This Is Not an Ending, It’s a Becoming - Part 1

The final stretch before birth feels like standing in a calm doorway while a storm gathers far out at sea—quiet, charged, and strangely sweet. I share where my body is at, why I’m unexpectedly in love with this belly, and how a simple ritual of raspberry tea and a protein-rich muffin sets a grounded tone for the day. Your questions guided the flow, turning a solo recording into a warm circle, and that sense of company matters when every kick, cramp, and mood swing starts to speak in a louder voice.

We get into the plan for a home water birth and the cues that make a space feel safe: dim light, familiar scent, warm water. My partner surprised me with a trail of salt candles leading to the bathroom, transforming it into a soft, glowing sanctuary. I talk through the five-week due window, the midwife now on call, and the humility of knowing that timing can change the setting—while the deeper practice remains the same. If the path shifts, I’ll carry the ritual with me: breath, softness, presence.

The heart of this conversation is mindfulness. Years of yoga supported me less through elaborate poses and more through attention, patience, and the space between feeling and reaction. We share takeaways from an MBSR-inspired prenatal course—pausing when triggered, widening awareness during a surge, and meditating together as a couple to build shared steadiness. These simple tools help separate sensation from story, turning hormone storms into weather I can watch and ride. As we wrap the season and tease a part two, you’ll hear a real-time portrait of late pregnancy: tender, practical, occasionally funny, and deeply human.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Season Close And Baby Break
• 1:04 Tea, Muffins, And Ground Rules
• 2:34 Community Questions And Gratitude
• 2:56 How Am I Feeling Now
• 5:00 Spa Rest And Quiet Contentment
• 7:10 Due Window And Midwife On Call
• 8:04 Hopes For A Home Water Birth
• 9:20 The Salt-Candle Birth Plan
• 11:21 Yoga’s Real Support: Mindfulness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Salty Big Club. You people, this is the last episode of this season. It's been such a crazy year. I am so grateful that we have been talking, listening, exploring, and evolving over this past year together. Now, after this episode, I'm gonna craddle in and dissolve into my little baby break. And I'm super excited that you were down to create this last episode with me. I asked you questions on Instagram and I'm gonna pop them out here. And I'm super excited to talk pregnancy for the last little stretch that I will be pregnant. So while I'm having my raspberry leaf tea, which apparently is so good for your body if you want to prepare for labor, and my very, very unexcited pregnancy muffin. Lean back, have a cup of tea, and let's get into it. Now, my loves, in these muffins that I munched together, there's all the good things. It's a little bit like motherhood itself. There's literally no BS. Not a single thing that is in there is not good for you. It's with buckwheat flour and almond flour, it's protein rich, there's no refined sugar, and there's heaps of dates to soften my ceremonys. But yeah, for all the ones that need a really, really deeply rich and sweet treat, you better go to, I don't know, Sally's Becking Addiction and get a little sugar shock. Now I want to start off with thanking you for sending in questions. Having this to be a conversation is so much more exciting for me and I believe for you, because it's ultimately the way that I can put you into this room, into this discussion with me. And that's the goal for Soul Two Bay Club. Obviously, I'm sitting here alone, but I want to create conversation. And this is a big thank you for being my own part and doing it with me. So let's pull them out. First question popping on here. How are you? How am I? I'm over nine months pregnant. I am feeling a lot. Despite the fact that I literally struggle to roll my round body out of bed in the morning, I mean that in a very physical way, that my eyelids hurt in a way that I have never experienced before. And that weird little feeling when a tiny fist hits your pelvic floor or your bladder. I am doing extraordinary. And yes, I know that all sounds not so well. But honestly, I'm doing so good. And I relish in the last days of being pregnant. I genuinely love it with all my heart. I will be a little sad that this belly is gonna be gone. I love this belly so much. The past month of being pregnant has been really, really beautiful. Even though I was sick as f. I have had such bright days in the past two weeks or so. Right after being sick, I went to a spa for three days with my beloved. And it was all the intimacy and cozy time and sauna that I needed. I didn't know that I needed that so, so badly until I was there and until my body was able to really fully dissolve into that resting state. So that's been a big gift. And ever since I've been feeling really nurtured. Of course, there's ups and downs, but I can genuinely say I am very content in a quiet and loving way. And on the other hand, I am so, so excited for everything that's coming, for birth, for that new chapter that is ahead of me. And just yesterday I got a text from my midwife where she welcomed me in that stretch of time where now she is on we call it Hofbereitschaft. It's that time period where I can reach her day and night, because the birth could start anytime. Can you believe that? And even though I hope you're all getting really hyped with me, that time period stretches over five weeks. So within these five weeks, the little boy could come anytime. Once again, how am I? Sweetly content and extremely