Photography: Nosy Parker
Before I got married, I turned convention on its head a bit and had a wholesome hen’s party with SPCA puppies to cuddle and a guided meditation. So when it came to planning a baby shower, I felt there was space to try something a little left of centre and customise the experience to fit my journey, which, like most fertility journeys, has been both unique and common in many ways.
After a diagnosis of very low AMH [a diminished ovarian reserve] around this time last year, while I was staring down the likelihood of IVF being my only option to conceive, my husband Tom Walsh and I spent five weeks in Los Angeles doing all we could to get my body and mind to a place where I would have the best luck if we were to start treatment.
Healing the body and mind
What that meant was regulating my nervous system, working through some of my fight-or-flight adrenal fatigue and eating better. One of the treatments recommended to us was acupuncture. During our session, we talked to the acupuncturist about treating my womb like a garden, where I was the gardener. I needed to tend to it daily, like a greenhouse, keeping it warm – and then she mentioned the word ‘nourishment’.
The acupuncturist explained that when you boil it down, everything in life – the food you consume, the people you spend time with, your environment, your work and your rest – is either depleting or nourishing you. She challenged me to take inventory of my life as a whole. How much of my life was depleting me and how much of it was nourishing?
Realising the imbalance
The quick answer was about 90% depletion and 10% nourishment. Self-care and nourishing myself in any way weren’t really a priority or something I was intentional about. The acupuncturist set me the task of doing all I could to get to a 50/50 balance.
As a type-A overachiever with an addiction to achievement, I’ve found depletion and burnout are my drug of choice. So while this might not be a big shift for some, for me, a lot of my identity is attached to my worth being directly linked to my achievements.
Resting has always felt lazy to me and met with a lot of negative judgment. That needed to shift. But why the story and what’s the connection to the baby shower?
Putting nourishment into practice
Well, I took the acupuncturist’s advice and, over a few months, I made a real effort to make sure I focused on more nourishing friendships, the content I was consuming, the food I was eating, my use of time and putting all decisions through the ‘Is it depleting or nourishing me?’ filter. I’m not saying that’s the only reason we were able to conceive, but it did play a role and has continued to play a role in my life since.
So when planning my baby shower, I wanted to create an environment and experience with people under this theme of nourishment. Catering to the five senses, which all need nourishing in their own way, the morning kicked off at 6.30am to see the sunrise. Forty-five women who have been pivotal in my journey to motherhood, and have more than nourished me, arrived with pillows and water bottles in hand – and no idea what was coming.
A sensory celebration of nourishment
There was hot coffee, a candlelit entrance, a cleansing ceremony, meditation, flower essences and a sound bath. We ate pancakes and bagels, and drank probiotic sodas, and made guesses on the baby’s sex (most predicted a boy) and birth date. We also enjoyed a special performance from award-winning Kiwi popstar and The Voice Australia contestant Cassie Henderson.
I felt so loved and supported, and I know my baby did too. That love extends far beyond the Sunday morning. It reaches across the ocean to my LA home, my friends there and this amazing Woman’s Day community, who have shared their stories, advice and encouragement.
It was also important to me to highlight the incredible female-owned small businesses on the day that I used and who brought the event to life. There are so many epic women in my corner, and giving back to them as a thank you from myself and baby felt like the best way to celebrate my final countdown to motherhood. It was all about paying forward the nourishment, and trying something new and different in the process.”
