hemorrhaging away our resources

Post-birth hemorrhaging is life threatening.

Heavy, excessive menstrual bleeding every month depletes us of our vital energy stores.

Prioritizing things that utilize our funds without actually replenishing us in one way or another is like having a hole in our metaphorical gas tank — we work to keep it full, but never actually get very far.

It’s all the same thing.

This had crossed my mind the other day, how important this truth really is. Because yes, a hemorrhage is an immediate emergency — but dwindling away our resources due to mindlessness, carelessness, or lack of awareness is also just as damaging, only a much slower burn.

We all wish we had more of something — more time, money, love, energy, space, connection, clothing, on and on and on.

But when we pause to see what actually matters and start to prioritize those things, we come to realize that our resources are far more abundant than we’d been led to believe. Like watering dead flowers and then wondering why there’s not more beauty around us — when we start pouring that energy instead into the things that offer life, we get to watch them bloom and flourish. It’s a matter of where we choose to put our “water.”

Postpartum support often doesn’t get a second thought beyond, “Ohhh, we can’t afford that,” until a momma is barely treading water in the loneliness that an undersupported post-birth experience can be.

Or you look to the momma of many, pregnant with her second, third, maybe fourth baby, who already knows what it is to be without support in those early days — she knows full and well the value of planning for her rest time and surrounding herself with people she loves, trusts, and desires to have in her space as she recovers from birth and creates that sacred bond with her infant.

The residual effects of undersupported motherhood seeps into every single thing.

Partnerships that are not well supported struggle when the roots of their foundation are disrupted by the changing, shifting, and transforming that takes place in, through, and beyond the birth process. Women in birth are called to become completely new creations — when their men are not fully aware of the realities of this, they often have a really challenging time relating to this newest version of the woman they love so dearly, maybe even feeling displaced and unsure of where their value is within the new family dynamic. Feeling this, while also watching their woman struggle through exhaustion, breast feeding challenges, and/or trying to soothe a fussing baby only exemplifies this feeling of “What do I do?” Wise, experienced support people are the key to guiding them through this. — it only adds more to the momma’s plate when the whole family unit is not supported. She cannot do it all all on her own and stay well.

Women who are not well supported are less able to establish that really healthy, comfortable, and sustainable breastmilk supply and latch, and to also spend the time it takes to really attach to their newborn. The long term effects of early attachment are threaded into every piece of how and who that baby will grow up to be (if you haven’t yet, see “that one time at jury duty” for more in depth explanation.)

When we don’t value the things that bring us life and sustain us, we waste our resources on things that only further deplete us.

It’s the classic scenario — people tend to be willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on their wedding day, a single day in the span of their entire lives, but will then nickel and dime the midwives and postpartum care providers in order to “save money” for the birth of the baby who merges their bloodlines and carries on their family name. Mind you, an experience that will shape every part of who they are as parents and how their baby is introduced into the world, a story that imprints into our physical beings in ways we don’t even fully acknowledge yet.

Wild, yeah?

So, for the mommas and the daddys out there who know how absolutely essential it is to be held well in the cocoon of the sacred postpartum time, I am here for you and I would be so honored to support you through this hugely transformational time in your lives.

Reach out.

Ask questions.

Let’s see if we’re a good fit.

I offer postpartum care because I see the effects of un/undersupported families as a major fracture that’s been normalized in our culture and communities that we can fix. The birth of your children is a sacred welcoming and ought to be honored as such.

xoxox,

Gab