Baby Photos, the Birth, A Sad Story, and a Happy Ending

On April 4th, 2025, at 9:16 am, Orson (Ozzie) Elton Peters Beal was born by C-section.

Content warning: this post discusses pregnancy loss.

Ozzie was my seventh pregnancy. Seventh! All were wanted, five were lost. I had a miscarriage before Grant, who is now four, and despite all my anxieties, he came out just fine, full term. But after his birth, I found out I had placenta accreta, a very rare complication where the placenta sticks too deeply inside the uterus and won’t come out. Due to this, I lost so much blood I almost needed a transfusion, and had a very slow and difficult recovery.

Despite feeling like I was still healing, everyone—my doctors and naturopath—recommended I start trying again after a year because of my advanced age (36 when Grant was born!). So tried we did, and I lost two pregnancies in a row. One of them happened the same week I had to put down my beloved dog Finnegan, whom some of you might remember from the old days at the yoga studio. We started fertility treatment and found a polyp that was removed, but I lost another pregnancy after that. We gave up for a while—the heartbreak was too much. But I couldn’t let go of the desire for another child—and for a sibling for my son.

So we went back to fertility treatment, found and removed another polyp. Did every test available to us, and everything came back clear—no one could figure out why I couldn’t sustain these pregnancies. I did acupuncture, took a million supplements, adjusted my diet, prayed, meditated, drank flower essences, consulted psychic mediums, and went back to therapy.

We got pregnant again over the holidays last year, and I found myself awkwardly avoiding having a New Year’s Eve drink with my parents—at the time, my dad was in spinal rehab after breaking his back falling off his bike (he’s doing much better now). We lost this baby too, a few weeks into January. We did some couples therapy. I did some work on intergenerational trauma, especially around lost children, in my family system. I read Making Babies and It Starts with the Egg and did a brief microbiome protocol. I negotiated with myself around what I was willing to give up and what I wasn’t, and made peace with the possibility that this might simply not ever happen. In August, I found out I was pregnant again.

I was still pregnant on my birthday, in September. Still pregnant over the holidays. Ultrasounds showed a happy, healthy baby with some mild complications, including a late diagnosis of gestational diabetes. That was a bit of a headache to deal with (and a whole other story for another time), but hey, the baby was still alive in there!

So, at 38 weeks, it was time to induce. Despite my attempts to get my body ready with acupuncture and induction massage, the baby was not in the right place to deliver. He was facing the wrong way, and with too much fluid in my uterus due to the gestational diabetes, he was floating above my pubic bone instead of entering the birth canal. For two days, we flowed between intensely painful interventions and extremely effective pain medications, an ebb and flow between feeling awful and feeling artificially great. When they finally offered a C-section, I was ready to get this baby out.

C-sections are freaky, but man, are they fast, and again, the drugs were good and the drugs were working! I almost fell asleep on the operating table while my pale husband vibrated with anxiety beside me. My two birth experiences were so different, but I will say I am a fan of morphine and epidurals at this point in my life (and grateful to not ever have to go through any of that again, thank you very much).

As I write this, Ozzie is sleeping next to me and Grant is happily watching his shows at my feet. I can’t believe how much Ozzie looks like Grant when he was a newborn. Grant is thrilled with his little brother, and calls him “my baby” and “Rosie” instead of Ozzie. He’s also decided a good nickname for the baby is Wet Stump—impeccable four-year-old logic. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be here with two children, a family of four, something we’ve been working so hard towards for so long.

This is Grant at a few weeks old…

And here’s newborn Ozzie. I haven’t changed!

I learned so much about myself, grief, loss, and resilience through this whole experience. Writing two books about divine feminine archetypes during this time has been an incredible gift—so many of these goddess’ stories are stories of love and loss, death and rebirth, going to the Underworld and finding your way back. I know there’s a whole new suite of things to learn now as a family of four, and I am tired, but I am here for it.