postpartum sanctuary planning

How do you plan to honor baby’s placenta?

Who, outside of your husband, are your layers of support? Who are the people you can count on to run random errands? Who are the people you feel comfortable with seeing you in bed, naked, learning to breastfeed your baby?

What do you want your first meal to be post-birth?

There is no single right answer to any of these questions — but how many women are actually pondering these things before they come face to face with them? How are we being prepared for the basic things that will matter most in the early days of motherhood, when every single thing is so fresh and new, and can be such a challenge? Of course we plan for the baby shower or the blessingway, we research the car seats, we have the prenatal visits and check the boxes. But how do we prepare for the things we’re not really thinking about when there are other pieces that feel so much more pressing?

This.. this is what I wish I would have had prior to crossing the threshold that birth is.

One of the most valuable things in pregnancy is having connection to and relationship with someone who helps us to expand into our new self, to help us plan and prepare for the unknown we are walking into. This is the vision for the Sacred Sister postpartum care I offer to women, with the essential piece of connection and conversation all throughout pregnancy. It’s relationship building that some women simply don’t get anywhere else in their prenatal care, that follows through all way into postpartum. And it’s the corner stone of it all. Because meeting someone for the first time, or allowing someone into your very vulnerable space, that you’ve only talked with a few times, when your nipples are tender and your whole sleep rhythm just got rocked is not the most comfortable way we can be doing this. Physiologically our body goes into protection mode, the nervous system responses of fight, flight, or freeze, when what we’re needing is to be in complete safety and relaxation — where we can easily rest, digest, and integrate all we’ve just done.

We need someone who will ask us the questions we wouldn’t have ever thought to ask ourselves. Someone who has resources and sets pearls of wisdom into our hands to help us create our own story. It’s not about being “fully prepared”, because what does that even mean in the context of birth and postpartum? Is that even attainable? Surely there are unknowns we will face in the early days post-birth, and this is where having a well built nest and circle of support is essential. What we’re aiming for in all of this is to prepare ourself in the ways we can, to build awareness of what it is we want, what the potentials are and how we feel about them, and scaffolding ourselves with the things we’ll need and the support we deserve through this major experience.

Hospital visits don’t provide us with the pondering type of questions that prepare us for the long-term of our postpartum recovery post-birth. Even midwifery care, depending on who you are working with, varies so much as far as true relationship building goes. And even the best midwives do not have the capacity to spend several hours a day, several days a week, for several weeks with each mother they witness and support. It’s simply not enough and was never meant to be the only type of care we receive. Yet, how many women are getting regular care beyond this?

I’m envisioning something that thus far I’ve never heard of before, but I see is so needed.

I want to offer stand-alone prenatal postpartum planning sessions. Because each woman is so individually unique, I realize that the care she receives too must be custom fit to what makes the most sense for her and the whole big picture of her life. Her desires, her worries, her finances, her time. Realistically.

I see that this could be a moment in time that helps set the foundational stones that so many women aren’t be handed in the ways that actually matter.

To be continued on all of the details of this, but I am envisioning sessions together where we explore questions, maybe what your birth vision is, how in your mind’s eye you are seeing your postpartum sanctuary, the look, the feel, the sounds. Helping you create a checklist of things that will help you really settle into your nest once your baby is in your arms. This way, women who are looking to dip their toes into the waters of what this care is have an attainable starting place without pressure in any direction — scheduling as many sessions as makes sense for her. Maybe an afternoon, maybe many.

I’d love to hear any thoughts or questions you have on this newest offering I am planning. What are components you’d like to see included in this? For mommas of many, how do you feel this type of support would have influenced your experience of birth and postpartum recovery?

Let me know <3

G