Healing in Preparation for Birth: Pt. 1

I feel like I have talked so much about the amazing postpartum care training I took with INNATE Traditions. The information shared far suppressed the curriculum I expected to have in front of me and I am forever grateful. 

One of the classes was on ceremony and rites of passage that correlated with an interview I heard Rachelle give on the topic of our transformation from maiden to mother. I dwelled on these words and the months following lead me to realize that I needed to close a chapter before I start a new one.

Which leads me to the reason for this post. I had this lingering feeling that I need to close the chapter of grieving and mourning Olive in order for me to enter into my next chapter of mother to two living babies. I asked for feedback from my classmates, my sister, and mom and after a lot of conversations and deep-pit-of-my-soul-sobbing, it was finally brought to my attention that I still harbor so much guilt.

I felt guilty when I got pregnant with Evangeline. I knew there were so many families who spent fortunes on fertility treatment, had to jump through so many hoops to adopt a baby, etc. and for us to get pregnant before we started fertility treatments I just felt guilty. I felt guilty when we got pregnant with Olive. We were not even trying to get pregnant at the time and it just happened. I remember telling my mom and mother-in-law that I felt like I did not deserve this pregnancy and that I felt like I owed someone a debt for how easy it was. (I believe these thoughts were very indicative of my body knowing that something was off and that I would birth Olive the following week). 

Surprisingly, I did not feel guilty about being pregnant this time. My emotions were too preoccupied with the anxiety and stress that came with pregnancy after loss during the first two trimesters. That said I did feel guilt in other capacities. I feel guilty that Evangeline and this baby will have a completely different start to life. From how I am making changes to how I approach birth and the people I am allowing in my space to achieve the birth I am manifesting to how our 4th trimester and breastfeeding journey will be different. I feel guilty that Evie spent her first two years of life with me going through such a heavy time of no support, feeling overwhelmed, and like I was failing in every capacity. 

I have discussed my “mom-guilt” with both my mom and grandma recently and they both attested to how they also experienced it and that it’s something that they have come to terms with. I can not do that. I can not allow for my thoughts and actions to revolve around guilt over things that I have no control over. This generational trauma of being under-supported for what I can track at least 5 generations in my mother line stops with me. I refuse to allow my daughter to feel how I felt as she enters into these chapters of life underprepared and unsupported. 

This starts with me learning to ask for help. Currently, I am asking for help in ways that I have always viewed as entitled or just spoiled and I am shifting those thoughts that I have been programmed to think. I am asking more of my husband around the house (cooking and cleaning). Today my parents and grandmother are coming over to help with a final deep clean for our homebirth. These are things that I would have just sucked up and done regardless of my sore back and hips and lack of energy. I would have hosted them instead as they came over to see our family. Today I am allowing them to support me. I am setting an example to my daughter of how it is not only OK but NEEDED to ask for help, but also allowing them to help and support you. I want her to know that when she enters these monumental phases of life I will be here ready and able to cook, clean, and listen to her when she needs it most. 

The next part of my healing is something that my sister mentioned. We as a family never had a ceremony to celebrate the brief life of Olive. Some people might be rolling their eyes, “you were literally pregnant for 9 weeks - of which you only knew about it for a month. Get over it!” and that’s ok. For my family life begins at conception so not matter at what point in pregnancy birth took place life is worth celebrating. That is the piece of my puzzle that I feel is missing. I celebrated when I took my positive pregnancy test and was excited to be pregnant but when I gave birth to Olive at 9 weeks gestation there was understandably no celebration. No rite of passage as a mother from one to two. I received a lot of well wishes, prayers, and texts for about a week following. That was it. We went on a family stay-cation to Disney at 18 days postpartum from Olive’s birth and I was miserable and unhappy, and those around me did not understand why I was so aggressive, mean, albeit bitchy. That trip is when I started drinking to cope, to laugh, to numb whatever grief I was feeling that I did not want to feel. 

Fast forward through two years of growth, healing, and currently awaiting the arrival of our third-born. This pregnancy and training have brought so much to the surface that I know need to be addressed before I give birth again. This is where I am learning to ask for help again. This evening we are going to the beach to celebrate the brief life of our second born, our Olive. We are celebrating with the family we have locally as a way to help through this passage. My goal with this is to say the things that I feel have been left unsaid and help end this chapter of grief. I will always love and miss Olive since this baby is physically a part of me but that does not mean that I need to continue to harbor guilt against myself. I do not need to continue to mourn what our future could have / should have looked like.  This is what feels right for me and I hope will bring the closure I need before I give birth again.