Into the Flames of Motherhood
Becoming a mother in the fire of inflammation…
Here I wish to share a tale of my life recently.
It’s long. When left to my own thoughts brevity it not my strong point…
But perhaps you’d like to go on the journey of my becoming with me.
If so, we can’t really begin without taking you back in time a little way…
2018 I was working full time and had commenced a 12 month embodiement certification. It was also right around the time of my Saturn return, I was 28, and for several months of that year I emotionally and energetically felt in freefall. It just felt like everything inside me was changing, I didn’t know for better or worse, and I couldn’t do anything else besides just let it happen.
Really, knowing now, for the first time in my life, I was landing in my body. I was ceasing to live so purely up in my mind, cut off from my emotions and the living, breathing vehicle (my body) that carries me in this lifetime.
Colliding with a stressful period at my full time job in late 2018, all the inner emotional work I’d been doing, something activated within me and I started to feel ill.
And by ill, I mean burning, searing, acute abdominal pain. The first few bouts were accompanied by episodes of random vomiting that had me thinking I had a weird gastro.
One day it struck me like a bolt of lightning, as it started to become more regular, that actually in fact, I had gastritis (inflammation of the lining of the stomach).
I rushed breathlessly to the doctor. He said, yep, not too phased, you’ve probably got some form of mild gastritis, here’s the medication that suppresses your stomach acid production that helps to fix it.
No further explanation of how that drug (Nexium) should be used short term, but that most people who end up on it, can be on it for decades - because once you stopped it your symptoms just come back. I wanted to know truly why I had gastritis. I didn’t want to Band-Aid. I got placed on a waitlist to get an endoscopy (camera down your throat to look at your stomach), my appointment placed 4 months into the future.
I knew it was stress, I knew it was the deep emotional excavation I was doing in my embodiment course. But, for the next 12 months, on and off, it slowly took over my life. I was swigging stomach calming herbs (Marshmallow and Slippery Elm predominantly) straight out of the bottle.
I vomited. All. The. Time.
I was in acute, teeth-clenching, writhing pain, all the time.
Nath started doing most of our cooking as I often couldn’t eat really. Rich food became the enemy. Each day was a total roulette as to what I could eat, tolerate or keep down.
I had a spurt of a few months in the middle of that 12 month period where I didn’t have any symptoms for awhile. That's when my endoscopy rolled around. Lol. My procedure went for under 2 minutes, no evidence of gastritis was found.
But the burning, burning, abdominal pain came back. The writhing around in my bed gasping, in so much pain I couldn’t sleep or get comfortable, the vomiting - which often brought relief - all came back soon after, for another 5 or so months.
Life centered around acute, but chronic, pain.
For some reason, around the end of 2019, it started to ebb away. I remember a month or two leading up to this I’d done a couple of functional/naturopathic stool tests which both came back pretty alarming. Huge levels of inflammation present in my gut, mass imbalance in my gut bacteria. None of it really surprised me and I wrote it off as the gastritis, and continued on my way of trying to eat what healthy food I could, and taking my gut supplements whenever I could tolerate them.
The end of 2019/early 2020 we renovated our place - stressful - but it didn’t flare again. I thought it was behind me. The renovations finished and Hugo decided it was his time to land, as we fell pregnant the month or two after moving back in. COVID had just hit.
I spent my pregnancy in a COVID bubble, working part time from home, gloriously loving my pregnancy. I felt a million bucks. I had the glow. I felt great. I loved working from home and put it all down to that. Gastritis felt so far behind me.
I wondered throughout that period if I just should've taken the gastritis medication. If I really needed to put myself through all that literal pain and suffering to try and find and solve the root cause.
Hugo was born, at home, in a beautiful, issue-free birth on the 23rd Dec 2020.
The first 24hrs were glorious, and the weeks & months that followed descended into one of the most heart-wrenching and stressful times of my life with big breastfeeding issues, and the waking up to deeper wounds and hurts that were locked up inside my nervous system.
Becoming a new mum has a way of revealing & pressing our gnarliest parts, right? I’ve shared more about my feeding issues here, and shan’t delve into it all again in this post.
It was so much. It was too much for my nervous system in retrospect.
One day, when Hugo was 5 months, and I was 5 months postpartum, the peak of the stress was behind us I spose. But that day, the abdominal pain came back. I feel like some kind of stress/trauma response activated. Not this. Not again. I can’t. Not now. I cursed. I cried. It stayed. It stuck around. It worsened.
But this time, I had a baby. Everything was different. The stakes for being well were so, so much higher.
And I was trying to pick myself up off the floor from a stressful start, from sleep deprivation, from trying to figure out this parenting gig which had me totally overwhelmed.
