After taking 6 months to adjust to motherhood and nurture my little guy I am finally back to blogging (as consistently as I can). I am truly excited to share my new perspective as a mom and hope my anecdotes and experiences thus far will help you all!
In today’s world, as women we are expected to be superheroes, supermodels, CEO’s, super moms, and super wives, which shouldn’t be a big deal right? With tremendous pressure to be the BEST at everything–
I believe we are setting ourselves up for waves of guilt, shame, and dissatisfaction when we fail to meet unrealistic expectations.
Life really is a journey and no one has the manual. For me, honesty is the best policy and with so much “everything is perfect” on the internet, I feel it’s my duty to authentically share my pregnancy, postpartum and new motherhood experiences!
I would love to start with guilt! The moment you take a positive pregnancy test, you become struck with what I like to call “mama pain” aka EXTREME GUILT.... Everything you will do from that second onward in your mind will have a direct correlation with the success of your child and anything not perfect you do going forward may result in an overload of “mama pain.” I really tried to abide by an organic/natural lifestyle during my pregnancy but I also really tried to be easy on myself. I avoided alcohol, unpasteurized cheeses, undercooked/raw foods and so on but I also indulged in a highly delicious diet, which included carbs with a side of carbs :). I did acupuncture, prenatal yoga and spent many evenings on my couch choosing Bravo over the gym.
Pregnancy is not only a period to nurture your growing baby but it really is a time to nurture yourself.
I felt waves of anxiety throughout the 9 months and never really experienced the glow. As much as I could not wait to be a mother, I was also extremely on edge because every feeling was new and it was difficult to for me to be calm! In order to overcome guilt based on certain decisions I made (future blogs) I spoke to different experts who helped me realize my guilt was really just an expression of tremendous love and care wanting everything to go perfectly for my son. One of the most most profound people I spoke to was a holistic pediatrician Dr. Cowan, who said "we learn through trial and error, we do not learn through perfection." He also said "always remember to forgive yourself for being human." I play these jewels of information on repeat whenever I feel a pang of guilt.