I've been nursing this newsletter for months, one little note at a time. In 13 years of sharing with you, this is the most personal I've ever been, and it touches on pregnancy loss and birth complications before getting to where we are now. If this has affected you, feel free to skip the paragraph that starts with "3 weeks later" and pick back up after it.
As always thank you for being here. If you’re new and subscribed whilst I was away, know you are deeply welcomed. And for everyone, thank you for your precious time and support.
Why?
In January 2025, after a 16-year journey filled with grief and trauma, something magical started to unfold, less than 24 hours after I began my 6-month Biomimicry certification(1). My son's embryo was placed in me, launching the most sophisticated biotech intelligence(2) that makes AI pale in comparison. The second it happened, my soul utterly fell in love with 100 cells the size of a poppy seed. My Matrescence(3) had begun.
3 weeks later, I read the positive pregnancy test results in disbelief, after so many years of trying. Trying to become a mother comes with many risks, in different forms. For me it was two failed IVF cycles. It was a miscarriage. It was a traumatic first pregnancy I terminated. It was trying naturally for years with one negative pregnancy test after another. It was getting on the adoption journey too. Only to try one last time after coming across an article about a particular type of IVF and asking my now husband « shall we give it one last try? ». And it worked. Baby decided to stay. The same week we found out, a rare white squirrel(4) continuously came to our garden until about a month ago. I'd like to think it was an auspicious omen.
In October 2025 our son arrived 3 days after his due date. It still stuns me that when I turn 50 in a few months, I will be holding my 1-year-old boy in my arms.
When I became pregnant, I was quiet about it. Much trauma along the way had made me cautious about sharing. The pressure on women in any professional field is not conducive to having a baby. So even with everything I should have been happy and proud about, I was still plagued with fear of how telling clients I was pregnant would affect my work. And beneath it all, I was simply savouring the joy privately. I had become mother Bear(5), and I wore her as a symbol.
Making a life took precedence over work, identity, ego, goals, what success had previously meant to me. I slowed down and stopped taking on demanding projects. My job became to nurture the little man growing inside me. Mothering every inch of everything brought me a sense of balance and harmony I had never felt before.
Our little firecracker of a dude started saying hello with butterfly flutters felt in my belly on May 9th, at a dinner with friends. At every single ultrasound, he did multiple somersaults. These were early signs, we now know, of his temperament.
I was exhausted most days but never stopped writing this newsletter. It has been my joy for over a decade and of course I had grand plans: to finalise the 'Future Wild' futuring ateliers(6) I had developed during my Biomimicry training, to preschedule a few more newsletters so I could still feel connected to you.
But life had other plans for my boy and I.
In Mid-October I was in latent labour for 9 days. Eventually my son’s movements changed and we had to rush to the hospital. The doctors wanted to chemically induce the birth, but I had a funny feeling my baby was now too tired to go through with pushing his way out of me. I calmly decided on a caesarean with my husband and doula helping make that decision every step of the way.
Our son was born to Tsohle Tsohle(7) played by Abel Selaocoe. It’s a Bantu hymn about creation and the idea that “everything is everything.” Amidst the beauty of his birth, 2 minutes into it he did proceed to do his first poo on me, which kept us laughing.
It turned out my mama bear instincts were right. Our son was born with an immune system condition that put him in the high dependency unit within days. A few months later my own health gave out with a severe postpartum condition. I'm genuinely grateful to be writing this at all today. We are both well now.
Motherhood cracks you open, literally and figuratively. There is nowhere to hide.
I write this knowing motherhood comes in many forms. When we become a mother, regardless of how, we don’t just welcome a new life into ours. We give birth to ourselves. Our coping mechanisms for all that life has thrown at us over the years, the grime accumulated on our psychic windshield, is laid bare, as our masks collapse from the sleep deprivation, the crash of hormones (to perimenopausal levels in my case), the utter sense of disorientation and clarity, all at once.
It jolts us into being the most essential version of ourselves. It’s an abundance born from dissolution.
Someone recently told me to get in touch when I re-emerge. I know this was said with good intentions but sadly people think that when you give birth and mother a small baby you somehow disappear.
I never needed to re-emerge. Some of my going invisible was choice. Some of it wasn't. My body decided for me at times, whether my mind was ready or not. Not all growth is visible or needs to be shared. I'm learning to take all the time I need, reborn as a mother.
I quietly resumed my Tomorrow column with Spur(8) and contributed to the Felixstowe Co-Creation Workshop on interspecies harmony, hosted by Furtherfield(9). I am guest lecturing at universities and consulting on strategic macro foresight with clients again. My brain in many ways has been the sharpest it's ever been(10), reconsolidating and rewiring itself to make space for new priorities. I've never felt so alive and present.
Matrescence doesn't negotiate.
It doesn't forecast a soft landing or optimize for comfort. It dissolves what no longer works and rebuilds you, ready or not.
That's not a metaphor for the field of futures right now. It's a mirror.
New motherhood has gifted me time for reflection, between breastfeeds, pumps, bottles, naps, play, walks. I’m always present with my son first and foremost, but inevitably the questions come up: what do I want out of this life, for my child, for my craft and community, for our planet? What’s the most integral path forward? The stakes feel higher than before.
Fast forward to today and I still stand by what I’ve been working to help dismantle for years. I still believe in our powerful premise and promise, beyond the corporate lingo of strategy and innovation. It’s transformation and regeneration.
However, our field keeps handing people the same formulas because comfortable is legible, even when disguised as original. Scratch beneath the surface and it is delivering incessant repetition of the same trends, ideas and ideals, based on outdated metrics(11) of success and validity. The trickle effect of our foresight work impacts the people and planet's wellbeing, present and future.
