If you’re pregnant, send this to your partner! If you’re the partner, keep reading. I’d love to suggest one of the best, most thoughtful, lasting gifts you can buy for Mother’s Day.
One that’s effect will ripple out a hundredfold in the years to come.
It isn’t a gift you can wrap…
Ready?
Invest in a doula.
Yep. A doula. Birth support that you can rely on. Postpartum support that will genuinely nourish you.
Studies show having a doula present at your birth reduces chances of unwanted interventions, lowers cesarean rates and significantly improves the way families feel about their birth, even if it didn’t go to plan.
Starting off with support and nourishment means that will set you up in parenting.
Starting feeling supported, listened to, respected and nurtured is a heck of a lot better than feeling emotionally exhausted, ignored and violated.
So find a doula in your local area
Message them
And give your partner the gift of genuine support. She will remember it for a lot longer than flowers and chocolate, I promise!
And if your local area is Helensburgh, drop me a message. I’m offering 15% off 2 doula support packages booked by the 31st of March – payment plans are available.
Flowers wilt, chocolate melts, doulas bring both, along with the support that impacts you for life.
New beginnings. Momentum. Goals. Big leaps. Bold moves. All the things.
But what if you’re pregnant?
What if you’re stepping into a season that asks you to slow down in order to keep up rather than speed up?
What if you’re in a space right now where everything feels too big, too much, all the changes and fears, all the hopes and dreams, and the idea of stepping back feels impossible. If that’s you, I hear it – its HARD. Especially with so much unknown. But this baby brings medicine. Their fire is growing in you, so slowing down is vital, for both of you.
The Truth About Fire Horse Babies
Fire Horse babies are special.
The last Year of the Fire Horse was 1966 — and in places like Japan, it was surrounded by deep superstition. There was a long-held belief that girls born in a Fire Horse year would grow up to be headstrong, fierce, and difficult to marry. So much so that birth rates dropped as families chose to avoid having babies that year.
Let that sink in.
An entire generation feared because of their potential fire.
Learning this now, I can’t help but feel that Fire Horse babies are not something to fear — they are an essential ingredient in a changing world. The very qualities once labeled “too much” are exactly what we are being called into now: courage, independence, conviction, heat.
Maybe the world has always needed them, but now more than ever.
If You’re Pregnant Right Now
Being pregnant in a Fire Horse year might mean you’re feeling everything more deeply, and I truly believe that that’s not weakness – it’s your inner wisdom surfacing.
Pregnancy cracks us open. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually. It strips away what no longer fits, heightens intuition, amplifies truth. We can be incredibly creative, and especially sensitive, things that serve us long after our babies are earthside.
It’s not meant to be easy, but it shouldn’t be lonely or destructive either.
We are social mammals. We are designed for community. For touch. For shared stories. For being witnessed as we grow the next generation inside our bodies.
If you’re questioning everything: good. You should.
The systems surrounding birth and motherhood are not serving women the way they should. Many of them exhaust us, rush us, silence us. So think carefully about who you want in your space when you birth. Who holds your nervous system steady? Who honors your intuition? Who sees you as wise and trustworthy? That choice can change everything.
You deserve to be nurtured. You deserve to be held. You deserve to feel safe as you openthe portal and birth your earthling, whatever that looks like for you.
The Fire Horse Runs, But that is not all
Yes, the Fire Horse runs. It carries momentum. It brings heat and acceleration. This is something social media keeps showing us. But horses are also deeply attuned creatures. Their electromagnetic field is 5 times stronger than ours, which means they amplify what’s already present.
So if your pregnancy is asking for stillness… for rest… for self-compassion… The Fire Horse isn’t fighting that.
It’s doubling down on it.
Momentum doesn’t always mean speed. Sometimes it means depth. Sometimes it means small, consistent commitment. Sometimes it means rooting down, and trusting that the rise will come.
The Medicine of a Fire Horse Baby
Reading all this, and sitting with it, I believe that if you are pregnant right now, your Fire Horse baby may be the medicine you didn’t know you needed. And honestly, medicine you probably don’t want right now.
Because medicine isn’t always comfortable -it stretches us, burning away illusions, demanding growth, and asking us to trust.
Can you trust yourself in ways you never have before?
