Welcome Mama’s, I’ve been waiting for you!
I want to tell you a little story, and if you already know me, you’ve surely heard parts of it here and there.
A little over 4 years ago, I got pregnant and I was overjoyed! Since I was a toddler myself I wanted babies. And being the youngest of 3, as much as I begged my mom to have another baby, she didn’t (lol). I compensated with dozens of ‘real life’ baby dolls, I was their mother, I changed them, I brought them everywhere, I carried them around when they were ‘fussy’. I dreamt of one day having lots and lots of real babies.
So once I took care of meeting the love of my life and partner for life, I started picturing what our babies looked like, I longed for my own. As soon as we got married, we started trying. Bam!, baby conceived, now I had 10 months to plan and prepare – my favourite thing to do!
I got all the baby stuff, went to prenatal classes, read pregnancy books, made a nursery, watched dozens of births on Youtube, and made a plan for the natural birth that I dreamt of. I built such high expectations for myself to be this uber-natural birthing-by-the-stream kind of mother. So 10 months later, when I was in the hospital in the throws of transition (this is the really intense part of labour for anyone who hasn’t been there yet) and I felt like I was dying from pain. I was panicking, like a lot! Panic turned to fear and fear turned to shock, shock turned to trauma, and that trauma and fear was something I had to do a lot of counselling work to mitigate (especially when I got pregnant with baby #2).
I didn’t have a beautiful, instant bonding moment with my baby when she was born (like I witnessed in all the beautiful Youtube births I watched). Instead I was in shock and didn’t really know what to feel. Where was the instant bond everyone was talking about? What the hell just happened to me? What now?
So I went home a few hours after she was born, as the epidural I ended up getting started to wear off and the episiotomy and stitches I got were getting pretty painful especially when going up and down stairs. Despite this pain, I didn’t take it easy at all, we were going everywhere with our little one, convinced that having a baby wasn’t going to change our social lifestyle.
But all those feelings I was feeling about the birth I decided to squash down, and I was really good at squashing. Most people that know me well, (including my husband) didn’t really know the extent of the trauma I was dealing with, and to be honest, I didn’t really know myself until I started unpacking it a couple years later when I was pregnant again and filled with a stifling fear.
Because we were new at parenting and I was up every 1-2 hours for the first year, I kind of lost my mind, I didn’t treat my body right, I craved quick and easy carbs to fill me up, I didn’t nourish any of myself – body or mind. But we made it through the tough times, my husband and I held each other up and we got support from family.
Once we decided we wanted a second baby, it actually took us some time to get pregnant. I expected #2 to be just as quick and easy as the first time, but there were months of cycle tracking, negative pregnancy tests, and feelings of disappointment without actually acknowledging it. And looking back, I really wasn’t ready for another baby yet. So when we finally did get that positive pregnancy test, there were a few days of excitement for me, and then the fear and anxiety set in. I was deathly afraid of birthing another baby. I laid awake at night thinking about it, I had flashbacks of my first birth.
So I set out on a mission to actually DEAL with the trauma from the first birth. I wrote regularly in a journal about my fears, I saw a postpartum mood counsellor, and I hired a doula. I was planning and preparing to basically run an ultra-marathon. And it worked, I was way better equipped going into my second birth, I actually enjoyed the birth a little bit, had tools that I used to deal with the fear and pain that arose, and actually felt that instant bond with my baby. It was a beautiful thing, and coming out of that birth I was happy, elated and better equipped to start breastfeeding and plans were in place so that I could sleep more than I did the first time. I also stocked the freezer with loads of nutritional meals, got lots of help from my mom with meals and grocery shopping and got my husband to take a night-shift with the new baby every night so I could get at least 4 hours strait of sleep. On top of that, I was stocked up on vitamins and supplements that I took everyday and was super diligent with my water consumption (you can read this blog with some tricks I used postpartum).
After I had my second daughter I knew that I wanted to dive deep into the world of Nutrition, seeing how much it helped me during such a critical time. SO I enrolled in school for Holistic Nutrition, not knowing exactly where I wanted to take it, but unable to stop the burning desire to learn more.
I should also mention that for the past 2 years I have been teaching Yoga, specific to pre and post-natal women. I have grown a love for serving this community and being a place where women can come, unwind, chat about what’s on their minds and be around other women in the same stage they are in. I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of the Willow Studio community here in Peterborough, and have realized how passionate I am about the Perinatal stages in a woman’s life and being as much of a support as I can.
Having first hand experience with Postpartum mood disorder, and seeing how food, nutrients, and movement can help my mental well-being, I know that this platform I am building will have a place to serve women in similar seasons of their lives.
For now, Nourishing Mothers will be a place where I share nutritional information and tips that I feel women can learn from and apply to their lives. Whether they are trying to conceive, are pregnant or have already given birth. I will be blogging regularly to share this information, and I will be sharing resources as much as possible to serve as a support network for Mothers who could use a little support here and there, because I feel like every Mother could use extra support, even if they think they’re rocking it – being a mom truly is the toughest job.
I will slowly start adding more useful information to the site, and once I have graduated from my course and am certified as a Holistic Nutritionist, I will be offering my nutritional services (coming in late 2020 or early 2021).
Stay tuned Mama, and feel free to drop me a line if you feel compelled to reach out <3 I am here for you!
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