Birdsong Brooklyn's Nourished Postpartum Challenge
Day 2 of @birdsongbrooklyn#nourishedpostpartumchallenge is The Hidden Postpartum: postpartum after miscarriage, abortion and loss 🌚
My experience of loss shaped my training and ultimately lead me to becoming a full spectrum doula. I unwaveringly support the full spectrum of your pregnancy experience, regardless of the outcome of your pregnancy. Loss, early birth, miscarriage, abortion, all require a crossing of the threshold into postpartum and I believe that postpartum bodies should be honored and nurtured full stop. More often than not people who experience loss keep it close, quite and hidden. This amplifies the isolation of postpartum and leaves us unsupported. We are a culture of “pull yourself togetherness”, we don’t like to sit with loss for long. But being in postpartum WITHOUT a baby to show for it is one of the most harrowing experiences you can have. You bleed, you ache, you lactate. But with nothing to hold. Its so important to surround yourself with trusted and knowledgeable support for your physical mental and emotional healing, food filled with goodness, massage, rest.
I also believe that, just as in the birth of a live baby, celebration and ritual are important acts to gently carry you and your heart across the threshold through postpartum. We should celebrate our bodies and our huge capabilities. We should ritualise loss and grief through postpartum care, honoring the space left behind, the hope, longing and letting go and the rebuilding.
Over the last four years I’ve birthed two babies and I’ve lost two babies. Each time I was pregnant I crossed the threshold into postpartum, each time someone came with me, be that in physical form or not. Each time I bled. Each time my hormones went through huge transition. Each time I needed tenderness and healing. And when I buried Arlos placenta I also honored celebrated and farewelled the first babies I’ve lost. I will do the same when I bury Indigo’s. #showupforpostpartum
📸: Arlos placenta burial
#doula#postpartumisforever#supportingnewparents#postpartumdoula#pregnancyloss#fullspectrumdoula#motherhood#abortionsupport#mother#parent