It’s hard and we resist the unknown, we seek the comfort, even when it holds us back – and these new babies are gently, but firmly (or in some cases wildly!) forcing us to stop, slow down, take the bitter pill and wake up. It feels icky and hard, but the lessons will ripple well into parenthood.
The work you do now — even the quiet, invisible work of resting when the world says run — will pay dividends in the months and years to come.
Fire Horse energy isn’t just about chasing the horizon.
It’s about becoming strong enough to hold it.
So let the energy grow with your baby… lean in, and reach out – seek support, stay the path. I hope your fire horse baby brings all the joy, strength and fierceness that was feared all those years ago – because goodness knows we need it!
The way a baby is born impacts them on some level for their whole life.
The way they are born. The people around them. The environment they enter this world into.
Baby’s born into war carry that, (if they survive) into the life they live and it physically alters the DNA of their decendants. This has been heavily weighing on my mind this week, as we watch the events in the middle East unfold- with little to no voice given to the reality birthing women and babies are facing.
Baby’s born into immense privilege carry it too… though not always in the ways we might assume. Privilege often equates to a certain amount of resources over and above others. In the birth world, it’s a little more nuanced than that.
Assuming that you’re birthing outside of a war zone then; what impact does the environment of birth really have? It matters deeply, not just for babies but for mothers and partners too.
We cannot prepare for the future without embracing the meaning and the relevance of the baby’s perspective on life.
-Michel Odent
We know that mothers birthing in supported environments where they feel safe and nurtured pass this information on to their babies. The same is true for mothers who birth in conditions of big T and little t trauma. From hospitals to birthing centers to home births, the space you birth will shape everything from the medical interventions used to the emotional atmosphere surrounding your birth. After numerous conversations about why thinking about this as early on as possible matters, I thought I’d write a little on it.
Choosing where to give birth is a deeply personal decision. The assumption that everyone has the information and resources to choose the way they want is one I just cannot make. Socio-economic factors come into play, race, ethnicity and culture too. In the UK (at least at the time of writing in 2024), you can legally choose where you birth, and that choice can absolutely impact the way your birth story plays out.
Ultimately, its your choice, so get informed! There are far too many women told they can only birth in hospital when truly they do have other options. Equally, if the idea of birthing anywhere outside a hospital gives you shudders, then planning that ahead matters.
I want to preface the next few passages by highlighting that ultimately I believe every single baby comes earthside in the way they need to, with their unique birth resourcing them in various ways.
What are your options?
Hospital, Birth Centre, Home. I won’t chat freebirth, that’s for another day.
Hospitals are the high tech options, sold to us as high safety, but also the space where the highest levels of birth trauma exist. Hopstials are supposed to be safe – and when they work, they are a blessing. More and more though, especially for women who have no or low ‘risk’ factors the hosptial birth story isn’t a happy one.
Hospitals represent the standard choice for childbirth, they are normalised in the media we consume right from childhood, and other spaces are considered ‘alternative’ or even a little radical. There are an array of medical interventions and expertise available, with health care professionals and a full range of technology on hand to monitor baby and mother throughout labour. There’s access to all sorts of interventions and pain relief options, and of course surgery.
While a cesarean birth can be lifesaving; for many of us in the birth world, we can see that it is the interventions prior that snowballed a healthy birth into an emergency. The conveyor belt system of induction and cesarean births is all a bit too neatly boxed up; and it takes away from the rite of passage birth physiologically is.
Hospital births are often a ticket to the trauma train because procedure trumps real life experience, and women are often gaslit, ignored, or violated. Circling back to babies, this also means babies are being ignored, assaulted and sent the information that the world is scary and unsafe.
Birth is nearly never an emergency, but sometimes it is. If you need to prioritise safety with medical resources, then a hospital birth is a blessing.
If you don’t… Read on.
A birth centre/midwife unit:
Birth centres are often described as kind of like the middle ground between hospital and home. They’re quieter, often offer a pool, can have the lights dimmed and try to be as warm and cosy as possible. Most birth centers will try to encourage birth to be as intervention free as possible, and I’ve heard of some beautiful birth stories with supportive staff in them.
