The Flaming Portal: A Journey Through Life, Death, and Rebirth

I thought I was just planning a second pregnancy. I had no idea I was about to walk through fire.

When my husband and I decided to try for our second baby, I imagined a smooth journey - stopping birth control, waiting a few months, then celebrating two pink lines. But what unfolded was something I never could have predicted: a near-death experience that would break me, rebuild me, and ultimately open the door to a new life.

The Waiting Game: Trying to Conceive & the First Signs

It was March 2021. Wanting to be cautious, I decided to take my COVID vaccine before stopping my birth control pills. Two months later, we officially began trying.

Month after month, my period arrived, dashing my hopes each time. One year passed. At 34, I knew that time wasn’t exactly on my side - by 35, pregnancy is already labeled as “high risk.”

When I finally saw a gynecologist, she dismissed my concerns.

"Try for another year. If nothing happens, come back."

I didn’t feel seen. I knew something was wrong.

Then, my body made it impossible to ignore.

The Bleeding Begins: A Warning Sign I Didn’t Understand

One day, out of nowhere, I had an unusually heavy period - hemorrhage-level bleeding, unlike anything I had ever experienced. Soon after, I was hit with the worst burning pain I’d ever felt, something I thought was a urinary infection.

But the tests revealed something different: a vaginal infection caused by Ureaplasma, a little-known condition linked to infertility. My body was trying to tell me something.

With treatment, I felt normal again - until my next period. The hemorrhages returned, stronger each time.

I should have gone back to the doctor, but deep down, I knew I wasn’t being truly heard there. Instead, I reached out to a doctor I trusted, one who had been part of my first pregnancy. She was far away, and I had to wait months for an appointment - but I knew she was the right one to see me.

In the meantime, my condition worsened.

The Night Everything Changed: Facing Death in My Own Bathroom

By September, I had adapted to the heavy bleeding - but what happened next was beyond anything I had imagined.

I was at home when it started. The blood wouldn’t stop. I was passing enormous clots, unlike anything I had seen before. It was like my body had turned into an open faucet of life force, draining me second by second.

I tried to hold myself together, to make it to the shower. But then - a sound started in my head, like the flatline beep of a hospital monitor.

I collapsed to the floor.

I tried to scream, but what came out was barely a whisper. My husband, somehow, heard it. When he reached me, I saw the horror on his face - the blood, the clots, the sheer panic in his eyes.

He dragged me to the living room floor and rushed to get help.

My little son was watching. My heart shattered knowing he was seeing me like this.

On the way to the hospital, I was on the edge of unconsciousness, begging my husband to drive faster—but also afraid we’d crash and I’d lose my last chance at survival.

Crossing the Portal: The ICU and The Realization

By the time we arrived at the ER, I was barely there.

I don’t remember getting into the wheelchair. But I remember the face of the front desk guy - he looked shocked, disgusted, confused. That’s when I realized: I must look as bad as I feel.

I passed out.

When I woke up again, people were running around me. My veins had collapsed. They were fighting against time. Seconds mattered.

I had a few brief moments of consciousness. In those moments, I whispered, “It’s a fibroid… I think I’m bleeding from a fibroid.”

Then I prayed Psalm 23.

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…"

And then I was gone again.

When I woke up hours later, my husband was by my side.

"How long was I unconscious?" I asked.

"Five or six hours."

Tears. Endless tears.

I had been so out of control, so far from my body, so close to the other side.

Then, a nurse walked in. She handed me a picture - a drawing my son had made while waiting for me.

More tears.

The doctor who had first treated me came in and saw me crying.

"Why are you crying?" he asked.

I didn’t have words to explain.

Then he simply said, "Life happens."

I had never heard something so stupid and wise at the same time.

And in that moment, I surrendered. A deep, overwhelming gratitude filled me. I was alive.

The Rebirth: A Life Given Back to Me

I was transferred to the ICU for monitoring. My electrolytes had crashed. I needed blood transfusions. But I was here.

I survived.

The next day, I was cleared to go home. And the very next day, I started my medical assistant program.

Even now, I ask myself: Was it the right thing to do? Should I have waited, processed everything, let myself heal first?

But maybe this is healing. Maybe moving forward, embracing life even harder, is part of coming back through the flames.

The Flaming Portal: A Transformation Through Fire

Now, looking back, I understand: that day was a portal.

A flaming portal.

I stepped through it, burned, stripped of illusions, and emerged transformed.

It was after this experience - this fire - that my path to motherhood reopened. Four months later, I had the surgery that finally freed me. And just three weeks after that, I became pregnant.

Something had to be burned away for new life to enter.

Now, I hold my daughter in my arms and share my story to inspire mothers and mothers-to-be to never give up. Keeping our dreams alive keeps the flame of life burning within us, guiding us through every challenge toward the blessings meant for us.

Some of us must walk through the fire before we can bring new life into the world.

If you are waiting for your moment - if you are struggling, searching, aching to bring something to life - maybe you, too, are standing at the edge of your own portal.

Walk through it.

And trust that on the other side, something beautiful is waiting.