Hello Reader,

Last week, I told you that I wasn’t prepared to be pregnant when I found out this past April.

But after sending that email, I realized that wasn’t completely true.

To be completely honest, the pregnancy wasn’t an "accident" or a complete surprise. My then-boyfriend, now-husband, and I had started trying earlier this year. So, we both knew becoming pregnant was a real possibility.

What neither of us expected was how quickly it would happen.

We had been talking about having a child for almost as long as we had been together.

When we first met four years ago, I wasn’t completely certain whether I wanted kids. I thought I probably did. But he already had a daughter and knew that he wanted more children.

Over the years together, we returned to that conversation several times. It wasn’t a decision we made overnight.

But at the end of last year, the conversation became more serious.

I had turned 35. He was approaching 50. We both knew that if this was something we truly wanted, we couldn’t keep treating it like a decision for some undefined point in the future.

We also both assumed it would take time, like more than a few months (or even over a year).

You see, back when I was around 16 or 17, I was diagnosed with PCOS, and for years, my doctors always told me that I might have some difficulty becoming pregnant because of my irregular periods and hormonal issues.

In 2020, I went more than an entire year without getting my period. My hormones were extremely imbalanced, and my testosterone levels were far higher than they should have been.

So, when we started trying around February, I truly didn’t expect anything to happen immediately. Our approach was more like: Let’s start trying and see what happens. I thought it might take the rest of the year. Maybe even longer.

I even bought ovulation test strips a couple of weeks before finding out I was pregnant because my gynecologist recommended I should test when my ovulation happened to best predict when I was the most 'fertile' (fun fact: women with PCOS ovulate less frequently).

We hadn’t figured out every detail because we both assumed we had more time to do that.

At the beginning of the year, I even posted a joking Reel about choosing between getting into the best shape of my life or getting pregnant this year.

It was a joke.

But it also wasn’t completely a joke, because I knew we were about to start trying.

Then, only a couple of months later, this past April, I got the positive test.

The possibility wasn’t surprising.

The speed was.

From the outside, it might have looked like I became pregnant, got married, and my entire life changed within a few months.

But I don’t think those changes truly began this spring.

The pregnancy may have officially begun this year, but the possibility for it had been forming much longer.

It began in the conversations we had throughout our relationship.

It began when we stopped treating having a child as a vague “someday” idea and instead became willing to take the first real step, even when we didn't have every detail figured out yet.

And in another way, it began years earlier through the changes I was making to take better care of myself and improve my hormonal health.

Over the past four or five years, I became much more active. I started strength training (which I didn't know before, but it's actually a vital part of hormone regulation). I paid more attention to my blood sugar and started supplementing with inositol and berberine pretty consistently. And I made daily food choices intended to support my health and hormones.

I didn’t make all of those changes thinking they would eventually become part of this story or that they would lead to a pregnancy.

Disclaimer: I say this carefully because I know fertility is a complicated topic. Healthy habits don’t guarantee pregnancy, and I’m not suggesting that anyone struggling to conceive simply hasn’t done the 'right' things.

But looking back, I can now see how the changes I made daily, for years, may have helped create more supportive conditions for something I once believed would be extremely difficult for me.

And maybe, that's just what "manifestation" truly means

I sometimes think to myself that I manifested this pregnancy.

Not because I wished for it and it magically happened.

Not because I had certainty or complete control over the outcome.

But because maybe, just maybe, that’s what manifestation truly means (or at the very least, it's what it means to me).

• It's not simply wishing for something and waiting for it to appear.
• It's not having certainty or complete control over the outcome.

But instead,

• It's making the small, consistent choices that increase the possibility of something happening, oftentimes long before we see any proof that those choices are working.

We tend to place the beginning of a change at the exact moment it becomes visible.

• The day we get the job.
• The day we launch the business.
• The day we move cities.
• The day we meet someone.
• The day we cross the finish line.
• The day we see the positive test.

But the beginning often happened much earlier.

• It started with the first conversation.
• The first time we had the idea.
• The first workout or training run.
• The first boundary we set.
• The first application we sent.
• The first time we admitted to ourselves that we wanted something different.

Small choices don’t guarantee the outcome we want. There is uncertainty in all of it.

But when we make those choices consistently, again and again, over time, they can change what becomes possible in our lives. They change the probabilities. They make a result more possible than it was before.

That’s the question I’ve been thinking about lately:

So, here’s the question I want you to think about this week:

Think about one change or outcome (small or big) that you want to make happen in your life. Now, ask yourself:

Maybe it’s having a conversation you’ve been avoiding.

Sending the application.

Taking the first class.

Going for the walk.

Hitting 'publish' and shipping it.

Writing the first page.

Making the invitation.

Not because it guarantees the outcome you want. And not because you know exactly where that action will lead.... But simply because it increases the possibility for something to exist.

​Hit reply and tell me here. What are you making more possible right now, even if you can’t see the result yet? I’d genuinely love to know what you may already be preparing for without giving yourself enough credit (because if you're anything like me, you're probably doing this too).

P.S. Sometimes the moment that changes everything only looks sudden because no one else saw all the smaller moments that came before it.

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