Stella D. Birth Services

08/11/2020

12/23/2019

Right?! 😂😂

12/09/2019

This is a great post to read for everyone who knows someone who is pregnant.

A picture really is worth 1000 words.

This is me, roughly 24 hours after giving birth to my eldest. I have no idea who took the picture, but you can probably already tell how I feel just by looking at it.

1 or 2 days. Is that too much to ask for?
1 or 2 days for a new mum to come to terms with the fact she had a tiny human emerge from her body. 1 or 2 days for her to finally have a shower and wash the sweat and blood from her body. 1 or 2 days for her to push through the pain of her sore ni***es as she learns to breastfeed. 1 or 2 days for her to try to have some sleep because she is absolutely exhausted.

Before being introduced to your new life as a mother, you have just gone through one of the most painful, exhausting, and mind blowing experiences in your life. Labour. Has everyone forgotten how tolling that can be on both your emotional and physical well being? The last thing you then want, is for everyone to be bombarding your room to play pass the parcel, before you have even had a chance to recover.

Learning to breastfeed is no private affair. You don’t just slip your ni**le out and your baby connects to it like a magnet. You get your whole b**b out, and slide your baby up and down waiting for them to latch on. The nurse comes in and helps you massage some colostrum out. Then you try the other side, so now you’ve got both b**bs out.

Your va**na or stomach is in a world of pain. More often than not, there’s been a cut somewhere. You struggle to get comfortable in that hard hospital bed, because no position feels ok. You can barely sit, stand, lie down, or walk. Honestly, my va**na still hurt for 2 or 3 weeks after that. The hospital doesn’t like you to leave until they know you have emptied your bowels without your va**na falling out too. When do you fit in trying to pass that painful lump when your room is full of visitors?

Everyone is so excited to have a photo with the new baby, the new mum doesn’t get a photo with her own damn baby! I had to ask for a photo with mine, other than that one photo, the only others I have are of her fresh out of my uterus, with us laying there naked and covered in blood. Thank you to the saintly midwife who was kind enough to grab my phone and capture the most precious photos that exist to me. From there on, it’s mostly selfies.

Everyone wants the bragging rights to say they saw the new baby within 24 hours. They simply must satisfy their need to hold this new baby. If you don’t allow them to come visit you in the hospital, you’re a selfish, delicate, drama queen. Then people come in with their comments of “now you only look 4 months pregnant instead of 9” or “you look tired” I’m sorry, but in what world is it ok for you to comment on a new mother’s appearance? WE ARE SO BLOODY FRAGILE RIGHT NOW! If my va**na wasn’t so sore, I might have pulled some Kung Fu Panda on your ass.

Sure, some people can’t wait to have visitors. That’s not what this is about. This is about people who have tried to ask visitors to wait a day or 2, but been made to feel like they told them they can’t be in the baby’s life. I feel so loved that everyone couldn’t wait to meet our new baby, and so happy that everyone wanted to be part of our baby’s life. What I didn’t realise was how hard trying to ask people to stay away for a day would be. “It’ll just be a quick visit.” You’re too tired to argue, so you sit and wait for them to get their baby fix.

The next time someone you know has a baby, remember how tired this new mother looks. I know you are excited, but remember it is not your right to visit a new baby, it is a privilege. If that offends you, go home and put it in your burn book.

12/06/2019

What a gorgeous baby with a bright smile!

🥰The sweetest little elf on the shelf 🤗

11/02/2019

You should really contact her! She’s amazing!

10/21/2019

This is me in a hospital bed in 2002 having delivered my third baby Caleb five hours earlier. The "big kids" came to meet him and crawled in bed with me. I found this pic yesterday and shed tears upon tears for every baby in this picture.

For Sydney, my baby love who had just turned 2 thirteen days earlier. She was still in diapers. She had just been evicted from her crib because there was a new sheriff coming to town named Caleb. She had a meltdown just before this pic was snapped because we wouldn't let her hold Caleb, who she kept calling "my new baby, my new baby," by herself. Look at her snuggled into her mom. I could bawl and never stop.

