Welcome to Motherhood, Population: +Me

Alas, I have birthed a human being.

Yes, you read that correctly; I have been keeping it under wraps for a few reasons (which I will go into shortly), but I’ve been growing a little spirit for nine months and, at the time of posting this blog entry, have given birth to him. 

It is a him. Raphaël Ugo Amendola Alzraa, born the 15th of August 2022. My angel, my light, my little love, my lion.

If you’ve known me for years, you will remember that children were never a part of my life plan. To say that I was frightened was an absolute understatement. The fear permeated every ounce of my being. Prior to Raphaël, I had genuinely only held one baby – and for no more than three minutes in a panic. 

But, having met Jordan, I told him within the first week that, yes, I do desire to raise a family with him and watch him be a father. I just asked that he give me some time to get comfortable with the idea.

Being the spiritual person that I am, I dove deep into my shadows to try and address this fear. I ended up discovering through numerous past life regression experiences that my fear of being a mother, having a child, and child-birth were related to a multitude of horrendous past-life traumas related to motherhood. They were exceptionally private experiences so I won’t be sharing them in depth, but, with no exaggeration, with each memory that arose and which I was able to let go of, release, or apologize for, I literally felt the weight of my fear lifting. One day, I had a really intense experience with asking for forgiveness to a past-life son of mine, and I literally saw Archangel Michael lift his spirit out of me and felt a complete release of our energetic ties and a deep forgiveness from this spirit. 

I was no longer afraid of being a mother or childbirth after that last memory. Truly, it all vanished and I recall waking up from the experience in tears and saying to Jordan, “I am ready now.”

That being said, this baby was in no way planned. But quite literally two weeks after my “I am ready” comment and my complete release of fear, I began having numerous dreams about holding a baby in my arms. One night, I had dream after dream about taking a pregnancy test and seeing positive. So when I woke up that morning, I took one and was ecstatic to see “pregnant”. I burst into tears of joy and my motherhood journey began there. I was thrilled.

My pregnancy was an absolute joy. Other than fatigue in the first trimester and the very last month of pregnancy (paired with heatwaves that nearly killed me), I had no symptoms at all! This child went very easy on me, and I feel blessed for that. And throughout the experience, the entire lack of fear about pregnancy, labor, and motherhood followed me until the end of the journey. I went through it all with a mentality of, “I’m just going to wing it,” and that worked well for me.

In fact, I absolutely loved the entire process. I loved being pregnant. While I was exceptionally excited to meet my boy, it was such a joyful process to have him to myself for nine months and to watch him grow and move and dance within me. It really triggered an enormous Kundalini Awakening in me, and my spiritual gifts have become heightened as a result, my creativity is constantly surging, and my connection to Spirit and the Divine is beyond amplified. This child’s existence within me, of having chosen me, also brought with it a true connection to God. I am so grateful.

Pregnancy was also a joy because motherhood is so valued in France. Even my own mom noticed, when she came to visit me at the end of my pregnancy, that all men and women comment positively about your pregnancy and ask you questions about the child, where you plan to give birth, how you feel, how beautiful you look, etc.. My mom said it would never be like that in Canada and that it was beautiful to see how much the French respect pregnant women.

It also helped that I had the most loving, patient, and helpful husband alongside me. He was thrilled and focused on his fatherly duties from the moment I discovered I was pregnant. He took the lead on so much around the house and consistently checked in on me. He helped me when I was no longer able to put on socks or take off shoes, and he kissed my belly morning and night, telling me I was beautiful in the process. He is a literal angel on earth.

I kept the entire process as private as I could because it felt so personal and so sacred. It almost felt, to me, like a spiritual service or journey. I have learned over the years about how ego should be eliminated from these experiences and how much stronger they grow and develop when they are done on your own, privately. I didn’t need validation through posting my monthly growth on social media or hosting a gender reveal. This gift was between my husband and me – and our closest friends and family – and it made the entire process all the more special and sacred. I will continue to keep my son within that sacred space I’ve created for him.

Raphaël was very gentle on me, as well. I was pretty much all bump except for a few swollen calves days in the last month. I really love the cautious, loving, and united attention given to pregnant women, and I can’t complain about the compliments either – many people told me I held pregnancy beautifully, and that my bump was gorgeous. As soon as my bump emerged, I was eager to highlight it – to highlight him. I was so proud of this Spirit who chose me to be his mama. I told Jordan as I was experiencing this easy and beautiful pregnancy that I wanted to do this again, a million times over! I went from fearful a year ago to completely adoring pregnany.

Giving birth took a direction I didn’t expect – after 24 hours of slow water breaking, the hospital worked towards inducing me. I was just eager to leave the hospital with a baby in my arms, I didn’t care about anything else, really. But labour was 10 horrific hours until until the doctor decided that I needed a Cesarean. It was, thankfully, stress free and painless.

Raphaël is “le bébé plus sage de la terre” according to Jordan… We are blessed.

And now I’m so proud to be a boy mom. I was hoping for a little boy, and I was looking forward to giving him his Archangel name. And he also carries my father’s name as his middle name – his first grandchild, a middle name chosen by my husband Jordan. I hope I am able to raise him into being a compassionate, passionate, creative, curious, and wise little human. 

While I hope motherhood will be as easy and joyful as the pregnancy was, I am aware that there will be hard days and I am truly grateful, in advance, for the lessons this Spirit will teach me. And through it all, I cannot wait to see the amazing father that Jordan will be.

Now – a flood of bump photos since I never posted them, before! But none of that sexy boudoir maternity shoot stuff; always found it catered to a weird demographic of fetish and never felt my future child would look at it and think, “wow, mom, beautiful” — haha… I felt like a goddess throughout my pregnancy, but there was no need to take sexy maternity photos to mark that.

20 weeks, Cannes

24 weeks – loved this dress for my pregnancy!


30 weeks, 97th percentile-sized kid, haha


35 weeks – same dress, bigger bump!

40w2d ! Great mood, dropped belly, wanting baby! He came two days later.