Maternity Leave
It’s not a vacation!
It’s recovery; of healing from something the size of a bowling ball squeezing through a transformed coin purse and every muscle, tendon, ligament, and bone involved. Unless you went the C-section route, and you’re literally recovering from intense surgery.
It’s a time when some of your hormones drop significantly, while there’s an upswing in others.
There’s a wound the size of a dinner plate clotting, bleeding, and healing as you experience more contractions to return your uterus, which has expanded 500x its original size, back down.
Your body is shifting daily, your breasts feel like rocks when your milk comes in.
You’ll have crying spells, anxiety, hot flashes, night sweats, lack of sleep, intense hunger at different parts of the day, and feelings of isolation even when attached to another human all day, everyday.
Maternity Leave
It’s also taking care of a helpless human regardless of the state you’re in. Wanna eat dinner? Better hope it’s something you can eat one handed, lukewarm, or ingested at light speed.
Wanna go run an errand? Hope you have help, but add on an extra 30–45 minutes to make sure you’re prepared.
Breastfeeding requires more hours than a full time job. You’ll learn to have things close by- water, food, your phone, audio books/books, the remote, or anything else you can use one-handed.
Shower time is vacation! A moment where no one else can reach you.
Maternity Leave
It can sometimes feel like a jail sentence; a vortex of life spent in 2–3 hour increments. Feed, clean up, cuddle, sleep, sprinkles of you-time/couple-time, repeat.
Thoughts like “do my friends think about me still?”, “can I ever get work done?”, “what about my body, sex, my relationship, the house, my individuality?” and even scary or worrisome thoughts might be peppered through your mind.
Maternity Leave
I have immense respect to all mothers, no matter how much or little support they have. It’s the most important, yet most unappreciated job. Motherhood is beautiful and will shift and transform you in ways that nothing else can.
I’m learning to reframe it all.
As I heal, I give gratitude for all my body has accomplished. I created a miracle! A brand new human being, unlike anyone who has ever crawled the Earth. My body knows how to heal itself; recovery has been great for me. It knows how to nurture another human, in the womb and from my breasts. It knew what to do when I birthed my gorgeous, eight pounds and two ounces, daughter into the world.
My experience is exactly where I am supposed to be. I’m learning to trust the flow of life. I stepped out of the way during my labor and my primal brain took the reins. I felt divine flow running through every cell of my body.
The challenges in pregnancy prepared me for everything to come after. I am grateful, I am in awe, I am humbled, and I’m so proud of myself and ready for the journey ahead.
During this time, “isolated”, my creative juices have been tapped into and flow like a wellspring. To be able to slow down and not able to avoid any of it, I’ve been gifted an opportunity to find clarity in my next steps: for my business, my relationships, my purpose, and only pouring energy into what really matters.
I have found new gratitude for the support already present in my life. We weren’t meant to bring babies in on our own, it really does require a village.
I have been shown how strong, powerful, graceful, patient, and loving I really am.
I birthed my daughter; my daughter birthed me.
Maternity Leave
Allows continued transformation.
I see you mama. You’re a fucking rockstar! You’re not alone. You are part of a tribe that is the core of humanity. Without you, mom, there would be no humans.
