Society portrays motherhood as this glorious, self-less and all-consuming altruistic act. One that sees us raise beautiful children in a beautiful life for a beautiful world.

The truth is that from the moment of conception, it is messy, exhausting, frustrating and fraught with fear. When you find out that there is a human being growing inside of you, you start to fear for them.

When I dreamt of the birth of my first child, I envisioned the moment they would place my babe on my chest, and I would be filled with immense love and an instant bond as everyone present watched on in revenant awe.

The reality was completely different.

His chubby body was placed on my chest with lights blaring, staff bustling and exhaustion crashing over me. That instant bond and immense love I thought I would feel was not there.

What was there, was a fierce protection for my baby mingled with relief that he was safely earthside and a dawning horror that I was now responsible for everything this little being would ever need.

I started motherhood from a place of fear and not love. Fear for my baby and everything the world could possibly throw at us.

I realise now, I started my pregnancy in fear as well and that set the tone for my entire journey into motherhood.

That fear, combined with a not ideal pregnancy and birth, was the perfect storm for postnatal depression and anxiety. On top of that, our breastfeeding journey was nothing I thought it was going to be.

I thought I had this natural and easy breastfeeding thing under my belt. I mean humans have been doing it for generations, so why couldn’t I?

For 8 weeks I battled to breastfeed my beautiful son, who would scream all day, vomit a lot, and only settle when being rocked. I thought there was something wrong with me, that I was not, as I had thought my entire life, destined to be a mother.

I searched for help far and wide, but back in the 2000s, the internet was not what it is today.

I rang multiple IBCLCs (Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant) and never got a call back.

I tried getting into get into my local child health and was given an appointment for 8 weeks time.

By then I had stopped breastfeeding.

I couldn’t find the help or information I needed to continue breastfeeding.

I felt a complete failure as a mother, that by not breastfeeding, I had not provided him with all that he needed.

And that fear grew momentum.

It wasn’t till I fell pregnant with my second baby, that the fear turned into anger.

No mother deserved to have gone through what I went through.

And I could do something about that by becoming the someone that I had needed all along. I became an IBCLC and started my own private practice.

A place I could support other mothers to have the information, strategies, and compassion they needed to make fully informed decisions about their breastfeeding journey.

Over time I started to notice an ongoing issue. That even though I strived to give these mothers and babies all I had never had; an undercurrent of fear ran through their lives. Many had experienced complicated pregnancies, births, breastfeeding and parenting journeys leaving them disempowered and fearful. And I noted a similar pattern in my own life.

Life had thrown me some massive curve balls through the years that I met head on and grew through, but that same undercurrent of fear ran through my life.

It was the final gap, the last puzzle piece that was missing from the picture of my life and work.

Every step of my journey had led me to that moment of realisation. The moment when the Universe said, “She’s ready”. And so, I started a year long journey of learning how to embrace, grow and strengthen my spiritual self-esteem, leadership and intuition.

I had finally found the true path I was destined to follow.

I committed to a very intensive course through the Institute for Intuitive Intelligence with a whole lot of deep diving into the depths of my subconsciousness to uproot my fears. At the end, which is very soon, I get to add Intuitive Intelligence Trainer to my qualifications.

I have grown in a way I never thought was possible! There is no going back and there is no more hiding. Because I know now that my path is one of higher service to the mothers, babies, and families that I work with. A few months ago, I had a vague idea of what that would look like.

In my mind’s eye, I could see the end of my path on the other side of a vast river.

On my side stood my current work, on the other the intuitive intelligence work. I felt like I was building a bridge between the two. An epic task with the other side so far away. I just needed the building block to get there.

To find them I had to go deeper than I had let myself go before.

It took attending the Excellence Collective Retreat in May to find those building blocks. It took having my world lovingly pulled apart by Ricci-Jane Adams and Laura Elkaslassy, for me to find them in the rubble.

I pulled out the pieces that were no longer serving me and put back together the pieces that were. I found parts of myself that I had long forgotten, parts I had packed away in moments of pain, doubt, and disempowerment.

And it was now time to reclaim them.

The result was an epic vision of the very near future, of my work and higher service.

A private practice that offers not only the practical skills and strategies needed to help mothers with breastfeeding and infant feeding issues, but one that offers practices that support mothers to step into their power, to create, nurture and grow their intuition so they can deeply trust in their intuitive bond with their baby.

A vision of immense empowerment and trust.

The result has been a new service that I am creating that is the perfect union between the practical lactation, infant feeding, and early parenting with that of intuitive intelligence.

Every action I take in bringing this vision into reality is viewed through the lens of humility, grace, and power as I strive to live every day from this place of inspired congruent action, integrity, embodiment, and deep faith. I am ready to teach women how to merge the practical skills required for motherhood with their own innate intuition by clearing fears and moving into love.

Imagine what the world will be like when every mother starts motherhood from a place of love, not fear!

It is the ultimate gift I can give these women and their babies.