However, with the ever increasing agenda to streamline birth (and yes this is the agenda), more birth centres are being closed or told they can’t operate fully because of staffing levels. Midwife units cannot support birthing women if they aren’t supported themselves; which means being able to access these is getting harder. Added to this is the fact most of them are for babies being born physiologically with little / no risk, and will turn away women who don’t their box.
This isn’t without reason, birth centres aren’t equipped to navigate emergencies or complications, and so err on the slide of caution. Birth centres can be some of the most beautiful, supportive and nurturing spaces, and midwives often go above and beyond to make them so… but they need to be given the resources for that to happen.
Home births:
For a healthy woman, the first intervention in birth and labour is leaving home. This is something I learned only after my 2nd child, and having had both hospital and home births myself, it is something I wholly believe to be true. As a woman, I know my homebirths were far more positive than my hospital ones, and I only got here through research and experience.
As a doula who wholeheartedly supports informed choices, I will never tell a potential client where to birth, but I will absolutely encourage you to really think about what that means to you.
Homebirths are growing in popularity, becoming something many mothers return to. I don’t see this as a a coincidence, it is a remembering. A remembering that sovereign birth is something we all have the right to. A return to reclaim the power of birth. Homebirths are in the comfort of your own space, so autonomy comes more naturally. You aren’t entering someone else’s space, they are visiting yours as a support system for you.
You can choose the environment, the lights the music etc, and if you decide you want to transfer, then that’s okay. It’s a choice you make. For first time mothers, there’s evidence to say that home births are far less traumatic, bonding feels easier and healing is quicker. Because in your space, generally speaking you feel safer, therefore all these processes don’t need to be big and hard, they can flow with ease. You can take breaks, chill out, zone out, and rest without interruption or inspection. There’s a reason mammals find/create dark quiet spaces for birthing, it is a primal instinct to do so. Humans like to think we are different, but hardly so.
Before I sign off, I have a question for you. Did you birth in more than one of these settings? What were your experiences of thr difference ? If you feel called to and safe to share, get in touch. I’d be honoured to hear from you.
I’ve been thinking about birth plans a lot recently. About how we approach them as a society, how women are often told one of 2 things – that they must make one for their team to be on the same page, or not to bother because nobody’s going to read it anyway. Birth is treated like a ‘to do list’ activity, with no real consideration of the humans it involves.
I’ve been thinking about how these 2 polarising options presented to mothers-to-be are focusing on how birth plans are impacting other people. They are either necessary for autonomy and choices to be honoured- but are they? Or they are a hinderence and going to be ignored. Neither of these give any consideration into how a pregnant woman (and their partner) is impacted by creating these plans.
So who is a birth plan for truely, if not for the person who’s body is actually going to open and bring life earthside?
Heres my twopence.
Your birth plan isn’t for your team. It isn’t pointless. It doesn’t have to be meticulously planned. Your birth plan can be scribbled on a notebook, voice noted into an app, created with deliberate and careful care, or anything in between.
Whether you’re planning a freebirth, home birth, hospital birth or an elective cesarean, making a plan is one of those things that comes up as a “must do” while you prep for birth, and yet nobody really explains why. It’s for you. It’s for your partner if you have one. It’s for your baby. Because in making a plan, setting intentions for how you want the story to unfold and talking about it, either in your head or out loud, you are communicating with your baby, letting them know there is a plan.
When you change the way you view birth, the way you birth will change. ~ Marie Mongan
We (individually and collectively) can’t control every little thing that’s going to happen, because the nature of birth is that it is unique and out of our control every single time. That said, when we don’t plan, then we don’t really know what we want. In birth, and in life, it’s important to know where our boundaries are.
If you don’t know what you want, then you don’t know what you don’t want.
When you make a plan, you get to decide what is a non-negotiable, and what you’re willing to be flexible about. You get to prepare for this immense transition, and stand in your power through it. In the same way that athletes visualise their win, you can visualise the birth story you want to create with your baby. By doing this, you’re energetically telling the universe that this is the plan- even without writing a single thing down.
I will always say, write things down. When you do, the neurons in your brain form stronger pathways, and your intentions are built with stronger foundations. But even if pen never touches paper, even if not a single plan or intention is spoken out loud, just by visualising it, you’re on the way.
Okay Rohana but is 1 birth plan enough? What should I include? What happens if I want to have a water birth or a home birth and then things change? What if I’m planning a cesarean? Where do I start?