Then vomiting came back. The pacing up and down the living room in agonizing pain came back. The writhing around in my bed came back. Slowly at first, and then as the weeks and then months ticked by, it progressed to the point where it pretty much happened daily/totally ran my life.
But a whole new level of fatigue entered my life that I knew, after a period of time, was beyond what even new mums talk about. Hugo bless him, was one of those babies who slept. Nath got up and did the night feed/s so I could rest a while in. It didn’t make sense I was THIS tired.
A woman I went to school with, who was so beloved by her community, died from bowel cancer around that whole time. Really, it was hearing of her, before she passed, that pipped a little voice in my head that said, ‘Claire, please just go get this properly checked out’.
I was at a doctors appt for something else and brought up my symptoms. I am so thankful she fully listened to my concerns, and asked, with my history, why a follow up endoscopy hadn’t been done, and why no one had ever referred me for a colonoscopy. I shrugged. So much had been going on in my life, and my symptoms were the same as last time, the gastritis was just the gastritis.
I think I got put a little higher up the list this time, as, very soon after, around September 2021, I commenced 6 months of tests at the public hospital trying to figure out what was going on with me. I got tested for tuberculosis. For so many kinds of diseases. Autoimmune markers.
First my endoscopy and colonoscopy. Results - you’ve got inflammatory cells throughout the entirety of your digestive system. Not just your stomach.
Oh.
But they’re a type that we can’t quite figure out why they’re there.
So, next, the blood tests - so, so many.
Yes, markers for Inflammatory Bowel Disease are high, but it’s still not conclusive.
Finally, an MRI.
Nath takes the day off to come to the appointment with me at the hospital. By now it's late March 2022.
The head of the clinic informs me I have moderate to severe Crohn's disease.
Crohn’s is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that has chronic inflammation affecting any part of your digestive system. They say it's autoimmune in origin - in that your own immune system starts attacking your own digestive cells, and a huge inflammatory response occurs.
The MRI finally, definitely found it, up in my small intestine, where an endoscopy can’t get far enough down to see, and a colonoscopy can’t get high enough to look either.
5 parts of my small intestine have big build ups of inflammatory cells which are narrowing the wall of my small intestine, which, if left untreated much longer, leave me at a high chance of a bowel obstruction - which is a medical emergency, and emergency surgery.
My world really changed that day. We sat in the park afterward before we had to pick up Hugo. I cried. We tried to process.
It was an answer to why I’d felt a level of pain and exhaustion so unexplainable, for now another 10 months, which was relieving.
This wasn’t gastritis. 2018/2019 wasn’t gastritis. The exact same symptoms I had for months when I was 14…wasn’t gastritis.
But it was also trying to wrap my head around the reality that I’d just been handed a lifelong diagnosis. And that Crohns was something I’d potentially have to factor into every big decision I made moving forward.
And just fuck, a Crohn’s diagnosis just highlights how freakin’ unwell I’d been. But it’s wild how quickly you can just adjust and keep living your life forgetting you and your family are in survival mode all the time.
We started Hugo at a family daycare at the start of 2022, and it was the reason I was still functioning I think. Those 2 days a week I could have a break and rest were game changers.
As much as I thought I wanted to be a full time parent, where I ended up by December 2021 wasn’t pretty. So many hours I would lay on the couch, in the house with Hugo, by ourselves, feeling like I couldn’t even move. Like I couldn’t look after him and play with him. Feeling like the most basic tasks of changing his nappy or getting him food were taking everything I had and then some. Not wanting to miss him being a baby, but not wanting to be there either.
And to watch your own brain find it hard to be around your own baby is a total, total, mindfuck.
Here, in December 2021 I was 320% burnt out. Hugo was 12 months, and what a rocky 12 months it’d been. To still at this point have no idea what was going on with me, but have to figure out how to pick yourself up off the floor and heal from burnout, whilst still having to full time parent, be unwell, manage my household and live in this village-less society as a mother - is a pretty hard puzzle to try figure out.
And goddam, I wish it wasn’t, but it was so hard to try and find grace for myself.
To figure out what to do with the thick layer of guilt I slathered upon myself -
Why didn’t I like being a parent?
Why did everything feel so hard to me?
Why didn’t I want to spend time with my baby?
Why couldn’t I just muster the energy to do the things I needed and wanted to do?
Why couldn’t I just be better???
(Dec ‘21/Jan ‘22 - this is how inflamed I was on the outside. Very much a reflection of the inside!!)
As whilst I hadn’t yet been diagnosed, you also kinda lose perspective on how unwell you actually are when something slowly, slowly gets worse, and you don’t really realize how far gone it is.
I didn’t feel like I could drive my car very far because I was so fatigued I didn’t feel safe doing so with Hugo with me. Going out to events and playgroups to build community as a lonely new mum just felt totally beyond me.
