Healing in Preparation for Birth

PART ONE

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.

PART TWO

As I was thinking about what / where we would hold space for our Baby Olive all I had going through my head was sunflowers. I don’t know why since this has never been a flower that I have ever been particularly fond of. I’ve usually preferred roses, or since we moved to Florida - Pink Ginger Lillies and Birds of Paradise. Like I said though for some reason sunflowers kept popping up in my very vivid pregnancy dreams, and I knew it meant something:

Sunflowers are a symbol of happiness and optimism. They represent longevity, love, and loyalty. Sunflowers refer to fertility and the circle of life, and can represent a time to remember or a time to move forward.

Since we live so close to the beach and I’ve made countless trips to help with healing concerning our loss of Olive it was an easy choice to have everyone meet at “our beach” as Evie calls it. I had invited my parents and grandmother who lives in the area since my sister pointed out that it would be an opportunity for our family as a whole to be able to say something about Olive. These "sunflowers" were all over the space at the beach we chose.

I was prepared to be the only one who would say something since I felt this was more for me to move into our next chapter with this birth quickly approaching. It was a quick 10-15 mins. of the six of us in a circle saying things that each of us felt needed to be said, or get out things that had been left unsaid. When it came to my turn I couldn’t speak. Hearing Evie talk about her baby sister Olive (she is positive Olive was a girl) and how much she loves her was enough to bring a solid stream of tears down my face. Thankfully I had written out my words and Zach offered to read the following for me.

“OLIVE,

MY SWEET PRECIOUS BABY. THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING ME TO BE YOUR MOMMY. THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING ME TO BLESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE. THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING OUR FAMILY. AS MUCH PAIN AND GRIEF THAT CAME FROM YOUR EARTHLY PASSING I AM CHOOSING TO CELEBRATE YOUR BRIEF LIFE. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE A PART OF ME PHYSICALLY AND I LOVE THAT. I LOVE THAT I STILL HAVE REMNANTS OF YOU WITH ME, ALWAYS. A PIECE OF YOU TO CARRY NOT ONLY IN MY HEART BUT A PART OF YOU THAT I CAN HOLD. MAYBE NOT IN MY ARMS, BUT STILL PHYSICALLY.

I NOW HAVE TO CHOOSE TO REMEMBER YOU WITHOUT GUILT THAT MY BODY WAS NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO CARRY YOU TO FULL TERM. WITHOUT TORTURING MYSELF WITH WHAT OUR LIVES WOULD LOOK LIKE WITH YOU PHYSICALLY HERE TO HOLD AND LOVE ON, AND MOST GUT WRENCHING, WITHOUT IMAGINING WHAT YOUR FUTURE COULD HAVE BEEN. I KNOW THAT BECAUSE YOU ARE OUR CHILD YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN A WORLD CHANGER, AND I BELIEVE SIMPLY BY TOUCHING AND AFFECTING MY LIFE YOU ARE TO MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN MANY PEOPLE’S LIFE.

I AM PROUD TO TALK ABOUT YOU AND YOUR BRIEF LIFE. ALTHOUGH I DO NOT KNOW IF YOU WERE OUR SON OR DAUGHTER I KNOW YOU ARE EXACTLY WHO OUR FAMILY NEEDED. YOU ARE A PART OF OUR FAMILY, AND I AM FOREVER GRATEFUL FOR THE HONOR OF BEING YOUR MOMMY.”

As my words left his mouth I felt it. I felt the release I have so desperately needed. The next morning I was able to think about Olive without being mournful or sorrowful and most importantly GUILT. The part that I am most thankful for is that I also was able to release the guilt I had harbored about how I felt I was not the mother Evie deserved due to how horrible our postpartum experience was. I was in a fog. I was so wrapped up on doing everything right on paper that I did not get to experience my daughter as a baby because I defined my worth as a mother by how many ounces of breastmilk I could pump for her. Throw in a pregnancy loss and a plummet into deeper health issues I carried around so much guilt around how I mothered out of anger, fury, and desperation for our first two years.

That weight was gone.

I feel that the past two years of physical healing and finally doing what I think is best for me and our family and most recently stepping into the sacred role of matriarch for our family helped me walk through these doors to the other side of true healing and having it sealed with ceremony.

Being seen by my family and feeling honored in that respect was what I needed. Not standing in the sand not just saying the words, but being seen and revered in this transition is what I needed to experience that rite of passage. This is what was missing for me.

I woke up the next morning not feeling anxious about giving birth for the first time - not that I was afraid about labor and birth, but anxious about entering into a new chapter without closing our last. I am soaking up these last few weeks/days with my first born without guilt, and savoring all of these lasts with only one babe in the house, one in heaven, and one in my womb.