I asked myself all of these questions and more when I was planning my most recent birth. I had made birth plans before, but this one was a freebirth, so I wanted to be extra resourced. I thought long and hard, I journalled, I visualised, I made lists and researched a lot… and I ended up with 3 plans. For me, 3 was enough, for someone else, it might be more.
From those plans, I’ve created this checklist for you, so you can spend more time in the zone of creation and build your support bubble, and less time fretting about whether you’ve thought about everything.
Mostly I tell clients that if they’re making a plan, 2 – 4 plans is best, not to just make the 1. Why? Because there is so much possibility and I’m the kind of control freak (in some areas of life) that needs to prep for the various scenarios ‘just in case’. Creating 1 ideal, everything goes right plan, and 1 emergency plan is the minimum… then there’s the option to flesh out interventions, changes and variations in the middle.
It might like a lot of work, or like youre considering all the ways things could go ‘wrong’, but actually youre taking your power into a situation, where if anything less than your ideal plan happens, you are still sovereign and prepared. It means you’re not throwing your hands in the air or just hoping for the best. It means you are advocating for yourself and for new baby, and if your birthing within the system -regardless of the way you intend to birth- this advocacy is an immensely important muscle to be flexing right from the start.
So, should you make a birth plan – the short answer is yes.
The long answer, is you should make multiple, with different scenarios and different supports. You should advocate hard, and build a foundation of cheerleaders who will hold space for you and nourish you while you labour. You should make your plans in a way that feels good… in a way that is a kind of self care exercise, and a way that bonds you and baby even more. You should share your plans with those who’ll be around, and talk to baby about how you want them to arrive. Make many plans, and resource yourself to aim for the number 1.
I shared about my birth plans yesterday, but before that, I shared a little on my socials about it, in relation to our home ed, life and preparing for baby. One of the things that got picked up was about our placenta plans, which I fully get, because I have absolutely had alllllll the reactions going when people find out I not only keep my placentas, but I consume them!
The thing is, family isn’t always going to get it. Friends won’t either, but it’s a little different.
Our families are meant to be our safe space, the habour for our ship to dock in, as a friend so beautifully put it chatting the other day. They are supposed to be the people we turn to for support and encouragement… but more often than not, that isn’t how it works.
It used to bother me. I felt like I should appease people, and I was big in my fawn response around pretty much everything, but especially parenting as a new mum. I thought I should take all the advice and listen and implement and try and do things the same, so that we’d be more connected… or something like that. Rohana from back then had a lot of shit to sift through.
Now, I love being challenged and standing my ground. It feels shaky as hell, and I will have a felt sense reaction to it sometimes, but the more I’m challenged, the more I get to see why I choose the life I choose, and why I feel this way. I’m not mad or even affected by this particular issue, because though I was called ‘weird’ I actually love being weird. I love knowing that I am making choices in full autonomy and modelling that for my kids too.
So, when family doens’t get it, do we change, or do we hunker down and get clearer on our reasoning? The latter serves our mental health and relationship to ourselves so much more!
Navigating these situations isn’t always fun, and though I quite enjoy it now, I absolutely didn’t years ago… so if you’re reading this and resonating with the fawn and the discomfort, here’s some things that helped me a lot:
7-11 breathing (a winner in many many life situations)
Nadhi Sudi pranayama (my favourite)
Journaling … either free journaling where i brain dump on paper/in a book OR using prompts.
Voice noting myself – this has been one the most underrated healing techniques I have ever used.
And, watching my kids… anchoring myself in our life, and thinking about the life I am building for them. Watching them and reminding myself, I am the parent, and I am the one who has to live and answer to life choices later on, so what hurts my heart the least? I do that.
Last night I thought I’d missed something, when I checked and realised I’d already written for the day. It felt like a big win, becauee I had been organised. The reality was I seized the moment, and I’m so glad I did.
I’m half doing the same now, it’s very early hours, and I’m listening to babies snore; I got up for a wee and have been tossing around, so thought, “what’s the time?” and landed here.
In many ways I suppose I’m already intimately familiar with the early hours, 3 and 4am particularly. I’m not exactly getting reacquainted since my kids are often up needed cuddles or to change position, go toilet or even have a snack – though this is rarely. However, I know in the coming weeks I’ll be far more likely to see these hours with leaky breasts and nappy changing… and I’ll be experiencing the darkness of not quite morning in whole new ways.