The first 12 months of Hugos life fucking crawled by. I’ve done enough inner work to be able to separate my feelings for him, and who he is, with my own inner experience of becoming a mother to say: becoming a mother, for me, was so so hard, and it wasn’t filled with joy (predominately).
My body reflected my emotional state, and my body was broken.
What a full on two years it's been.
2 to 3 months later, March 2022, when diagnosed, I was prescribed a high dose steroid (prednisone) and an immunosuppressant. It was, for me, a whole process of coming to terms with even taking these medications in the beginning. It’d been a medication-free world prior to this point pretty much, and all of a sudden, I’m reading how this drug will block the replication of my DNA and suppress my bone marrow to reduce the production of inflammatory cells…
I was all prepared to go into that first appointment to fight against the prednisone at least - its side effect profile could fill 50 pages - and by the time I walked out, after hearing the state my body was in, and finally getting answers, I knew I had to do it all.
After a period of mourning, crying, bewilderment and adjustment, I gathered up my energy and threw myself into getting better. I took my meds, started seeing a naturopathic clinic who only specialize in complex digestive conditions, started taking my myriad of supplements and doing my tests, and kept seeing my somatic therapist who was helping me keep my nervous system regulated and unpack the emotional triggers behind it all.
Upon starting treatment, my abdominal pain went away, as did the vomiting.
Life on prednisone feels great (for me)! You get energy, and I think I experienced, for the first time in my adult life, what it's like to have no inflammation in your body. Wild.
(I also got a tremor and it reduces your bone mineral density…so pros and cons).
As I weaned off it though, my symptoms came back. Seeing the naturopath helped clean up some other symptoms - I got a little better. The up & down dance. But, overall, I felt my energy start to slowly come back, and the debilitating brain fog and fatigue ebb away.
Life continued that way for several months, and I cautiously kept life simple and low key, doing the odd bit of work and here and then, but still using daycare days to rest where I could. I started to be able to tolerate foods again I hadn’t been able to tolerate since I was pregnant really. That was wonderful and felt affirming I was on the right track.
Appointments with my medical team had everyone feeling like things were on track and improving also.
Start of September I ate a heavy lunch, and that afternoon, vomited. It was back. For most of September I existed like I did pre-diagnosis. Eating simple carbs (if you know me you might’ve heard me refer to my Twisties and party mix lolly diet) to get in some energy. Digestion playing up, pain back, vomiting frequently.
My mental health took a HUGE dive that month. It showed me the thoughts I’d believed that said - ‘look, you’re just better now!’. The nature of the disease is very much that it can rear its head in unexpected times. I tried to understand the trigger. I’d always gone hunting for the trigger. I hadn’t been stressed, sick, upset etc.
But there wasn’t some magical trigger that once you found it, halted everything. Random and unpredictable flares are a nature of the beast. This was my first run in with one, and I really struggled to accept that as reality and truth.
Luckily I had an in person specialist appointment that month, and my medical team got to see that I wasn’t well (really sick again). They reordered the MRI and bloods etc.
October things started to calm down. I went to Melbourne for the start of Oct, and got COVID. I spent my birthday (the 12th) quarantined in my own room trying to avoid giving it to Hugo, and on that Friday, still at home, had a telehealth appointment.
A doctor and nurse I’d never met or spoken to before told me my Crohns, after looking at my MRI, was just as bad as when I got diagnosed in Feb/March, if not a bit worse. I was advised I’m now at a high risk of bowel obstruction and need to be extremely careful about what I eat. A doctor suggested I go on a Sustagen only (liquid) diet for 8 weeks.
I was crushed. So devastated. I felt so raw and tender and at a loss.
Just as bad as when I first got diagnosed?
Another round of steroids. Applications to Medicare to get access to the next stage of immunosuppressant.
On Friday the 11th Nov 22’, I went into the hospital for my first infusion of that new drug. I’m now on 3 immunosuppressants trying to get the inflammation that's occurring inside my digestive system under control.
It’s a trip.
A new layer of surrender was accessed. When I think I’ve surrendered a huge amount already - something else has come along and knocked that previous level out of the park.
Watching it literally flow into my veins, really I have to thank it. I can’t think about where I’d be without these drugs.
Six to 12 months on this new medication, hopefully weaning off the others at some point, to see if it’s done what it's meant to - get the inflammation down. If I can get into remission we can see how much scar tissue may be there, after what is now several years of undiagnosed inflammation happening there.
The timing of it all warps my head a little. Ideally you aren’t pregnant whilst you’re on these drugs, and you don't want to get pregnant whilst your disease is active and not properly managed. So no discussions of further children for us until the dust can well and truly settle - and god I hope it does. For me, first and foremost, and then for my family, regardless of if we have another child.
