10/10/2023
Today, 9 years ago, was my first day of being a mom. Yesterday was my daughters birthday, but technically she is only 9 today, as she was born 10 seconds before the 10th day of the 10th month. I should have known right then that she marches to her own beat and that this journey of being allowed to be her parent, would be an interesting one. But that is not the reason for this post.
This year I have been more nostalgic about my birth than some of the previous years. I suspect it's because 9 feels so big. I mean, this is the first year she baked her own birthday cake. But in so many other ways she has become so self assured and sort of independent. This stil takes me by surprise and I realise I have to start handing her feathers that would eventually enable her to fly (out of the nest).
As we went through the day of her birth, I did not only relive labour and birth in my mind, remembering what happened when (like I normally do). This year it was more emotional and as if my nervous system sort of remembered the day. I found myself being nervous, excited, confused, overwhelmed en feeling so absolutely powerful. In some moments experiencing all of these emotions (and more) all at once. Just like in labour and birth.
This just re-affirmed to me that how you feel about your birth matters. Yes it is about a healthy, medically safe baby and mom, but it's not just about that. It is about how your body, mind and heart remember your birth. No matter how birth happens and what it turns out looking like, your perspective of the event needs to be processed, healed, celebrated. It is such a huge, almost immediate, transformation. It needs to be repeated in the nervous system. Sometimes at the most unexpected times.
The bottom line to this post? Well, I guess it's about the importance of how you approach birth and what you do with your experience afterwards. My top tips for easier processing:
1. Prepare yourself for this major event. Not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally.
2. Make the right choices for the birth you would like to have (choose the right medical care provider and support team)
3. Trust the process. Do this by trusting your birth team, your body and your mind, to give you the best birth you can possibly have in your unique situation.
4. Surrender to the uniqueness of your journey.
5. Enjoy the ride.
6. Create opportunities after your birth to tell your story (even if it is, sometimes, just for your own ears)
7. Celebrate, process and heal by remembering, whenever it comes up.
8. If and when you need help and support, reach out and ask for it. From loved ones and/or professionals.
May your transformation surprise you in the moment of birth and beyond. Whether you birth vaginally, surgically, adoptively (any any and all ways of becoming a mom) it is bigger than you think.
P. S: This post was written with emotion and not a proof reading perspective. Please oversee spelling amd grammar mistakes.
