We met someone recently and the inevitable conversation about baby no3 began. I’m less than 8 weeks until our official EDD now, and though I am of course obviously pregnant, there is often a little confusion because between my baggy clothes and constant running around/lifting T and I-R, people don’t quite believe it. Regardless, any time we meet someone new, or even the odd stranger passing by will notice, and often they will comment – the usual name and do we know what we’re having questions, the notice of small age gaps, and then the seemingly unavoidable comment of “well you’re certainly going to have your hands full aren’t you?” comes; I smile and say I know, simultaneously checking to see that Theo hasn’t clocked on to what’s been implied.

I am dreading his realisation, and hoping it doesn’t come. Because at 3, he doesn’t need to be worrying that mummy will have to juggle all her kids; he knows, in his own way… and I don’t want him to feel like that’s something undesirable. We are going to have our moments of struggle; sometimes the fear of them overwhelms me, but never, ever, do I want my little boy to feel he has to ease it. We’ll all just figure things out.

That said, this particular comment got to me. Perhaps because it was made by someone close in age, or perhaps because she too had her hands full, with 1 child. Regardless, it led me to writing, and here is what I wrote:

I wonder if people realise
How much joy and hardship come through pregnancy
Planned or unplanned
Growing a person isn’t easy
It is a privilege that we have this life
That we can make the choices we’ve made
That we can afford CHOICE in the first place

I wonder if people could see
The fear
The tears
The overwhelming joy
The panic
The blessings
The love
Always love

Would they still feel entitled to comment?
Or would they maybe hold back?

However well intentioned,
However comical it may seem,
Commenting on someone’s life choices
Is not as simple as one may deem.

When we think before we speak,
We action love and understanding.
It may not seem important,
But for someone it’ll be like landing
Somewhere soft and warm and safe
Instead of putting up their guard.

Because no-mattter what we may appear
Life is often hard

Our conversation wasn’t long. Our kids played together in the rain happily, oblivious to us and our small talk. Then Theo asked me to chase him in a game we made months ago, and Ila-Rae began to gain confidence on the park slide. Comments forgotten, parenting at 100% back full time.

Then we came home. Nothing special, nothing big… but it’s had me thinking, reflecting and learning – and writing. Because how can I teach my children about life lessons, appropriate behaviour, and kindness, if I don’t model AND stand up for it myself?

What would you do?
Have you been in a similar situation ? How did you handle it?

xox

Rohana

Touched out is a term I came across with my first child; it was a saying that seemed so relevant, and alleviated a fair amount of guilt I had been feeling surrounding my want for space.

I loved my son, but I was solo parenting and exhausted, and so understanding that I wasn’t alone in this feeling brought some comfort. But it did little to solve the actual feeling; knowing other mums also wanted a break gave me a sense of solidarity, and yet, I was still exhausted – and so were they. So why did we not do anything about it? It ignited a rage in me, one that would rear up in moments of burn out, and would simmer down when I caught that break.

Life, for so many women it seems, is a series of events where we burn ourselves out, and then get angry, chase that sense of relief and ‘self-care’ (a term I am really beginning to dislike), and then do it all over again. For mothers, this seems to be even more pronounced, with the average mum getting an average of 17 minutes alone time per day – it’s no wonder we’re touched out!

Last weekend that rage and exhaustion has reared its head again for me. But rather than leave it at that, I’m digging deeper – something I haven’t done before. I journaled a little in the midst of tears, both from my children and myself, and though an unconventional way to process feelings, I think by doing so, in the midst of them, getting to the root of emotion is easier.

Often I feel there is a hype surrounding journaling, one myself I have felt, but for mums, when we rarely get the chance to sit alone and just write, I think leaving it until the ‘right’ moment often means the depth of emotion fades, and we begin the cycle once again of telling ourselves all is well – until it’s not.

My writing brought up a lot;

• Resent for my partner – for his ability to switch off in a way I often cannot.
• Resent for my children – for the constant needs
• Resent for society – for the guilt I feel surrounding this exhaustion
• Resent for myself – for letting the cycle continue.

Resent for myself is the ugly one.

