5 Lessons I Didn't Expect from Pregnancy

1. Just because it's "protocol" doesn't mean it's right for you.

2. Find your voice. Advocate for yourself. It will change everything about your experience.

3. Support isn't a luxury. Find your tribe (or your doula).

4. You may be a "high functioning woman" and (yet) your body may be under strain. Allow yourself to pause. To rest. To Nothing.

5. Things will probably not go to plan. And there can still be strength, clarity, and power in how you move through it.

I thought I could manage it all.

My pregnancy, like many things in my life at the time, became something I tried to hold together… efficiently. Control was my middle name.

One thing that didn’t sit right with me early on was the lack of continuity of care in the UK. I didn’t feel fully seen, or held, in the system.

So I made what turned out to be one of the most important decisions of my pregnancy - I hired a doula.

That support changed everything.

Both practically and emotionally.

Alongside that, I kept coming back to prenatal yoga. It helped me feel connected to myself when everything else felt … like a whirlwind.

I was working full time as a lawyer.

Buying a house.

Completing my yoga teacher training.

Becoming a certified mediator.

I was stretched. But inspired to get it all done before baby comes.

And then, at a routine appointment, everything shifted.

High blood pressure.

Pre-eclampsia.

I remember the fear. The uncertainty.

The sense that things were suddenly out of my control.

I had to start maternity leave early. Then came hospitalisation.

At one point, I was told my baby would need to be delivered two weeks earlier, based on protocol.

And I remember sitting with that … knowing something didn’t quite feel aligned.

So I asked questions.

I slowed things down.

I advocated for us - even when it felt uncomfortable.

Because despite the diagnosis, both my baby and I were stable.

And that gave us two more weeks.

Two more weeks of being together.

Of softening into what was coming. Of radical acceptance.

My baby arrived at 37 weeks - after an induction that didn’t progress, followed by a c-section.

Not the birth I had imagined.

But a moment that asked me to trust in a completely different way and then .. to accept and to let go.

That experience stayed with me.

It’s part of why I care so deeply about how women are supported during pregnancy and postpartum.