My Postpartum Story
I share my postpartum story because the experience forever restructured my life. Both the birth and the months following opened my eyes to the dynamic connection between how we treat ourselves and how we care for the world around us. My postpartum experience solidified my passion to build a bridge between the nurturing of mothers and the healing of our planet - Mother Earth.
Let us begin at my transition into motherhood - the birth of my son Milo.
I labored for 72-hours. I pushed for four and a half hours to hear the first cries of my son in the operating room after an unplanned cesarean. It was a dramatic and intense entrance into the world.
Poignant memories from the birth were the warm water running down my back in the bath; baking brownies at home after my water broke; the tight grip of my hands on the bed rails after I had been diverted to the hospital; the relief I felt from the epidural following 62 hours of unmedicated labor; the soft stroke of the anesthesiologist’s hand on my forehead while I uncontrollably shook on the C-section operating table, and both the grief and surrender I felt after 4 hours of pushing when Milo, myself, and the physicians decided he just wasn’t coming out the way we had hoped and planned.
My postpartum window began at Milo’s first suckling latch shortly after being delivered. It was clear to me that my heart’s capacity was greater now than it had been before his arrival. Still there was a part of me that was piecing together the surreal experience and the loss that had just happened. These feelings expanded and contracted throughout the next three months postpartum as I evolved into my new role as mom.
I had just experienced most categories of any kind of labor and delivery – an unmedicated labor at home and at a birth center, transfer to a hospital, medicated labor with Pitocin and an epidural, the pressure and intensity of pushing once the epidural had almost completely worn off, and finally a Cesarean delivery. I was learning how to be a mother, with its greatest lessons of sacrifice, surrender, and trust despite all the unknowns.
After we came home, I felt both the exceptional support of my community, but also as if I couldn’t quite relate to many friends as we once had before. I had been through something transformative that I couldn’t even see myself at the time. What I also couldn’t see was how much my body, mind, and spirit needed tending - I was rather unprepared for the postpartum transition, despite my years of work in women’s health care.
I think it is very common in our culture to expect birthers to bounce back to exactly who they were before, as quickly as possible. For myself, I wanted to get outside as soon as possible, see my friends again as soon as possible, exercise as soon as possible, get my belly back as soon as possible, and have motherhood figured out as soon as possible. But the lesson I learned is that by not taking care of myself in a significant way, and by not honoring the massive experience that just occurred, I actually limited my ability to heal and return to myself and to my community in these vital ways. I was not going to be the same person ever again, and I also didn’t yet realize I could be a more expanded version of myself with the proper attention and care.
I learned the hard way, of course. The difficult and long labor, with an unexpected C-section came with quite a few complications. Infections, hemorrhage, nerve pain, pelvic floor damage, digestive distress and an immune system that had basically collapsed leading to many episodes of painful mastitis, breastfeeding difficulty, thrush, and eventually to an autoimmune disease called Graves’. Although rates of acquiring an autoimmune disease, particularly thyroid conditions, significantly increase postpartum this is certainly not everyone’s experience postpartum, nor is it common to experience this much physical distress. But each element of pain and growth that I encountered are in themselves very common challenges for many mothers postpartum.
From extensive study in both Western and Eastern medicine and my own personal experiential learning, it is my belief that my illness could have been prevented, along with almost all autoimmune diseases (when addressed preventably). Whether distress becomes pathological or not, it is clear to me that nurturing our mothers in a significant, consistent, and traditional way can prevent distress and lead to higher levels of happiness, bonding, comfort and ease within a family. There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states - how we care for our mothers predicts a mother’s health for the rest of her life. I have lived the truth of this 5,000 year old wisdom, and it has taught me so much.
Piecing this care together for myself was a long and arduous process, and my goal is to provide the medical knowledge and traditional healing practices to allow you to avoid everything that is taken from you and baby during a postpartum health struggle.
What I’ve since learned is the importance of our diet in protecting our digestive system, immune system, and mental health. I’ve learned the importance of preparation, carving time out to rest, and the gift of a comforting sense of community. These are aspects that should be a part of every woman’s postpartum experience. Not only is it important to honor this gloriously wild and huge life transition, but it also safeguards us from stress, disease, depression, anxiety, isolation and unsustainable giving of the postpartum mom.
We all deserve to be mothered, especially during this vulnerable time. And all birthers require some amount of healing on every plane - body, mind, spirit.
To me, I see the roles of our Mother Earth and the roles of the mother as inseparable. Mother’s provide nourishment, home, and life. Ancient Chinese medicine and Indian Ayurveda are both practices of honoring the lessons of nature. I am inspired to use Mother Medicine to acknowledge the value of nurturing our many mothers. To recognize the tenderness and strength, the creation and destruction of this passage in a mother’s life and to be a witness to all it’s magic. We were never meant to do this alone.
Get in Touch
If you need to speak to a professional about postpartum support I’d love to hear from you.