Becoming a Mother | The Transformation Nobody Prepares You For

[00:00:04] Welcome back to the Postpartum Prep Podcast. My name is Keridan, I'm your podcast host and your guide to preparing for a smoother start to life with your new baby. Today on the Postpartum Prep Podcast, we are joined by Vanessa Leville, is that how you say it? Leville. Leville. It's French. I'm going to allow you to say that. There we go. From Matrescence in Color. Vanessa is a licensed therapist, certified health coach, and founder of Matrescence in Color.

[00:00:34] Leville. A private psychotherapy practice and coaching brand supporting women of color through the transition into motherhood and navigating the early years. With 15 years of clinical experience, she specializes in matrescence, postpartum recovery, and holistic maternal health and wellness.

[00:00:51] Leville. She is a creator of The Rooted Method, a body first coaching framework for healing depletion and reclaiming selfhood and sovereignty and motherhood. Vanessa is based in Houston, Texas, and works with clients across Massachusetts and Texas. Thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to the Postpartum. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

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[00:13:46] of their body, um, post-pregnancy and postpartum. We talk about breastfeeding and the amount that comes out of your body and breastfeeding. And a lot of my work is here's how it relates to your overall mental health and wellbeing. I come from that lens. Um, and talking about here's how much your brain has changed. Like literally your brain has changed. It's not the same brain you had

[00:14:12] pre-pregnancy. It has structurally changed. This is what it's doing now. Um, we also talk about the nervous system, the nervous system itself also changes how your body becomes more alert, how your body becomes more sensitive. Your nervous system becomes more alert, more sensitive. So we talk about those pieces so that when they feel the things that they feel so intensely, we now have a name for it. We can kind of normalize it. Um, and then we do the piece of

[00:14:41] the identity work, the, I think later on with some of my more, um, into the years of early motherhood, I can do that reclamation work with them. But I think in the beginning, when you're just in like the first few months, the first year you're in survival mode, it's sacred. It's okay to be in survival mode. Um, so we do a lot of work around that when they're older and not older, but when they're

[00:15:11] in the later years of early motherhood, we do the reclamation work, who are you now? Who do you want to be? What do you want to reclaim? Selfhood, sovereignty, we do that work. In the beginning, let's just focus on survival mode. So those are the three areas that I like to work on. Um, is let's focus on repleting. Let's focus on regulation. And if we want to do reclamation work, what can that look like in this season of your motherhood? Amazing. I feel like, are those the three R's? I know you have. The three R's, yes.

[00:15:40] Yeah. Okay. Um, there's so many things I wanted to touch on. First thing, let's go back to talking, you talked about some markers of matricence that are helpful to recognize. Can we get a glimpse into what those might be? Yeah, yeah. A lot of the, so the biggest ones, and I know I have certainly felt them, the biggest ones are that ambivalence about motherhood. Like, oh, what did I sign up for?

[00:16:04] What is this? I love it. I don't love it. I enjoy it. I don't enjoy it. This is great. It's not great. So the ambivalence about just motherhood in general, about being a mom, mothering. So that will often come up for a lot of my clients. Um, missing your pre-mom life. Um, and so for me, the thing that I miss, I still miss it so much. And my son is almost five. He'll be five in September. I miss it so much

[00:16:32] as my own autonomy. I miss being able to just get up and go and just do as I want when I want without having to really, I know it sounds so, it's not selfish. I, I, I think it's, I started to say that and I realized like, no, it's not selfish at all for you to miss your pre-mom life. That's part of matricence, um, and part of just motherhood. So missing a pre-mom life. Um, you start thinking

[00:16:58] about the ways that you were mothered. And so maybe your own relationship with your mother comes into, um, introspection, introspection, or maybe it's just reflection in some ways, but you start thinking about the ways that you were parented, how you want to parent your child. Um, there's, uh, the changes in like your social life, um, your relationship with your partner might change. Your relationship with yourself might change relationship with others. Um, the identity