It’s day 30 now, and I’m genuinely considering joining a container where for 7 weeks there’ll be daily prompts, knowing full well I cannot 100% guarantee I’ll even have 2 of those 7… but also knowing that I might have nearly all, and it’s something I’ve been looking at for over a year. If I do, I’ll have the last 10 days of this 40 day practice, alongside packing and new writing prompts… and I keep thinking how exciting it is. Other voices (who I deeply respect, value and have asked opinions of) have concerns that I’m not resting enough. I probably am not, but that’s more based on having 3 kids under 7 and a 10 month old labrador so I am still gallivanting on adventures regularly through the week.
I don’t want to open the door of relying on technology to fill gaps just yet, because I know in the early days of new baby, I will lean on tablets and TV more; something I’m entirely at home with, becauee honouring a restful period of postpartum means I want to spend many of my first days with baby in bed, and that also means cuddles, books, screens and space to hold my older ones.
For the first time preparing for a baby, I feel wholly content; I feel confident, and I am calling in seamless transitions. This past year of practices has changed so much for me, I cannot put into words just how much has shifted.
Last year, in early 2023 the thought of having another baby terrified me to the point of desperation. Now, 18 months later, it feels like doors have opened wide, I’ve cried more and shed many many layers in healthy ways, and I’m new.
An incredible creator I follow called Rebecca Oakiah says pregnancy is the gestation of the mother and it feels so absolutely true. I’ve learning so much from her and various other birthkeepers since K was born. I’m inspired by them all, and more confident in my own work and sharing than I could have imagined I’d be.
Truthfully I didn’t do my Doula training because I wanted to work in birth. I did it because I wanted to be empowered after Ps birth, so that when I had A, I wasn’t left processing trauma and trying to figure out life with a newborn. I knew Hs job would demand a lot, and I was resourcing myself in the way I knew how – learning from people who’d been there before me.
Now I look back and see these life events were catalysing me towards a deeper calling. I was turning to the wise women, and looking further than my village because I knew that in order to learn and heal and hold others, I needed to be held myself. I found wisdom in spaces and I have for the last 5 years inhaled it all…
Before P I thought learning looked a certain way, through the trajectory of school and uni, I planned a masters and career and all the ‘normal’ path kind of things. I thought that’s what I should do, and ought to do.
Even after he was born it was still my plan… though I’d begun to spiral away a little. Meeting other women in a retreat while I held him in my womb, and hearing their wisdoms. That was one the transitionary stages for me. Those women, my beautiful mother included, held a blessing for me, crested a web of well wishes and sat in circle with me.
I long for the day where I can sit in circle with women again. It is healing.
Tracking these experiences back I’m so aware of how blessed I’ve been, and I can see, though P was a surprise baby, his entrance to the world was the most powerful thing. I didn’t understand manifestation or anything back then, but I manifested him … just as, in other ways, I have all my children. I have in each circumstance send out some energy into the universe, not even consciously at the time, calling in these babies, these experiences, these path changes.
Now, at 4am, as I spiral into the memories of it all, I feel like there is an unfolding and awakening.
I am meant to be here, holding this baby. I am meant to be on this path, working with others who want to do the same. I may not be ready to support a birth and capture it (though I am in my heart) becauee my capacity is filled with the abundance and attendance to my own children right now, but I am able to offer support in every ripple I create.
It isn’t about fighting the system, which it felt like with K.
It isn’t about being seen and heard loudly like it felt with A.
It isn’t about being quiet and submissive or apologetic like it felt with P.
It is about standing with my feet on the earth, rooting down and being supported by the land. Land that I stand on where ancestors have moved across, land that I cannot reach, where my ancestors were rooted. It isn’t about anyone else… its me, my body, my baby, my family.
H and I said when I turned 27 that every year I step into my identity as a witch a little more. Witch meaning wise woman. Witch meaning skilled medicine woman. Witch meaning someone connected to the energy around her. The word Witch holds so much energy… it was used for so much harm, but truly, I love the saying that we are the granddaughtersof the witches they couldn’t burn. I know it’s more complicated but this sentiment resonates. I am more confident in my radicalness every year… and I have little concern that it turns people away.
