For anyone who becomes a mother within nine months of a major holiday season (and, taking into account all of the holidays within every faith and cultural tradition, that means almost everybody!) I have a radical idea for you: Simplify your idea of how the holidays will look this year. Better yet, let yourself let someone ELSE handle everything. {Read more at mothering.com}
Image:
JodyDigger through a Creative Commons license | Flickr
To anyone looking in, I was the always-gleaming, highly achieving mom of a darling baby boy. For me looking out, I felt like I was drowning. While inside I struggled, outside I strained to present a status-quo face. I wore J. Crew, prepared organic baby food, went to Mommy & Me, clenched my teeth, and tried to keep it together. I looked good on paper.
I was living what Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls the grinning depression. My mounting inner conflict made me feel like an alien in a world of seemingly happy mothers-who-adored-mothering.
The first person who helped me feel like not an alien? Not any of a stream of therapists, nor any of my studies toward my doctorate in early human development. Not my OB/GYN. I have Brooke Shields to thank for my big ah-hah. {Read the whole post at Natural Baby Pros}
If you’ve followed me much, maybe you’ve heard me say this already: motherhood brought me to my knees. Motherhood broke me open, and then brought me… sometimes kicking and screaming (literally)… through the muck of daily mothering to a fullness of selfhood I couldn’t have even begun to imagine at the beginning of the bumpy journey.
I was a walking list of risk factors for maternal depressive symptoms (often narrowly pigeon-holed as postpartum depression). Many hands, many ideas and much good guidance helped me navigate those baby, toddler and preschooler days… days that often seemed like molasses in their pace. (They could be pretty sticky, too, come to think of it!) Here are just two invaluable guiding concepts that saw me through. {Read about them at mothering.com}
Exactly 23 years ago I marveled at my 7-hour-old daughter, my Eve. In those blissful early moments I thought I might have slipped the skin of pain that had cinched me for a long time after my son’s birth 3 1/2 years earlier. But it was not to be. After a momentary grace of one season…three months…of empowered, unfreighted mothering, Life circumstances stepped in to pull me down again. Into postpartum depression, again.
As odd as it sounds, my children were both in their teens before I realized that I had experienced postpartum depression with both of them. What led to this tardy epiphany? Not the several years of deep therapeutic work with two different therapists and a variety of bodyworkers; not the many years of deep scholarly work pursuing my doctorate in early human development, including the study of pregnancy, birth and postpartum issues; and as you can probably guess, not from my own OB/GYN.
I have Brooke Shields to thank for my big ah-hah. {Read more at mothering.com}
For anyone who becomes a mother within nine months of a major holiday season (and, taking into account all of the holidays within every faith and cultural tradition, that means almost everybody!) I have a radical idea for you: Simplify your idea of how the holidays will look this year. Better yet, let yourself let someone ELSE handle everything. That way, your holidays with a new baby can be marked by joy, connection and peace — just as they’re meant to be!
This doesn’t mean that I don’t think you are up to the task of balancing the needs of your infant with brining the tenderest turkey, setting an exquisite table and hostessing with the mostest-ing. Far from it — many new moms I meet are awesomely equipped to perform impressive feats of multi-tasking magic while bouncing baby on their hips. {Read more about this at mothering.com}
Image:
SheKnowsPregnancy&Baby
My life explorations as an adopted person and my studies of the foundations of human wellbeing have consistently turned up a key element of health: the experience of and capacity for connection. Birth presents us a momentous opportunity to foster connection. It is also important to understand the costs of not staying connected after birth — whether it is due to adoption, NICU confinement, health issues in the mother, or other circumstances preventing mother-newborn connectedness. This is not about guilt or blame, but the empowerment that comes with understanding what happens with neonatal separation. {Read the rest of this post at mothering.com}
For anyone who becomes a mother within nine months of a major holiday season (and, taking into account all of the holidays within every faith and cultural tradition, that means almost everybody!) I have a radical idea for you: Simplify your idea of how the holidays will look this year. Better yet, let yourself let someone ELSE handle everything. That way, your holidays with a new baby can be marked by joy, connection and peace — just as they’re meant to be! (more…)
I was taken by the crucible called motherhood a quarter-century ago: my son Ian turns twenty-five today. The baby who was born smack on his auspicious due-date (seven-eleven!) arrived to find a mother in emotional disarray, to say the least. I have said it countless times, in keynote talks…classes for grad students…casual conversations…and even in my book: Motherhood brought me to my knees. Cracked me open. Excavated me. {read rest of post at mothering.com}
How crazy does this sound? My children were both in their teens before I realized that I had experienced postpartum depression with both of them. What led to this tardy epiphany? Not the several years of deep therapeutic work with two different therapists and a variety of bodyworkers; not the many years of deep scholarly work pursuing my doctorate in early human development, including the study of pregnancy, birth and postpartum issues; and as you can probably guess, not from my own OB/GYN.
I have Brooke Shields to thank for my big ah-hah. (more…)
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