A Life Cycle
Our first initiation into parenthood
It’s 4:53 am on the week of the fall Equinox. I’m sitting in my window seat, surrounded by pillows. It’s getting colder and I’m missing my cat. He loved snuggling up with me in this window seat. I start to cry. I have to write and share something with you.
Yesterday, I found out I had a miscarriage of our first child.
Today I would have been 7 weeks pregnant. The bleeding started at five weeks. At first just spots of blood on the toilet paper, then heavier at six weeks. I wanted to believe it was nothing, but I knew. Those mother instincts are real.
I called around, searching for care, but was told again and again that most places do not schedule visits until eight weeks, two months in. That felt like forever! Finally I found a place that accepted my insurance, Boulder Birth and Holistic Health. I said I had been bleeding for about 2 weeks.
“Can you come in now,” the receptionist asked?
That was yesterday.
Jon was in Denver working on Coba, our bathhouse, so I went alone. They did an internal ultrasound, searching carefully. They found the sac, the tiny fetal pole where the baby begins to form. But… there was no fetus.
I knew before they said it.
Miscarriage. Or as our midwife Rosie calls it, “pregnancy release.”
It is heartbreaking, and it is also mysterious. Life is like this, isn’t it? Sitting in the unknown, not knowing what will come, learning to find peace in the middle of it all. I am so grateful for The Makaranda Method teachings, because these practices have changed my life in helping me come back to my center again and again. Even in this.
I cried in the bathtub last night, thanking the soul for visiting us. I fell in love immediately with this little life. I thanked the miraculous nature of building a body inside of mine, even if only for a few weeks. Trusting that for some reason it wasn’t growing properly, and that my body knew to release.
The mantra I have been holding for months came back to me: everything always works out for me. Not because it is easy, but because it is life. And because I trust life and the greater work of Spirit leading the way.
And now, let me tell you how this story began…
I found out that I was pregnant the same day I was driving into Burning Man, the pop up city in the desert, full of art, music, creativity and silliness. We were barreling down the highway into Reno, my sister Kathleen, me, and our van Black Beauty, packed to the brim with fur coats, fun outfits, and non-perishables, a Burning Man treasure chest.
We called it “Sister Burn,” my adventure before babies (we thought) with some of my closest girlfriends.
At a CVS stop, I grabbed a pregnancy test because of a little bit of bleeding. “That is interesting,” I said to Kathleen. “I am ovulating, I should not be bleeding right now.” “Maybe you’re pregnant,” she responded. I thought it would be good to check.
Later that evening, at our friends Shelby and Niko’s, I took a test. Two pink lines. Pregnant. I giggled! I took another one. Yup. Definitely pregnant. I burst into tears of joy.
Everyone celebrated. Kathleen squealed she was going to be an auntie. Terra jumped up and down waving her hands in the air. I called Jon back in Colorado and he laughed, “Alright babe! Well, that didn’t take long.”
The “plan” was to get pregnant AFTER Sister Burn, but life has her own flow, as we know, and there I was, pregnant on the playa. Suddenly everything was different. Normally Burning Man is endurance, chaos, dust, heat, pushing myself to the edge. But this year, knowing new life was inside me, I gave myself permission to do it differently. I listened to myself, I rested, I moved slower, I relaxed. It was my first initiation into motherhood. Less party, more intention. And for the first time, I actually let Burning Man be a vacation.
I told everyone close to me. I was so excited to be pregnant!!! And a surprise perk - no more sucking in my stomach! Babies were growing in there. Until this Burn, I didn’t realize even how much I flexed my abs in photos, how I didn’t take deep enough breaths, and how I braced my body to look a certain way. It was so nice to let it all go.
When I got home, I bought prenatal vitamins, pregnancy pants, went to fewer workout classes, ate more food than usual, now knowing there was life growing inside me. I was really treating myself like a queen.
And then came the bleeding. And then came the knowing. And now here I am, sharing this part of the journey with you.
Because miscarriage happens to so many, and yet so many stay silent. I don’t want to carry this alone, and I don’t have to. I want to speak truthfully and openly to remind myself, and maybe you, that even in loss there is connection. That in heartbreak there is love.
I miss my Mágico and I am tired. Grief has many shapes, and I am feeling them this morning.
And still, this pregnancy gave me a gift to trust my body, to listen deeply, to open myself to community, to trust in life, and to surrender to the Great Mystery.
Jon is now coming downstairs to the window seat as the sun is rising. He holds me in his arms as I cry, “Life comes and goes, my love. This is the flow.”