We’ve been pulling off this stunt for a while. But there have been tremors of reckoning in our field, in part because we know positive change is urgent in the world, in part because deep down we also know we are facing down the barrel of obsolescence if we keep pulling this stunt(12).
My work has never been about what my partners want to hear, it's told them what to pay attention to, years ahead, even if they’re not ready to listen. In hindsight, I'm glad I made sacrifices and choices, embracing partner activism(13) nearly a decade ago. Anyone working in futures must act now if experiencing cognitive dissonance, or worse, outright disillusionment, with their foresight work, briefs, methods, metrics of evaluating what’s innovative. Make uncomfortable changes now. This may feel sacrificial but is in fact non-negotiable, and in the long term beneficial.
It's time we hospice(14) the old systems in our own field, not just the ones we're paid to advise on. That means taking action, not just reporting on change. Let's start bending ourselves toward an arc of life worth having.
So, here's what's next.
I don't have grand plans this time. I've learned better: life has other plans. My only objective is to keep sharing with you the tools that help regenerate the field of futures, learning from nature and evolutionary intelligence, so we can honour future generations.
What I have is the Futuring Dispatch, back in your inbox, still cutting through the hype, still telling you what's critical, emergent and regenerative, in an updated format I've been nurturing for almost a year.
Trend Atelier(15) is open and continues to welcome new students every month. 'Future Wild', the Biomimicry-born futuring ateliers you were excited about in 2025 (and the brainchild of my Rewilding Futures(16) work in 2021), is quietly moving forward. It's finding its way into my core pillars of work and into the Trend Atelier's learning design, in its own time, because making a life took precedence.
Finally, I want to thank all the mamas out there, from my mother to my close friends, to the seasoned and new moms I've bonded with. The midwives at St George's Hospital and my doula, for being light workers in a queendom of care. My husband, for being my rock. And my son, for being my teacher, already, at his tiny but mighty age.
Footnotes
- Biomimicry certification with Learn Biomimicry – endorsed by the Biomimicry institute
- Biotech here is a nod to Patrick Drake’s LinkedIn post about his wife being the founder / CEO of one of the most important bioengineering startups in the world. “I bow at the feet of all mothers running their own biotech startups. While the rest of us build our trinkets, you nurture the leading edge of humanity. The hours are brutal and the sacrifices often unacknowledged. Your role spans the entire org chart. You’re the Swiss Army Penknife of the startup world.”
- Matrescence is the process of becoming a mother, which anthropologists call “matrescence’ reflecting the physical, psychological and emotional of this period. I recommend Lucy Jones’ book as well as the Tedtalk that popularised the term by Julie Rake
- The chances of a white squirrel being born are about one in 100,000. Other numbers show one in every 250,000. It’s estimated there are only about 400 in all of the UK. According to Earth, symbolically they represent A Messenger of Change, Purity and Clarity, Hope and Good Fortune. In parts of Europe, squirrels have long been symbols of cleverness and preparation. A white squirrel, being so rare, was thought to carry an even greater meaning. Seeing one in a village could be taken as a sign of abundance in the coming season.
- The Mother Bear is the archetypal image of Motherhood and fierce protection. “The relationship between bears and our indigenous European ancestors was exceptionally complex. In fact, it’s an archaic pan-European belief that we humans descended from bears. And this ursine genealogy is still deeply woven into a rich legacy of Old World European beliefs and cultural constructs. The sacred she-bear is our mother and was considered the most important spirit guardian of the European shaman. Our beloved Diana was known as a she-bear.” Source Gail Faith Edwards
- The 'Future Wild' futuring ateliers – stay tuned.
- Tsohle Tsohle is a Bantu hymn about creation and the saying. Abel Selaocoe played the version we had at my son’s birth. More on Abel Selaocoe here. Listen to the Hymn here performed with Live at Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg
- Tomorrow column with Spur – access the latest essays here
- The Felixstowe Co-Creation Workshop on interspecies harmony, hosted by Furtherfield. Follow here on IG. Furtherfield focuses on art and technology for eco-social change. Website here.
- The sharpest it's ever been. ““Baby brain” isn’t the deficit it’s stereotyped to be, research suggests. Neural adaptations during pregnancy can prime soon-to-be-moms to become more attuned to their children and enhance social cognition” read more here from the Smithsonian Mag. According to Darby Saxbe, author of ‘Dad Brain’ When it comes to the brain, parenthood may be better than Botox for preserving our youth. Read more here.
- Outdated metrics refers to my 2022 IG post and essay ‘WE NEED NEW METRICS FOR VALIDATING TRENDS’ IG post here, essay here.
- We keep pulling this stunt refers to my 2023 essay Trend forecasting's reputation management problem here
- A kind of activism refers to my 2025 essay What is a Futures Activist? Honouring History, Reimagining Practice here as well as my work with Fashion Act Now as a founding member and my 2020 essay for their Medium called ‘Why trends ARE your friend’ here
- Hospice here nods to the Berkana Institute's Two Loops framework on how dying systems make way for the new. “Hospicing dying systems" is a fairly specific, recognizable term of art from the Berkana Institute's Two Loops framework (Deborah Frieze, Margaret Wheatley)
- Trend Atelier is the home to resources on Future Foresight including our flagship course Forecast Like a Futurist here, taken by students working in organisations and brands ranging from Nike, Adidas, LVMH, Mintel to WGSN and Wunderman Thompson.
- Rewilding Futures 2021 first piece here, then the continuation here in 2023 and in 2024 my talk at the Venice Sustainable Fashion forum here
Shout out: Thank you Elodie Marteau, the talented researcher and strategist (and I'm proud to say my former assistant) for pointing me to Ester Manas’s post about her pregnancy journey. It inspired me to share more photos of my personal experience.