It’s easy to lay blame, say it is because our children need us so much, or because our partners didn’t unload the washing machine, or spent too much time on their hobby when the kids were in bed. It’s also easier blame society because we are conditioned into a view of womanhood, and specifically motherhood that often creates a martyr mother as ‘good’ and a mother who prioritises her needs as ‘selfish’. Yet, when we peel back all those layers, there’s more depth than that.

When we allow ourselves to see that actually there isn’t just 1 reason that we’re feeling this exhaustion, we start to see that the bigger picture we focus on for our family NEEDS to include a space for us. Whether it’s a shower every morning with music playing so you can’t hear the kids, or leaving the dishes for morning so you can catch that 10 minutes reading time, or saying no to your child because your needs matter too; it’s the little moments that build up into a big picture.

It isn’t rocket science (though sometimes it feels like that’d be preferable!). There is a lot of ‘self care’ culture constantly floating around – on social media, Youtube, podcasts and of course magazines etc… but the problem is that it often leaves us feeling more burnt out – because we must be doing it wrong if we can’t even manage self care right? WRONG.

The industry of self care is increasingly toxic, so honestly, if you can, avoid it! Entirely. Focus instead on little changes. Self care doesn’t have to be long baths, manicures or spa days – though it can be. It can look like getting enough sleep, eating healthy food and skipping the night time tea (or switching to decaf), it might be reading alongside your kids or making a meal plan so there is less mental load. Essentially, it’s about moving from feeling touched out to feeling tuned in.

This week, I’m lowering the bar and checking in. I’m continuing to practice taking 3 deep, full breaths and returning to presence (something I’m working on via an ongoing course I’m taking with Jodi), and I am focusing on 5 things to moved away from exhaustion and the anxiety I was feeling over the weekend. They are:

• Starting bedtime 15/20 minutes earlier for the kids – this may mean they still sleep at the same time, but it allows me to feel like we have time to take things slow, read another book, or roughhouse on the way to brush teeth
• Eat ice cream before bed – it sounds silly but it makes me happy AND reduces my nighttime heartburn (pregnancy heartburn is awful!) so it’s a small thing I can action easily
• Write – even if its not in a notebook/journal, I can voicenote thoughts on my phone or type into notes and then process them later. I feel like this is more accessible than setting the goal to write every day in my journal because sometimes the moments gone, or I’m just too tired!
• Prep for the morning – when we start the day off with something ready for the kids to get stuck into OR at least the playroom tidy enough to be appealing, the general mood is much sweeter than if we start it with duplo under my feet or magnet tiles on the stairs! So 10 minutes of a quick proper tidy before bed helps a lot!
• Eat real food – even though my body only really wants snacks and small nibbles at the moment, I am weighing up the need to fuel my body in order to function properly … and if I am strict and actually eat properly then I am a calmer and happier human, and of course baby3 isn’t taking all the resources and leaving me on empty.

5 things… none of them require much more than a few minutes… starting bedtime early is probably the hardest one, but 2 days in and I can feel the difference already. With Harrison out the house for most of the week (Monday-Thursday), it’s feeling extra important to take these small steps as I navigate my way out of the trough of this cycle.

Hopefully, the cycle starts to fade – it takes a lot of work to break them, but I know I’m doing it not only for myself, but my children, grandchildren and their children after that too …

xox

Rohana

Birth plans remind me of hospitals, so instead I’m calling this my birth guide – flexible but strong, and really rooted in exactly what I want; an empowering birth at home, with my babies around to meet their new sibling.

I’ve included my pronouns (she/her) in an effort not only to notify the birth team that I refer to myself in this way, but also to highlight and emphasise the importance of checking, every time. The birth world is moving towards inclusivity, and though it’s long overdue, it’s a step forward in the rights of transgender birthing people; and so if a birth team gets used to seeing pronouns on a guide, it becomes normal – I think even though I fall into the she/her category which most birth teams will use automatically, it feels important to include them.

Keeping it simple and easy to read with minimal text should help information to be picked out easily.

Interventions – I have emphasised that I do NOT want any; because while they may be useful when needed, I know that often, 1 intervention leads to another and I want to feel in control of what is happening. I trust my body, and I also trust my birth partners to let me know if I really do need to consider something more radical.