[00:17:28] shifts. So that's a really big one. The identity shifts of like, who am I now? What are my values? What are my, my vision for life? What's my lifestyle look like? Uh, what are my desires, my ambition? That was one that I felt really, um, profoundly because after I had had my son, I had a whole wellness center. So I was building a community space in Boston, um, where I had been living at

[00:17:54] the time. So I had this wellness center in this space where I was doing a lot of like community-based work, um, serving, uh, folks around me. And after I had had my son, I said, I don't think that this is what I want to do anymore. And I had spent years working towards that. Um, cause I don't, I don't think that this is what I want to do anymore. And I had a hard time with that because I felt like this was my baby. The thing that I had been working for, the thing that I had put grant proposals to,

[00:18:23] the things that I had like done research for, like spent a lot of time working towards to figure out how do I create this, you know, bring this space on a grander scale, get a bigger building, do, do more offers. Like it, I couldn't, I just didn't, I didn't feel connected to it anymore. I felt like my dreams, my ambitions had changed once I had had my son. Um, and I let that go.

[00:18:49] I let that go. And I started working from home. Can I ask, what was that like for you to let that go? I mean, I had, I had mixed emotions about it. There was a part of me that really felt sad about it. That felt like, you know, like I said, I had worked so hard towards this. I had, um, started really working with some folks in the city of Boston to, to, you know, write grants,

[00:19:16] to get funding for this space, um, to look at what the offer would look like doing my financial projections. I had, like, I had worked towards this, uh, looking for buildings in the city of Boston Boston that I could potentially, you know, um, move into. Um, and so it was really sad to let that go, but I also had a resolve and I also had a acceptance, um, of, but my life looks different

[00:19:44] now. In this season, my life is asking something of me that I think these would be competing demands for me. And I didn't want that. I think the thing about me is I'm always trying to protect my nervous system and I'm always trying to protect like it, what, what hard do I want to choose right now? Um, do I want both of these hard things? Do I want to be doing them both simultaneously? Um,

[00:20:11] and I, I, towards the end of that decision, I felt very complete with it. I felt very, very, I'm solid in that. Like, I, I want to go and do telehealth a hundred percent with my clients and I want to work from home. I want to be home. And it was probably good for me at that point anyway, because I was exclusively breastfeeding. And so it felt like I could not do this. I could not be in two places at once. I could not make this work. So I felt more resolved towards the end. And I was

[00:20:38] accepting that this was okay. Like I'm not the first mother to have to make such a tough decision. Um, and this was one that I was okay making. I didn't feel like I was being forced to make this, which might be the case for a lot of women when we have to take career pauses or we have to figure out work in life, work in motherhood. This felt like a decision that I was making. That was my,

[00:21:05] my own to make. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I feel like I liked hearing that it was a bit of a journey for you. Like, you know, feeling, I think that's a great example of the mixed emotions. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and motherhood too with matrescence is the mixed emotions. Yeah, exactly. Another thing that you had mentioned was, I think it was really interesting. You use the

[00:21:29] word survival mode and sacred in the same sentence, this kind of sacred survival mode. I know that's something that I've kind of seen you talk a little bit about on, I think on Instagram, but I'd love if you could talk to us a little bit more about how you view survival in early motherhood. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny with, with Instagram, I feel like I do like drips here and there and then I never

[00:21:54] talk about it again. So that was one of the things that I dripped in, but it's been very much a part of my journey, I think, and in my work with my clients. Um, I think survival mode, particularly when we're talking about like Brown and Black women, women of color, um, survival and, and, and survival

[00:22:18] strategies, survival mode is not necessarily new in motherhood for us. Um, it's just another layer in many cases. And so I think the rhetoric that I've seen on social media has often been to, sorry, I need to shift has often been to look down on survival mode, um, to want to quickly get you

