What no one told me about matrescence.
Conception.
No one told me that the spark of a soul could feel like lightning.
A whisper before form.
A dream choosing me as its home.
No one told me that my body would become an altar.
A threshold between worlds where unseen prayers begin to take shape.
No one told me that the first flicker of light would be felt long before I saw two lines on a test.
That my body would know,
Whispering a secret my mind had not yet caught up to.
No one told me that conception was not just biology,
But a sacred invitation.
A soul choosing me,
And me choosing her.
No one told me that hope and fear could weave together in the same breath.
That longing could ache so deeply and still make space for wonder.
No one told me that even before she was here,
I would begin to change.
Pregnancy.
No one told me that pregnancy would stretch more than my skin.
It would stretch my heart,
My faith,
And my patience.
No one told me that carrying life inside me would feel both like expansion and surrender.
Like losing control and finding a deeper rhythm.
No one told me that silence in the night would be filled with two heartbeats.
And that I would speak to a soul before I ever saw her face.
No one told me that motherhood would shatter the mirrors and show me my truest face.
No one told me that motherhood would burn down everything I thought I was and offer something deeper in its ashes.
Birth.
No one told me that labor was not just hours on a clock,
But lifetimes condensed into a single fire.
No one told me that birth would split me open,
Not just skin and bone,
But soul.
That I would breathe through fire,
Roar through fear,
And rise with ancient strength I didn't know I carried.
No one told me that the body would become a storm,
Waves rising and crashing,
A tide pulling me towards a horizon I could not see,
But somehow I knew.
No one told me that labor could strip away everything unnecessary,
Leaving only breath,
Bone,
And the wild rhythm of survival.
No one told me that between the contractions there would be silence,
A holy pause.
Where the veil between worlds thinned,
And I felt her waiting,
Ready to step through.
No one told me that my roar would sound like my mother's and her mother's and a lineage of women breaking open through me.
No one told me that pain could be holy,
That surrender could be power,
That breath itself could become a bridge between life and death.
No one told me that the moment she entered the world,
I would not only meet her eyes,
But I would also meet myself again.
A self remade.
A self undone.
A self forever changed.
Postpartum.
No one told me that after birth,
I would be born again too.
No one told me that after the pushing,
After the pain,
Would come a different kind of labor.
The quiet work of becoming.
Of holding.
Of losing pieces of myself in service of love I couldn't yet understand.
No one told me that the nights would bleed into days.
That time would disappear between cries and feeds.
And the steady rhythm of,
You're okay,
I'm here.
And that sometimes I need someone to whisper that to me too.
No one told me how draining breastfeeding would be at 2am.
Every single night would drain me body,
Mind,
Spirit,
And yet somehow I would find joy in those quiet moments between us.
No one told me that I'd miss the woman I was while aching to know the one I'm becoming.
No one told me that grief and gratitude could dance so closely.
That joy could live in the same breath as depletion.
No one told me that I would long for sleep and space and softness and then ache for her the moment I set her down.
No one told me that my womb would feel empty but my arms too full and that both could be true.
No one told me that love could feel like drowning and flying all at once.
Relationships.
No one told me that motherhood would rearrange every bond.
No one told me that I would see my husband differently.
Not just as lover but as father,
As mirror,
As stranger,
As anchor.
No one told me that family would lean in and pull away.
That love would grow and tensions too.
That the simple act of holding a child could shift old dynamics like tectonic plates.
No one told me that I would long for my own mother in new ways and understand her in ways I never had.
No one told me that I would carry pieces of all of them.
My family,
His family,
The way I parent,
Whether I wanted to or not.
Watching her grow.
No one told me that joy would swell in the smallest moments.
A smile breaking open in the morning.
Tiny fingers wrapping around mine.
Eyes widening as if discovering the universe for the first time.
No one told me that being her mother would be like watching consciousness itself unfold.
Like witnessing the soul of the world remember itself through her laughter.
No one told me that her becoming would teach me how to become again too.
No one told me that in her growth I would find a new rhythm of awe.
Awe of every cue,
Every kick,
Every glimmer of personality.
A reminder that miracles do not just happen once,
But every single day.
Becoming Reaching No one told me that I would grieve the woman I was while reaching for the woman I am becoming.
No one told me that I would be reborn too.
That I'd learn how to mother myself while mothering her.
That I'd find pieces of my mother and her mother inside my voice when I sang lullabies in the dark.
No one told me that motherhood was less about knowing and more about listening.
Less about doing and more about being.
Present,
Raw,
Real.
No one told me that the act of becoming her mother would mean meeting myself in ways I never had before.
But now I know.
And so I breathe.
I feel.
I stay.
