The Most Hopeful Thing I’ve Ever Done

Okay, deep breath… I’m going to be an Ibu! 🤯

Even as I write this, it still feels surreal. And it’s changing me in ways I never saw coming.

This season of life has been… full.
Full of beauty I couldn’t have imagined. Full of surrender I didn’t know I was ready for.

Some days, I feel deeply connected to something bigger. Like I’m part of a larger story that’s been unfolding long before me.

And other days? I forgot what I was saying halfway through a team meeting and cry over a blank page because my mind was so foggy.

Before this, I moved fast. Always building, always doing, always holding things together. If there’s anything I am expert at, it’s how to keep busy and to find ways to do more (I blame it on my nerd heart).

Now I’m learning to live in the in-between. To slow down. To listen to the version of myself who isn’t performing or producing—just being. And to believe that she, too, is enough.

That, I think, has been one of the hardest and most beautiful parts.

Because the truth is, I never pictured myself becoming a mother.

Not because I didn’t want to… But because I didn’t know how to hold that dream alongside everything I know about the world. The injustice. The crisis. The Doom.

How do you bring a child into all that?

A little SukkhaCitta Family: Ana made this little bunny from our offcuts! Even the fillings are made of our regenerative cotton ;)

I didn’t have answers. I still don’t. But when I found out I was pregnant with a daughter, something shifted. Like light creeping into a room I had kept closed for a long, long time.

In the months that followed, I kept traveling. Juggling between keeping the mission alive, campaigning around the world, and sitting with Ibus in their villages.

And when I shared the news with them, we cried together. Tears of joy, accompanied by deep hugs that required no words. And somewhere in those moments, something clicked.

Maybe bringing a child into this world isn’t reckless. Maybe… It's the most hopeful thing I’ve ever done.

The Ibus carved these Javanese mythical figures of the God Kamajaya dan Goddess Kamaratih as a symbol of their prayers for our little one. Afterwards, the coconuts are opened for me to wash my hair and let the prayers in.

This little life growing inside me is already teaching me so much. That we don’t need certainty to build something new. That love—real, imperfect love—is a powerful starting place.

And that sometimes, hope grows best in the cracks.

Becoming a mother didn’t just change my body or my daily routine. It changed my vision. Suddenly, every system I used to analyze from a distance now feels intimate. Every policy, every injustice, every gap, it all became personal.

Because I’m not just building a social enterprise anymore. I’m building the world my daughter will grow up in.

And when I picture her stepping into systems that weren’t designed with her in mind, this work, this mission… Feels more alive than ever. More urgent. And sacred all at the same time.

I’ve spent years learning from women who mother far beyond their own children. The Ibus have shown me what care really means. How caring for their family, their community and Ibu Pertiwi (Mother Earth) is not a task. It’s a form of resistance.

That tenderness is not a weakness. And that you don’t need a platform to change the world—just your hands, your love, and your willingness to stay.

And now… I get to join their gang! 🧡

When they placed their hands on my belly and whispered their blessings for my daughter… We wept tears of joy. This is what it means to build with women. To stitch not just fabric, but family.

It has been my greatest privilege to carry their wisdom with me into this next season. To do my part in raising a daughter who never questions her worth.

To help build a world where softness is seen as strength. To choose to care for something bigger, and live in a way that tells her: you belong. Exactly as you are.

So if you’re in your own in-between season: Navigating change, unlearning old stories, trying to be a little gentler with yourself, please know: you’re not alone.

You don’t need to be fearless. You don’t need a perfect plan.
(As a recovering perfectionist, I can tell you: that’s about as real as a unicorn.)

You just need to stay present. To keep showing up, even when it’s messy. To keep choosing love, even when fear feels easier.

And maybe to believe, just a little, that something beautiful is being born, even now.

P.S. I’m happy to report that my SukkhaCitta pieces are still wearable until today at 8 months pregnant! Sustainable and flexible—who knew?