For Gavin, my first-born joy, who had just turned 4 not two months earlier. He was the sunniest, happiest, most delightful boy. He started using the word "actually" when he was like 15 months old and, only in the 5th percentile from the day of his birth to this very day, it was like a little tiny old man was walking around saying big words. I kissed him 300 times a day.

The tears for my babies come quick. I can literally feel the phantom weight of them leaning against me with their snow white hair and baby skin. I remember exactly how they felt in my arms. Exactly. My life's joy. I can hardly look at their little faces.

But most of my tears are for that young mama. She was 27 years old and five hours removed from delivering her third baby in four years. She was sore and tired and stitched, but she pulled those big babies into her bed to snuggle and read to them so they knew they were still her moon and stars. She would go home the next day with three babies and work from sunup to sundown and also in the middle of the night taking care of these treasures and sometimes crying in the bathroom. There was never, ever enough of her to go around, but God have mercy did she try.

Here is to all you young mamas this morning. I see you. I remember. I know exactly what it feels like to have two in diapers and one still nursing. I remember the exhaustion that seeps all the way into your bones until you fall asleep with your clothes on and your contacts still in. How people hold the door for you at Target and say, "Wow. You really have your hands full." When your body, at its absolute peak just a few years ago, now shows the full effects of childbirth. I remember cutting grapes in half and squeezing ketchup packets until your fingers bleed.

And the worry! I remember the worry. The world feels like a terrifying monster out to harm and steal and injure your babies, and you alone can keep them from eating pennies and avoiding bullies and obviously the onus is on you to not drive your car into a body of water with them all strapped into their carseats, a highly likely scenario I imagined no less than 7098 times. You are their guardian and protector and God help anyone who comes between a young mama and her little charges.

I want to tell that 27 year old mom of three the same thing I want to tell you: You are doing a breathtaking, beautiful job. Your children are so loved and they know it. You are giving them something priceless that they won't even know how to identify later but it will settle down deep in their bones: security. They are safe with you, absolutely cherished. This isn't from one big thing you do; it comes from the million minutes you love them well. That's it. All your mistakes and meltdowns won't change it. You are raising healthy, loved, secure kids - it will matter so much. It lasts. It sticks. It is the air they breathe from that first day in the hospital, and you can't undo it.

So much love to you, young moms. Love your babies exactly like you are doing, even if you feel like you are reading to two of them in the hospital bed you just delivered the third one in - I know. There isn't much down time. But all of this matters and you matter and this work is so important. I am cheering you on from the other side. I'll hold your seat over here. You're going to make it.

09/25/2019

Let's meet -

Somewhere in between,

The person I was before, and the mother I am now.

The ideas you had for who I'd be, and the way things really are.

As it turns out, I'm not cut out to be that mother; the one you imagined I'd be.

As it turns out, I hate making baby food. I only moderately enjoyed breastfeeding, and really struggled at times to continue. Sometimes I love playing and doing baby stuff, and other times, it's a drag.

Are you upset? Disappointed? I know that's not who we thought I'd be. Who we wanted me to be.

But as it turns out, there's another secret I'm keeping. Something you may not know about me.

The way you thought I'd love this baby, isn't exactly what you envisioned - It's a whole different thing entirely.

As it turns out; it is a bigger, heavier, more wondrous, enormously life changing, as deep as it is wide, crack your heart wide open love than you or I could have ever imagined. I know you knew there'd be love, but you could've never expected a love like this. It's magic.

So yes, it's different than you pictured. But it's all going to be okay. We're figuring it out. The unforeseen struggles, the highs and the lows. The take your breath away love. All of it. And it is all so worth it.

I hope you can see me now, the mother that we've become. And I hope that you're proud. It's so nice to finally meet you, in the middle 💜

| Image .ch.r |

08/07/2019

What a peaceful birth! ♥️

The beautiful daytime homebirth with a surprise gender announcement and adorable big sister.

08/04/2019

In honor of , this one is worth sharing again.