But if I’d actually gotten diagnosed back in 18/19 when I had that huge flare, perhaps the level of scar tissue that is now there wouldn’t’ve had a chance to build up.
But also, if I’d gotten diagnosed then - Hugo probably wouldn’t be here. He’s almost 2. For how hard the last 2 years of my life has been, I can’t imagine him not here. I can't imagine not loving him.
It’s all worked out as it should really, which is a trip. Things being aligned, and being cracked open to life’s path, actually means signing ourselves up for pain and grief as well as joy.
It’s hard to accept sometimes, and other times easier: I’m actually right where I’m meant to be.
I’ve grown SO much from this experience. The inner journey this has taken me on could double this already large word count easily.
You don't become a wise old woman from nothing happening in your life. And I don’t say that to crack a joke or have a light note amidst the story. It’s just what it is - true wisdom is oft hard won.
Many people are in many situations much worse than mine. With Crohn’s, with illness, with parenting, with life.
But I don't say that to diminish my own experience.
It is my experience, and it's been a hell of a ride. We all have our own version at some point.
Who knows what the future will hold for me, and this body I have that expresses this disease.
Through this inflammation she expresses anger, suppression and grief, and I’m here to listen to her.
I know my future holds healing, at least on some level, because I’m already healing today.
Whether this future also holds remission, or surgery to remove this affected part of my body, or more children, those things I don't know yet. And I don't have to.
Throughout this time I’ve also had some wins in my work. I do contract work for a practitioner-only supplement company, and have ended up writing articles, appearing on their podcast multiple times, and hosting several live practitioner training webinars for them. I love writing and speaking, so I have felt really grateful to be able to use and hone those skills whilst working from home and when I felt able.
I also (slowly) bustled away on creating my own apothecary, Spirit Botanica, which I launched with a herbal tea/infusion called Mineral Booster, at the start of Nov 22. It did SO well.
For anyone reading this who hasn’t known my story but purchased a bag of Mineral Booster at the end of ‘22 - I hope you can see just how much it has meant to me that you’re here.
So it ended up being a busy end to the year really. And whilst most people are allergic to the word busy these days, I’m actually chuffed I felt up to it. Spring held a sweetness for me last year, after so much of the past few years feeling like a long, dark internal winter.
Parenthood has helped me have better boundaries around my work, as has Crohn’s.
My body wants slowness.
My health and my energy get put before everything right now.
It’s what we should all be doing, right?
Crohn’s has been my teacher in so many ways.
It is true, without your health you have very little. I started to feel so incapable. I started to feel like I was sitting on my couch, so incredibly fatigued and incapacitated, that my life was passing me by.
It’s really nice to realize, right here in this moment as I type this, that I don't totally feel like that anymore.
I don’t feel like I’m back to who I was, but so much of my identity is also wrapped up in this transition from maiden to mother, that maybe I’m still really getting to know who this new version of me is. How can I separate Crohn’s from motherhood, to try and figure out who I am without being defined by this disease? I had motherhood without Crohn’s for such a short period of time it’s a little hard to separate them. But to not be defined by it feels a sweeter possibility with passing time.
I feel better prepared mentally to handle more blips on the radar now. I don’t wish for them, but if they come, I feel I have more acceptance and grace to meet them.
Showing up to do the emotional work and healing with my therapist has been uncomfortable and hard at times, but when I tune into my Crohn’s, some level of healing I feel and know has taken place, just obviously not on the physical level yet.
I can’t believe I got this diagnosis in March 22. It feels like 5 years ago. I feel like I’ve lived lifetimes these past 10 months.
My vision for 2023 is a simple year. My heath is more even, I do some more educational events with my contract work, I connect more deeply with the plants and see what else I am called to offer through Spirit Botanica - whilst leaving space to savour motherhood feeling more capable, and just generally taking it slow.
Perhaps a move up the coast to be closer to family and support and nature.
And as I look over photos that I snapped last year, it’s really nice to get misty eyed at all the wonderful moments that happened too, amongst all the shit stuff. And Hugo couldn’t really be thriving anymore if he tried. I’m grateful for that.
Our families, my friends - thank you for every moment you have checked in, helped, supported, fed and held me and us. You’re the reason we got through it all mostly.
And you dear one reading this, thanks for being here.
If you had a hard postpartum, I see you.
If you have your own health struggles, I see you.
If you also find modern parenting in this village-less culture a trip, I certainly see and echo you.
For anyone navigating any challenges on this intense and wonderful path that is life, I see you.
I’m always here, come talk to me about it any time <3
Now, today, I continue to integrate this ongoing experience, and mine it for the lessons and insights it continues to gift me. I’m also so immensely grateful to be feeling better, and hold cautious optimism the future will hold more of it.
Big love from me, onward I go…
C xo