My Personal Journey into Intuitive Motherhood
When I became a mother I was wholly unprepared for what lay ahead of me. I had no idea what I was doing or what to expect, which was both a blessing and a curse. I spent my entire pregnancy getting used to the idea that I would be pushing a baby into this world. I forgot to prepare for what to do and what to expect when the baby made it earthside! I’m thankful for this because I didn’t have time to make something natural and intuitive logical and fearful. On the other hand, having no clue what was up or down, I was susceptible to fear tactics from my pediatrician and doula who had me convinced I was doing things horribly since my baby wouldn’t sleep anywhere but on me, that I couldn’t lay horizontally with my baby at any time under any circumstances or I would kill her, so it was my fault that my baby and I weren’t sleeping. In hindsight, I can see that my previously existent anxiety had reached a new level as postpartum anxiety (PPA). I know that if I would have had access to the right resources, that the extreme, crippling anxiety I was experiencing could have been extinguished.
If I had access to the type of knowledge that would free me from fear of failure as a mother by permitting me to mother from a place of trust in my instincts and intuition, I could have had a lot more sleep, yes, but more importantly peace and stillness. Transitioning from maiden to mother is haxrd, there’s no way around it and nothing that can make you ready to tackle it. Every mother’s journey takes a different shape. While the obstacles we will face as mothers may differ in some aspects, we all go through the same fire.
Imagine going into motherhood with confidence that you are the best mother in the universe for your baby and that you and only you are the expert on your baby. Here lies my life’s work: to guide mothers back to that place of trust in themselves and their intuition. In this world it can be too easy to compare but there are no good or bad babies, but some babies have more needs and a harder time adjusting than others. Just like adults, no two babies are the same. With the abundance of information at our fingertips in this world, it can be hard to know what’s right or best, and what mother doesn’t want what’s best for her child? Are there methods that help children’s cognitive, physical, and social/emotional development? Absolutely, but there is no manual that could possibly take into account every unique child’s temperament, ecosystem, and needs, which is why you and only you are the sole expert on your child. Not your pediatrician, not the sleep expert, not your mother in law. Only you. Your unique life experiences led you to be all that you are until the moment you conceived your child and through the gestation period. You can trust that feeling that says “hm that doesn’t sit right with me” or “yes this just feels right”. When I accepted that three months postpartum, my life changed. I spent three months trying to do things right and safe the way everyone told me I had to, but when I stopped listening to the fear and decided I would only do what my gut told me to, the fog lifted.