Jessica on Fibroids, Loss, and Finding Joy Again

Meet Jessica

I am a corporate marketer turned social marketer, online entrepreneur podcast host and sustainability advocate.

I'm passionate about supporting people in transforming their daily actions to be on purpose and love their life!

Career, business, relationships, health, love all of it! She is a master networker and connector helping pair people with others and opportunities.

My love for travel landed me a Pilot husband which fueled her desire to ditch the cubicle life for a carry-on bag, laptop and good wifi!

When i'm home you can find me in the kitchen churning up a batch of homemade gourmet ice cream and being the best plant mom I can be!

Can you share what it felt like to deeply want children but have your body say no?

At first it felt like it was just another hurdle on our path. Slowing us down to get to our happy life together.

Long distance relationship, delay with immigration, my husband not able to find a job. Nothing was simple for us, everything took longer and with more effort. I thought it was just more of the same.

Until IVF didn’t work. That’s when I knew this was not just a hurdle on the path. It was falling off the side of a cliff.

Grieving the loss of something you once had, I understood. Grieving for something you never hand, that broke me.

You mentioned you wish younger women knew they had options - in the society we are raised in women are conditioned to believe they are only of value if they become a mother - can you expand on the insight of your aha moments and wisdom that came through this experience?

It wasn’t until much later when I was doing my inner healing that I started to unpack my childhood.

And going back to when I had my first memory thinking about being a mother. My sister had declared from very young that she wasn’t getting married and didn’t want kids. She told me, that’s all you.

So I suppose that was the first seed that was planted that I was expected to get married and have kids. I didn’t fight it. I did want to get married and have kids, why wouldn’t I.

I had an amazing childhood, wonderful parents and a big extended family.

How did fibroids and surgery shape your relationship with your body and your sense of worth?

Learning about my fibroids was like a punch in the gut or a slap in the face.

I felt foolish for not knowing that this THING was growing inside of me and not having a clue about it. I didn’t have symptoms but still thought I should have known.

How could I have gotten to my 30’s with such little awareness of my own body. How did I not know there was something the size of a grapefruit growing inside of me.

I knew my mother and aunts had had them, but didn’t know what they really were or how someone got them, or that women of colour were more likely to have them.

After having mine removed, I felt lighter, physically and emotionally.

At the time, they represented the cause of my infertility and once removed, nothing was in the way anymore.

But when I still didn’t get pregnant after it was gone, I hated my body even more.

What do you love most about your “rich aunty” role today?

I learned the hard way. Lost relationships and burned bridges.

I love that I get to be there for the kids in my life in a fun way. Treat them to things and let them know they have someone else they can rely on.

I love that I am not obligated to care for any of them but LOVE that I get to. I choose to care about these little people and help mold them into their future selves.

I have some wonderful aunts without kids in my life. They have been instrumental in who I have become and were the role models I didn’t know I needed.

I’m grateful for them, and looking back I think it’s interesting that they were there the whole time, right in front of me, successful, happy women without children.

Even though I didn’t continuously choose their lifestyle, because of them, I knew that I would still have a great life being Childfree.

You’ve learned how to hold space for others without resentment—how did you get there?

I learned the hard way. Lost relationships and burned bridges.

I had to do a lot of inner work on myself and learn how to survive in a world that would constantly be filled with pregnancy announcements, baby showers and newborns.

I decided that I didn’t want to be the person who couldn’t be happy for my friends. I wanted to be the person who was overjoyed by babies and all the love they bring.

I knew that if I didn’t find a way to be happy with other people's joy and turn my back so I couldn’t see their happiness, I would end up isolated and alone.