On episode 36, we have Jo McDonald on from Northern Ireland who is intuitive mama coach. She has three children, 12, 9 and 1 year old. Because of the age gap, people assume her third baby was an accident. She says no, this one has been so longed for. Join us to see how Jo’s time helped her grow the strength and courage to become a mom again at 40.
All of that time strengthen my hope, courage… everything within me to become pregnant…
Jo tried for so long to bring her third child into her family. The miscarriage in 2015 was a struggle for her, but her life was saved with an ectopic under the most surreal circumstances by her surgeon in 2018. She woke up from surgery knowing deep down she needed to help prevent other women from going through what she went through. She knew she needed to find the strength and courage that she would need to bring another child into the world. It took a while for her and her husband to even have the conversation if they were even ready to try again. She wanted to find the strength to get pregnant, but it wasn’t happening. That started her on a path of personal development to help others, but she realized she had healing of her own to do. The surgeon also told her because of ‘her age’ to call him back in six months if she wasn’t pregnant. This was during the height of 2020, so the appointment took longer to schedule than she wanted. When she finally had the appointment, it wasn’t what she expected. Because of her age, the doctor told her IVF was her only other option and she needed to start quickly. She proceeded to go through with testing. It was a shock to her because she didn’t think she was on a fertility journey. She realized she was scared to get pregnant. She looks back at the time it took her to get pregnant as a time to strengthen her hope to become pregnant. She believes the traumas she previously went through helped strengthen her.
I was fitter and healthier in my pregnancy at 40 than I was with my first two.
Her healing journey was a slow process she explains. She was off her feet for some time at the beginning. She tried to eat more nutritious foods. It was mostly mental and spiritual work which took lots of different forms. Before this, she wasn’t a spiritual person or knew much about the mind. She also got help from a fertility coach. She realized the impact her thoughts had on her journey. She could physically feel the pain around her womb during the physical healing sessions. Those started to subside as she worked through her mental journey. She also meditated and journaled. That journaling helped in a few ways; it helped her be grateful for the life that she already had, and it helped her process the trauma. She worked through becoming an older mom and asked herself if she would be ok. Will she be fit enough; will she be healthy enough? Absolutely! It took time to repattern her thoughts.
Jo used an app on her phone to help track when she was ovulating, and she also used the ovulation testing strips. She doesn’t think her diet and lifestyle were what they should be. She went to one of her fertility appointments explaining how she was tracking her cycle. The surgeon told her to stop tracking and she was putting too much pressure on herself. Jo and her husband went on a trip for their 10-year wedding anniversary. It was their first vacation without the kids. The dates were working out with her cycle. She just knew she would get pregnant this trip. She was hopeful and excited! After she was home, she was hospitalized due to an allergic reaction to a bee sting, and it was then she found out she wasn’t pregnant. She said the months continued to come and go. She received so much advice throughout this time, but it was her healing journey that kept the momentum going. She still was a mother to her first two children, and she never wanted it to affect her relationship with her husband.
Jo had just taken a pregnancy test when her cousin came over unannounced. All she could think about was going back upstairs to check on the results even though she was confident it was positive. She was spontaneously pregnant just before her 40th birthday. The moment she found out she was pregnant she promised herself she would hold out hope that her baby would come safely. She would hold on to that positivity and connection. She made her first appointment around the six-week mark. She was back in that same room, with the same surgeon that saved her life. He told her to call him when she was pregnant, so here she was. She panicked a little before the appointment, but she told her husband she would go in with the energy of holding hope. She saw the tiny little dot on the screen and saw that it was in the right spot. She said she’ll never forget that moment. At that moment she was determined to hold out hope for the baby.
She doesn’t feel like she advocated for herself during the miscarriage, and she regrets it. This time she wanted it to be different. She wanted to have the care and attention from her medical team she felt she needed. She was hospitalized at 12 weeks because she had a cyst on her ovary. She was back in the hospital where a lot of fear came up. She wanted to get to the point of feeling ok being in the hospital. She glowed throughout her pregnancy, she said. She describes her pregnancy as gorgeous. She did things during this pregnancy that she hadn’t with her past two. She wanted the photos and really embraced it. She says she had the first trimester issues, but she felt incredible. She meditated every night and always connected with her baby. She says it’s trickier to feel that magic with the baby after a loss, but she felt it throughout her body. She felt amazing. She journaled how she wanted to bring her into the world. It was complete clarity to what she wanted. She wanted proper care, but she really didn’t want it to be invasive. She wanted reassurance that what they were doing was working. She had gestational diabetes. She was able to manage it with diet, though. She was even able to have bread if she paired it with a slice of cheese, for example. She tried to be strict about it, but it wasn’t always easy. She still tested regularly. She ended up on a path where she was checked and scanned quite regularly.
She craved ginger nuts which isn’t something you can find in the USA. In all her pregnancies, she’s had a small appetite. She also craved bread, biscuits and really any carbs. She believes it was because she was quite sick in the beginning. She meditated to try to ease that. She would add fresh ginger and orange slices to a fresh bottle of water.
She found the medical speak the most challenging even though she feels stronger in her 40’s than she did in her 20’ and 30’s. The medical speak can be insensitive. There was one appointment that brought her to tears because someone was asking about the testing she wanted. She did not feel aligned with that conversation at all. Her baby has been wanted for so long, she didn’t want the tests performed. It was challenging to stay positive through those times. Not everyone around her was able to hold the same positivity. Her husband, her mother, and sister were more apprehensive about it. They worried about Jo throughout the pregnancy because of her history. She couldn’t let their anxiety and fears pull her down, too. She didn’t realize until afterwards just how worried they were for her.