[00:22:46] out of it, move past it. Um, and in the early season of motherhood in those first couple of months, first year, you are in survival mode. And in fact, your body does that. Like your body actually goes, your nervous system says like, I don't know what this is that you're going through right now. Like, this is a lot for us has been a shock to our system in the last couple of months. And we're just trying to figure out like, how do we operate within this? Your brain is doing the

[00:23:16] same thing. Everything feels unsafe. Like think about your baby crying, things feel like unsafe. And so your body and your brain is trying to sort through this. This is a very sacred time that that space, that time, that season with your child, with you recovering, repairing your body,

[00:23:35] healing your body. And many, in many, um, cultures, I was going to say societies and many cultures, um, non-Western cultures, this is a sacred time. We just don't see it that much in, in the Western sort of spaces. We don't see that that much. We also don't think of it as like a sacred time,

[00:23:59] but it truly is. And so when I work with my clients, a lot of my, um, a lot of my work with them is if all you did was survive today, that was sacred. How can we start seeing this as something that is sacred, that is purposeful, that is intentional. Um, and that is okay for you to only have survived today. Like that is actually really big. Um, and so that's what I mean by,

[00:24:26] but, but with that, we don't want to be only in that survival space. Not only, we don't want to be in that survival space for too long. At some point we want to be able to start shifting into something that feels a little bit more, um, more like thriving, more like in it, not just going through the motions, not just getting through the day, but something that feels a little bit more,

[00:24:54] um, intentional that feels a little bit more, um, this is your choice. This is sovereignty. This is you choosing this. This is, this is you living in it. This is you embodying it. Um, and so we do have to move out of like that space of just relying on the survival strategies, but in the beginning it's, we can sit there for a little bit. It's sacred. It's okay. Can we talk a little bit about survival

[00:25:20] strategies? Um, like maybe getting some practical wisdom here for any moms who are kind of heading into this season? Yeah. If you think about like those, it's hard when you haven't done it yet, right? To think about what the day to day is going to look like when you're one month in with your baby,

[00:25:43] you don't know that until you're in it. Right. Um, but if all you do in the first month is lay with baby and be still and go slow and rest all day, we don't think of those as survival strategies, but they are. When we think about the body having gone through something big and

[00:26:09] birthing your baby is a big thing. Birth delivery, breastfeeding, these are all really big things on the body. And so if all you're doing is resting, which is often what we need to do when something big and dramatic has happened is we have to slow down. We have to kind of shut down. We have to just let the body repair and recover. Um, and so those are survival strategies. And so anything that you're

[00:26:35] doing that is allowing you to rest, that is allowing you to repair and recover is survival strategies. What that might look like more practically is laying in bed all day with your, with your baby, letting someone else wash the dishes, letting someone else care for the home, um, letting someone else feed you and cook. This is survival. Um, if all you do is shower once that day, that's okay.

[00:27:03] If you didn't shower at all, that's also okay. That's a survival strategy. The last thing you're thinking about when you're wanting to survive is going to take a shower. So thinking of it that way, the last thing you're thinking about when you're in survival mode is the thing that feels like productivity. The thing, although shower is not necessarily a productivity type of thing, but you're not thinking about laundry. You're not thinking about, um, cooking a big meal. You're

[00:27:28] not thinking about work. You're not thinking about any of those things because you wouldn't be doing that in a survival, a survival space anyway. You might be thinking about your basic needs, eat, sleep, what are some other things, right? Like your basic needs, water, water, hydration. I always like to actually put using the bathroom in there. And using the bathroom. Yeah. Because we can forget. And I mean, even just like when you've got a crying baby, sometimes it's really easy to just

[00:27:58] feel like you need to hold it all day and, um, yeah. Yeah. Put baby down. Yeah. It's okay for baby to cry for a woman that will you pee. I promise. Yeah, absolutely. Those are usually like the, the, um, survival, but we don't think of those as survival strategies sometimes. We just say, Oh, this is just, it's just what I do to function, but that's the bare minimum the body has to do.