It also brings people here.
Anyway, it’s 5am, the kids aren’t going to let me sleep in and we’ve got adventuring planned for the day. So, for now, I’m signing off. This has been the most interesting few hours to write.
If you’ve stuck with me through it all, and foe the past 30 days, I’m honoured. If you’re just joining, welcome.
What the fuck is the point in pretending anymore? I am so tired of this “democracy” and “free the hostages” narrative spat out by the media… and yes I’m getting political tonight.
Actually every single day I am political… not only in the news I share and consume, but more so in the way I raise my kids.
No, I don’t tell them the excruciating information about the atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Yemmen, or Palestine, or Sudan. I don’t share with them the images, and work hard to avoid them catching glimpses… because they are too much. I can’t talk to them about violence against women yet… because right now, I’m laying foundations that do not need to be layered with fear and horror, and I am acutely aware that this in itself is privilege.
I have however shared that in some places, there are people eating grasshoppers because there is no food. That we don’t go to McDonald’s because big companies like them (and the list is LONG) are spending money on bombs that kill people like us. That there are people who control others and that sometimes, people do horrible things because they are greedy for power. Power is absolutely a topical word in our home recently.
When the ICJ trial was on between South Africa and Isreal, I played pokemon court with my oldest child. My partner and I have different opinions about how involved our kids should get… and his concerns are valid, so through play and story, we have conversations about equity, life and how we can do our part in the ways that we can.
This morning as I watched them, I saw just how deeply political this life is. How I am raising future custodians of our planet, and I thought about how this means teaching them by being aligned myself.
Tonight, I feel like the pendulum has swung the other way, and I want to scream. I want to howl and grieve the losses of every single child that has been murdered.
I want to dance in celebration and solidarity with the students protesting.
I want to shake the world… and make sense of it… and in feeling this feeling, I know 2 things; once my children sleep I need to roll out my yoga mat and center myself, AND there are tides changing in the collective consciousness. I might be called radical because of many choices … but seeing just how messed up this is isn’t radical. It’s the only sane response to the madness of the last 8 months.
Palestine has been a calayst to the world waking.
Randomly today, P asked me to explain the word “dismantle” to him. I asked for context (something we’ve been practicing) and we worked out what it meant. All the while I was thinking… if we dismantle the systems of oppression and violence in birth, and within a generation, the effects will ripple outwards catalysing mass change. Not quite the explanation he was after, but it’s been rattling around in my brain since.
There is so much violence in birth.
There is so much violence in parenting.
Is it really surprising that the world, controlled by traumatised (mostly) men is really as fucked up as it is right now ?
If we had a whole generation of children born, in supported, empowered environment, with parents who felt safe and supported in the formative years, the ripple of these children, feeling understood, seen and held regardless of their day, would be immense.
It brings me hope… and also rage. Because change is so possible… BUT systemic change is required… and until more people rebel, change won’t come. We don’t have to riot… but we do have to wake up… and this society is built on a majority of the population sleepwalking through their life… not asking questions, paying the bills, and being silent.
I’m tired of pretending… of living my life and washing my dishes and taking my kids to the park while children just like mine are blown apart or starved.
My kids may not understand all of it, and I hope when they’re older they’ll see why I try to protect their innocence, in part because I know my ancestors had children aware of so much pain so young… but regardless I know I’ll be able to say I did my best.
Parenting is the most political role I think there is… and screw the pretences of democracy – one thing I’m sure of is that democracy the way its marketed to us is dead. Right now, all we can do is figure out how to play the game of this society without selling our souls in the process.
Ahhh what a difference comes with the weather. I know I rambled about this already, but it was just so reinforced today with my dad here for a visit. The kids played outside while I got some house bits sorted, including more of our decor put away ready for moving, and then we head to town for ice creams and a park play.
These are the kinds of things I used to do all the time, and I think in part over the winter, I’d lost sight of how much impact the weather has on me.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy winter, because I do… but my kids struggle to get out the house; and so I find being stuck indoors very hard. I shared how much easier it all feels with my partner and he said “darling you aren’t meant to live life indoors” … he’s right. Generally but also because for my and my mental health, getting out is essential!