She intuitively knew she was having a girl. She always thought ‘she’ when she meditated. She imagined her baby with blond hair. She felt so strongly about it. She said everyone around her thought she was silly. She even had her name picked out, but she wanted confirmation. The genders were both a surprise until birth with her first two pregnancies. She had the older children’s baby clothes in the attic, so she wanted to know this time. She didn’t know the gender of the losses, so this was important to her to know. She had her 20-week scan which confirmed they were having a girl. Even later on in the pregnancy, she wanted to confirm again she was having a girl. She said it was surreal knowing the gender and thought it might have been a fluke. She always felt during meditation she had a little girl coming to her and she was right.
Age is just a number, and my body can do amazing things.
Since it had been almost ten years since she had a baby, there weren’t many of the same products she could use. Jo says the Doona Stroller, that is a car seat and stroller combo was a game changer. She saw it at one of her appointments and knew she had to have it. When she was a first-time mom, she bought all the things she thought she needed. She felt a little more seasoned this time, so she didn’t need as much as she thought the first time. They planned a family trip to buy the baby’s first outfits. They consider themselves a Disney family, so they decided to shop at the Disney story which helped her two older kids get in on the excitement. She wanted to give them the memories of buying their new sister her first outfits. The two old children knew she had a loss before, so that was a conversation to navigate to make them feel comfortable that everything was going to work out this time.
She had a planned c-section with her second child. She wrote about the birth and life afterwards that she wanted. While she was given a choice this time if she wanted a c-section, her and her husband decided together she would have a scheduled c-section this time. Part of her would have loved to have another natural delivery, but a c-section felt right. It was about security and control. She felt safer with the decision. She wanted to have the surgeon be the one to deliver her baby too. She journaled about the day he would bring her baby into the world. She described what the energy would be like and the looks between each of them would be. She said it worked out perfectly.
She didn’t breastfeed her first two children and she had a feeling she really wanted to this time around. She wanted to prepare her body and mind for that knowing it was going to be a very different experience. She had conversations with her husband about it because it was a different bond. She was really happy she did because when she went into the birth, she was able to very clearly articulate exactly what she wanted. Before the c-section the midwife was able go over a few things with her about breastfeeding.
I absolutely felt fabulous when I was pregnant over 40. I didn’t in those younger days.
She says it was the most magical birth, and yes it was also surgical. At 38 weeks, she arrived late to her scheduled c-section. Most people that know her say she’s late, but she didn’t plan to be late this time. She was told to be there at 8:30 am. When she arrived, the midwife, also named Jo was slightly flustered to get the paperwork completed. The midwife had a Disney character on her lanyard around her neck and wore unmatched Harry Potter socks. Jo had a great feeling about this! Her surgeon laughed at her when he came in while she was filling out the paperwork. She was rocking this c-section! She had a tan, curls, and makeup which might have been why they were late. This was the moment she had been waiting eight years for and she wanted to do it in style. She was going to be the first c-section of the day which started in 15 minutes. She thought she’d have more time to at least meditate before it. The midwife told her she had 9 months to meditate, and the time is now! Her baby was already named and there were two other nurses there with the same name. While she was waiting for the spinal tap, she started to wobble. The anxiety was starting to come on. She told the midwife she meant to bring music, so the midwife asked what she wanted. Jo asked for Sitting on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding. She wanted soulful and chill. Then everyone in the room introduced who they were and what their role was. She said it was perfect beautiful energy. She was able to calm herself down before it began. She imagined putting her and her baby in a rainbow bubble of safety. Outside the door her husband had tears in his eyes when he heard My Girl by the Temptations playing in the room. Her husband entered just before they were about to deliver the baby. Unbeknownst to her husband, Jo wanted the separation removed so she could see her baby. One of the nurses recorded the delivery from her husband’s phone. Jo had written in her journal for four years that the surgeon was going to be the one to deliver her baby, and now she was watching it happen. She said it was such a beautiful experience. They got her baby cleaned up and was able to put her daughter on her chest. Then the midwife helped her breastfeed.
This was her second c-section and she believes she recovered much quicker than the previous. She wasn’t able to walk for the next few hours. Her first c-section she felt isolated and scared to ask for help. Since her husband wasn’t allowed in the room because of the hospital restrictions, she was prepared to ask for help if she needed it. She had no other option this time. The first four days were hard, but she was able to look back and see the progress she had made. When she got home from the hospital, the rest of her recovery was manageable.
Her first birth was traumatic, and she’s had postpartum depression before. This time mentally, she did the things that were going to help her. She needed to do meditation. Sometimes it was just asking for help, other times it was putting up boundaries. She also found a network of other supportive mothers with babies about the same age. Having a nonjudgement support system was one of the best things she did this time around. She also listened to her body. There were times when her daughter was contact napping and she was journaling with the free hand.
You can’t let other people judge you for what feels right to you.
This was her first time breastfeeding. It wasn’t a big thing in her family. She said it’s very different, but she loves it. This time, she was determined she wanted to do this. She believes part of her journey was becoming strong in what she wanted. The first few days were tricky while she waited for her milk to come in. It was a learning curve. She’s never had so many people look at her breast before to help get the right latch. She feels really lucky to get a lot of support at the beginning, so she didn’t give up. She still had challenging nursing days. She struggled with taking away the bond her husband had with their daughter. She felt like she had to hand the baby to him whenever he walked into the room. She had to get used to being ok if her daughter wanted to cluster feed all night long. When she was 10 days old, her and her husband discussed that the baby needs her and that’s ok. It was at that point that she felt better with the circumstances. Her daughter was 17 months during the recording of the show, and she’s still successfully breastfeeding.
Resources:
Over 40 Fabulous and Pregnant on Instagram
Jo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intuitivemamacoach
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