Pain relief – water works magic. I’ve read about sterile water injects, and may add them to the list, but haven’t made my mind up, and haven’t discussed them with my midwife yet (which I intend to do). We’ve hired a pool, and so for now I am pretty content with that; and though I have never used one, I thought having a TENS machine might be useful – I’m quite excited really!

Environment – did you know that most mammals give birth best in late evening or nighttime? It’s why there is a stereotype about labour starting the in the middle of the night.. though of course it doesn’t happen for everyone. Low light, quiet conditions often signal safety and warmth, comfort and a sense of hyyge, so we our bodies feel like we are in the ideal space to bring our babies earthside. Going into a hospital with bright lights and lots of noise often interrupts that feeling of hyyge, and so this saying comes to mind: “the first intervention in birth is stepping out the door.” I don’t know who said it, but it feels extremely apt.

The first intervention in birth is stepping out the door.

Labour – meaning Active labour – is something that most people focus on the most, but somehow for me, after Ila-Rae’s birth, I am the least bit concerned about this stage. I know the waves will come, I know I will breathe them away, and I know there will be a point I feel I cannot continue. But birthing my daughter empowered me to trust my body in it’s primal instincts, so my guide says to allow the natural fetal ejection reflex, because I am confident my body will know what to do.

I hope that Theo and Ila will be awake for the last hours, so that they can be there when their new sibling arrives; but that, I have neither confidence nor control over, so it’s there, it’s a hope, but it’s not something I am worrying much about.

I trust my body.

My body and soul are working together to birth my baby

My baby is an active member of their birth story

All these affirmations are ones I have made into cards, to hang in the birth space, and to ground me on the day.

Lastly, postpartum – do most people plan for this? I have included the first hours of immediate postpartum in this guide, but I am also creating a postpartum guide for the weeks and months ahead. After all, birthing a human means we are born anew as well – and nourishing myself, though it feels a little radical, is so important.

I encapsulated my placenta after my 2nd birth but haven’t planned for that this time, instead I am still trying to decide what we will do. It is probably the one thing I regret not planning for sooner; but my hope is that in the next 8 weeks I’ll figure it out, because the placenta is sacred, and the idea of it going to waste is not one I can comprehend.

It makes sense that the placenta almost looks like a tree with many branches – a tree of life.

Ricki Lake

Skin to skin, golden hour, delayed cord clamping; these are all becoming more normal so there isn’t much radical there… I requested all of these with my 1st born, and though there was a little chaos around his birth, for the most part we were able to have at least a little time. With my 2nd, we had almost 3 glorious hours of unrushed skin to skin and bonding for both H and me… this time, there isn’t anywhere to move, nobody telling H to drive home and no rush to change, so I am dreaming of a slow and sleepy immediate postpartum, where we can just stay within our bubble of bliss.

It is the time I am most excited for our photographer to capture too, especially those first moments with Theo and Ila-Rae.

Overall this birth guide isn’t asking for much, but it also isn’t asking because I know what I want, and what is realistic. It’s a guide, it’s flexible and it’s something tangible too.

Did you plan for birth? Are you planning? Is there something here that’s made you think? If so, I hope it’s helped.

Xox

Rohana

When the pandemic hit in 2020, I was fortunate enough to have already found Eloise Rickman on social media and given the spare time we suddenly had, I signed up to her course ‘A Beautiful Education’. Home educating had been something I had noncommittally thought about since Theo was around 18 months, when I really began to plan activities and see how our everyday life allowed him to thrive.

But it seemed so radical.

My friends and family didn’t really have any resources for me, and it was (and is) a very out of the ‘norm’ within the circles I was in. So I hadn’t given it much serious thought – until my husband had a breakdown and got some time off work, and suddenly this course came up, so we did it together. Timing with the pandemic was a total coincidence, and somehow, for our family it worked out perfectly.