This past winter P brought up some of his birth imprints; including feeling rushed and pushed out before he’s ready. It came up in our getting out the house which would take up to 3 hours on some days. I didn’t have the language for it all at the time, but now I see this need for absolute control as a way to regain some of what was lost in his birth.
When I first heard about them, I knew, birth imprints made sense to me… albeit a little ‘out there‘ in terms of understanding them. Working through this one with P – whcih outside of some play has involved ONLY working on my own nervous system, I feel so strongly about the way they can impact us.
Diving deeper and learning more has been super interesting and I am right in the middle of some books now, fascinated.
The changing weather helps us, because as it gets brighter and warmer, he’s more willing to come out. When we had a garden that was enclosed, he would spend hours climbing and being out… so I’m looking forward to this again. My intention is to build a space for them to really be able to spin and jump and play in the ways that they need for their bodies. His body NEEDs to move, and there’s nothing wrong with that… it helps his brain. Through the winter he slowed down a lot, got into more lego and sat for ages, focused and content. Now, he’s jumping and climbing everything… I’m grateful to go along with as much as I can.
Seeing them play and find creatures has been epic. P spend a long time telling my dad all about different pokemon evolutions while he ran around or enacted different scenes. My dad, focused on looking for caterpillars, listened and repeated back all the right things to validate to P that what he was infodumping was important. Its got me thinking about finding a pokemon magazine or similar, to see if it’ll encourage some reading. So far, he adores looking through our pokemon encyclopedia and he is memorising the evolutions from there.
K, obsessed with bugs at the moment, pottered after my dad with a magnifying glass, thrilled to be out for so many hours with someone finding him all the things to look at and hold.
I haven’t dived into much of his birth recently, though I’m drawing on aspects of all of theirs as I plan for our next.
A was at preschool so in between house jobs, I’ve started making my birth plans … though I advise for a plan A, B, C and D, I’m starting with our actual plan, and then, our emergency one. Over the next week, I’ll be creating more in depth scenario based bits… and packing a bag I don’t intend to use.
I have been very chilled so far, and as we get closer I feel really trusting that this birth will bring what it needs to. I have had lots of quiet and I’m grateful for it… but that’s for another share. Probably not tomorrow’s.
I have been avoiding this; so here I am day 1 of 40. Committing to myself, possibly as a way to, once these days are done, say goodbye to my blog and move elsewhere.
I have no idea what I’ll write over 40 days, but tonight, I’m musing over commitment, and how, I am so deeply committed to some things, but then others are so goddamn hard. I commit to projects, or people and last year I deeply committed to my own personal practice. This year though, I have tried and tried and continuously found myself avoiding or excusing a lack of consistency.
Perhaps it’s the lack of novelty that my ADHD brain thrives of.
More likely, I think it’s fear. Showing up for myself was a fun experiment last year… but this year, it feels like IF I show up and ask myself to stretch, I might actually grow and change is hard. My type A control freak inside is squirming… because ultimately everything about this year has screamed a lack of control.
From an unexpected, joyfully (and quickly) manifested pregnancy that has me on the path to meeting our 4th baby soon, to a house move, new courses and opportunities, healing work that I have delved into and research that has me continuously taking notes, feeling triggered, and requiring space from. My kids have kept me on my toes more than ever and friendships have evolved through heartbreak, joy and curiosity. I am genuinely in love with my life, and also feel like there’s a whirlwind going on, and I have to accept that none of it is within my control.
So committing to this, 40 days of writing… is within my control. And that is scary! And exhilarating.
Tonight; my ramble on commitment has lead me to this thought: When I commit to myself, I heal the spaces where my ancestors didn’t have the opportunity to show up for themselves in this way, and I pave new paths, create new neuropathways in my brain, and in small steps, create spaces for my children and those afterwards, to commit to themselves with more ease. I am doing this work slowly, one trembling, uneasy, curious baby step at a time.
I like the idea of that, because when baby’s start to walk, though they are bold and headstrong, they are also trembling… and committed. The intrinsic motivation of a little person taking their first steps is one of the most incredible things to see… doesn’t matter how much they mess it up, they keep coming back, and of course they do it.
If I consider my commitment to myself over the past 6 months like that; it’s kinder, more graceful… it’s been a lot of hesitant steps, backing away, and now I’m trying again.
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