie. I did not want to celebrate the fact that I had overcome an ectopic pregnancy. Nor did I want to embrace the fact that I was alive and healthy while my baby was not. These truths alone are still enough to bring the emotions flooding back as I type this.

Yet, I did have to eventually start looking at my experience through a different lens. I had experienced a pregnancy that could have been fatal if not discovered. My surviving kids had a mother who was broken, but still there for them. I would never again have to experience a pregnancy with the potential to kill me, and I would be here for my family because of it. I was embracing this season of motherhood, and moving on to the next. Ready or not, I was going to fake it until I could make it.

I spoke up

The hardest part of my transition from pregnancy, to loss, to sterilization, was trying to determine why it happened.
Ectopic pregnancy is one of those freak things that happens, sometimes without any real reason. Having been on an IUD, been diagnosed with endometriosis in my late teens, and having reoccurring ovarian cysts on both ovaries I should have been the least likely person to wind up pregnant. Never mind having a pregnancy that was diagnosed ectopic.

Therefore, when I finally started to move past the fog of depression, I spoke up and started publishing my story. Being able to share my experience with other moms out there who were going through something similar was the only thing that made sense to me. It might not have been the real reason it happened (I may never know that) but opening up about it smoothed the transition for me more than I ever could have imagined.

I asked for help

One of the biggest ways that I helped myself to move into this next season of motherhood was by asking for help. In the middle of my pregnancy, I realized that I was in over my head. This was the time when I started asking my doctor what else I could do. Therapy was recommended and mama, I jumped straight in.

Leaving my first appointment had me giggling to myself. During that moment I realized just how much I had needed to let it all out. My therapist seemed to be in shock after I finished my crazy story, including my decision to have my tubes cut out. Yet, being able to unload all of this onto someone who didn’t know me from Adam was so good for me. I left that appointment knowing that my big feelings about this transition were completely justified and knowing that I was going to end this season of motherhood positively as I moved to the next.

Crazy Mom Talk

Motherhood. Is. Hard.

Let me say that louder for the people in the back.

MOTHERHOOD. IS. HARD.

The transitions, whether you are making the choices to enter them or they are just happening to you, suck sometimes. Yet, moving from one season of motherhood to the next is something we will all experience in some way.

Maybe you choose not to be sterilized, but instead to jump on birth control. Maybe you do not choose to be sterilized, but instead it happens as a result of a traumatic pregnancy, cancer, or another lovely lady issue. It is going to happen to all of us moms in some way as we age. All we can do is try our best to transition gracefully. It isn’t always an easy choice, or a choice at all, and yet, here we are.

Have you transitioned into this same season of motherhood? What were some of your own struggles? How did you handle them? Let me know in the comments below. Also, please share this for any mom on your friends list that may be making this transition herself!