excited. That already goes a little bit into the next question. I love this one. I would love to sit down with y'all and talk about everything. But my thoughts, my feelings, my worries. Well, there's not a lot of worries. The only worry that I can talk about is that eventually he will take much, much longer to exit my womb. And if he's not willing to come in the span of those five weeks, that means I could not have a home birth, which I'm planning, which leads to the next question. Oh my god, this is going quick. No, but I will take my time with one question that so many of you have requested. I got the question, how and where I'm planning to give birth. And some of you know that me and my partner, Kree, we renovated this house almost a year ago. And ever since, we both found such a deep feeling of home and belonging. And this very first place in my grown-up life that I genuinely call home. And it would be one of my greatest blessings to be able to give birth right here. My ideal version, if the little boy decides to come within the span of the next five weeks, I will have a home birth. And we even have a birthing pool. Blessed be the 21st century. I'm such a water person. I think water is where I feel the most comfortable. I just love the idea that I have a really high and wide top. Luckily, we have a really spacious bathroom. And oh my god. Oh wait, okay, no, I gotta get a little deeper into this. I got the coolest Christmas present that is just the sprinkle on top of having the birthing pool. So ideally, I'm gonna give birth in a bathroom, in that birthing pool, surrounded by nothing but salt films. I'm gonna have my own salt and water temple. And I'm not saying I'm gonna be surrounded by one or two salt films. No, no, no, no, no, my darling. Okay. A part of Chris's Christmas present for me was that he responded to a very specific moment I had in pregnancy. Scrolling back a couple of months, I was laying in bed pretty annoyed because I'm so light sensitive. And within that little bit of annoyance or even exhaustion, I wish that for the birth there could be no light except false light light. We've never talked about it ever since. When we came home after the Christmas holiday, he said, There's my last present waiting for me. The entire house was lit by no light except for a trail of soul physics that led into a bathroom. And within that bathroom there were even more soul flames, and now we have, I don't know, 11 soul phlegms, like big ones, small ones. And they are, it's just it's so beautiful. So I'm gonna have my own fairy taly world in the water by the soul philosophs. And this, everybody, is how I absolutely romanticize birth. Now on to the next question. How did yoga support you throughout pregnancy? I really, really want to put emphasis on that the most support I got from yoga was not the practice I did while I was pregnant. The most support that I had from yoga, the philosophy, the asana, the mindfulness practices was the deeply grounded bits. I also love that this question emphasizes, and I don't mean asana. We all know that we need our body, and it's so important to train our body and experience this world through our bodies, but we are so much more than that. And really the mindfulness tools of yoga and the ones that I integrated deeply into my being, those were the ones that hit the spot. Those are the ones that allowed me to deal with pregnancy and its effects, which are numerous and in such a big array of really comfortable and really uncomfortable. I also feel super lucky that I was in a mindfulness prenatal course. We went not to a standard prenatal course where they only give you the information that you need for birth. It was all based on MBSR, mindfulness-based stress reduction. It's that system that is wildly successful all over the world. And there was a woman who merged that system into mindfulness-based childbirth. The prenatal that we did was based upon that. And what we learned is simple tools like how to not right away react onto triggers, how to deeply incorporate mindfulness practices into tiny bits of your daily life. We also learned how to meditate together, which was such a beautiful experience because we haven't done that as a couple. And it was really these basic mindfulness tools that are obviously deeply rooted in the yoga practice as well, that supported me through moments of unease in my body, of moments where I had a hormone flush. And even though I was still reacting to that hormone flush, I was able to lean back just wide enough so that I didn't attach to my own behavior. Even though I was crying or I was sad or I was mad, I could see myself having this reaction and I wasn't fully in the reaction. So these mindfulness-based tools that obviously are linked to your breathing, to your awareness, to, and I wrote it down to meditation. Seriously, that's the best thing that ever happened to my life. These tools have given me the width and the inner strength to cope with so many situations. And it's a beautiful awareness for me as well, because I know that these difficult situations or these new situations will come in a flood once I have this baby. Being able to rely on those simple, integrated mindfulness tools is such a relief. Bless the past 10, 15 years. Okay, my loves. We're gonna wrap it up here because I just noticed that this episode is gonna split into. You will be able to listen to the second part of it next week. And who knows, maybe next week I'm already gonna have a baby. Though very likely I'm just gonna roll around on the couch and watch the next season of Bridgeton. I'm gonna see you next week. Do not forget to subscribe or share this podcast. And until then, thank you. I love you.