I began to really consider the reality of home educating – and I began to dream of the years that we would gain. The time we could spend together, and the amount of memories would create as a family, learning together – without any pressures of time or school years and curriculum. It seemed too good to be true. I listed the pro’s and con’s…

The reasons hardly seemed to compare; I had very concrete positives, and abstract worries… and so we decided to roll with it; give it the year and make the choice before Theo was due to start school. Harrison returned to work and Theo turned 3, gaining allocated childcare hours at nursery – so he went, for some. The nursery staff were fantastic, and some very supportive of delaying education where possible; so suddenly I was not only hearing about home ed online, but having real life conversations and support too.

There is no school equal to a decent home, and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent. ~ Ghandi

In the year, this quote has reminded me many times that no-matter how much I feel like I’m not doing enough, we are all learning and living together; and that is more than good enough. So as 4 loomed, and school placements were being discussed, I returned to our WHY, and added to it. Designing a simple and beautiful print for our home, so that when I feel worried or unsure, I can return to the reasons about our decision.

But I also know, that at any time, if it’s not working for us, we can choose to change our minds. That’s the beauty of home educating for us, we get to CHOOSE.

Print (customizable) will be available from a Shop, coming soon…

Today we woke up after a long night of baby teething, snotty nosed snoring and Ila-Rae crying for more bottle but not wanting the milk when she had it. It was a groggy Monday and if I had let it set the tone for my week I would be in for a miserable one!

I’m used to running on little sleep, but I do see the impact of a bad night versus a decent one… so instead of starting the day with books and breakfast, I went to the kitchen, made myself a tea and grabbed some fruit for skewers. We had a picnic breakfast right in our bed with me enjoying the warmth of my tea instead of leaving it to get cold while chasing cranky toddlers around.

I sat there with them, watching them push the fruit onto skewers as I bounced on the birth ball – something I am trying to get them used to because we’re into the final months of pregnancy now – and all I could think was, how perfect this morning actually was.

My beautiful babies had muslin cloths behind them for runny noses, Theo was still sleepy and almost stabbed himself with the skewer, Ila-Rae was half crying about her molars and half concentrating on the apple she held; and I bounced there with a tea and my notebook, marveling at how lucky we are that this was our Monday morning.

No rush for school or nursery

No push for books or experiments or class

No specific reason to go downstairs

So I grabbed my pen and wrote out the first half of my fantasy labour – and it started exactly like this morning… with a beautiful slowness and peace. With me watching my children and allowing love to take over entirely.

I began to create the perfect image of my love bubble… and though of course nothing is set in stone; I am going to try and manifest exactly this for us. This morning, in 2 months time… slow, peaceful, filled with small laughs and concentrated faces. A perfectly ordinary morning, and yet an extraordinary day.

Xox

Rohana

A few weeks ago, when my husband was at work we had a particularly hard morning. My anxiety was really making it hard for me to focus on what the kids needed, and I found myself watching the way I was getting irritated and snappy, for almost no reason at all.

So, though there were some protests from Theo, we went out.

Usually, I always try and give ample warning before an outing, so even though he can’t say no – though he is always allowed to say he doesn’t want to – he knows beforehand and can mentally prepare. I try and talk through getting ready, getting snacks and make a fuss of jackets and shoes. This time, I didn’t. But though he said he wanted to stay home, within minutes of getting out the door, the wildness in him comes through and he was racing ahead as ‘leader’ towards the woodland walk.

We walked, Ila-Rae had the option of being carried, but for the most part, we walked.

We had a small picnic and they watched the ants crawl on the crumbs and crust that fell as they ate.

We fed the ducks, and we watched the ducklings.

They ran, and played, and sat and watched.

I joined in it all… and outside, the to-do list of chores, the household errands and the ache of exhaustion faded.

Before going home we settled on a bench for a while, looking at the trees and water… talking about how the ground felt under Theo’s now bare feet. We spoke about being careful when there was glass, but also about how our feet on the earth grounds us, and connects us to the world.

He may be 3 but he is an old soul… and though I thought he might not notice much, he did – he understood the earth beneath him, and how it is part of the trees, and water, and world. I cannot remember what he said, but I remember watching him. I remember feeling the opening of my heart a little more, and the sigh my body took… and I know all I could think was, the trees are magic, and they have some of that magic inside them.

How incredible is it I get to share a little of that?

Xox

Rohana