[00:28:26] So, and, and I, you, going back to kind of, you, you mentioned at some point we'd hope things start shifting out of being pure survival mode. Um, I wonder for any moms listening who might be thinking, well, when's that going to happen? I'm curious, do you have any timelines in mind or would you have any suggestion of kind of, if things aren't starting to change by a certain point,

[00:28:51] perhaps? Yeah. I think, so a number of things with that, uh, because of often some moms are going back to work. And so that sometimes ends up becoming like a natural time where they shift out of that. Like I've just been resting. I've just been kind of like doing the bare minimum, just caring for baby, caring for myself. And now I need to do a little bit more than what that has looked like over the last couple of months, whether that's three months, six months, I have

[00:29:21] some families or some moms who, um, have six month leave, you know, they lucky, blessed, or whatever you want to call it, have six months, others have three. Um, but that often sometimes is the, the space and time for some of my moms when I'm working with them to say, okay, you've been doing this, that has been so sacred, that has supported you. And now you have to start shifting into

[00:29:45] productivity, performance, um, doing more, holding more, carrying more. Um, and we can't do that just with, you know, these survival strategies. This is going to ask a little bit more of you than what you've been giving the last three or six months. Um, and so it might look a little bit more like shifting into, um, what does it look like for me to hold more? How, how do I expand my capacity for more?

[00:30:12] Um, what supports do I need to be able to hold more? Um, and so with that, it's no longer about survival. Then it's more about like function, um, getting through the day, um, doing more, holding more. So it's not like that, that primal survival thing that we were seeing in the first, uh, whatever those couple of months look like for them. I would say that most of my clients shift out of that space

[00:30:41] within like the six, anywhere between three months to one year, depending on what that time has looked like for them based on what they have been holding or what they've been carrying or what they've been doing, their responsibilities, um, whether they've had supports, no supports. Um, so I think it's variable for every, it's varied for everyone who, um, is going through that process, but going back to

[00:31:07] work ends up being the most natural. And for most of my clients, they're, they're going back to work. Yeah. I'm curious about what happens when somebody is in a position where, you know, they're needing to shift out of this like survival state of being before they actually feel ready for that. Yeah. Yeah. Cause so many of them are not ready to go back.

[00:31:33] No, so many of them are not ready. I, you know, I do have some clients who, um, who are ready to go back to work. Oh no, I'm, I'm done with this. I, I need, you know, to be doing things for myself. I need other kinds of conversations. I need other kinds of spaces. So there are some who are ready to do that. Um, and there are some who feel forced to, or feel like I'm not ready. I'm not quite ready to do that.

[00:32:02] Um, and a lot of that work will be the nervous system work. You know, we've been doing a lot of in the first couple of months, it's a lot of like, um, reducing sensory input, reducing output. And so now it is about like, how do we increase your, your window of tolerance? Because life is going to look a little bit more and look a little bit more busy. So how do we increase that window of tolerance? How do we increase your nervous system capacity? So it is about like doing that slow work

[00:32:31] of like, let's add one thing in this week and see how you respond to it. Um, and that one thing could be like laundry or it could be like cooking, or it could be like doing work. It could be like reading. It could be something that's just for her that she wasn't able to do in those first couple of months. Um, whether it's reading, going for a walk or, you know, whatever it is that she's doing more than what she had been doing before, let's slowly introduce that. Let's also maybe look at like

[00:32:59] what nutrition needs look like now that you're doing more, your body's asking for more. Um, will you be cooking? Will you be outsourcing that? Will somebody, somebody else in the house, are you deferring that to someone else? Are you delegating that to someone else? What will that look like? Um, so there's a lot of questions and reflection and thinking about what will the next phase look like and what will, what will be the work that supports you as you're

[00:33:25] going into that? And if you're not ready, then part of that work is talking about that too. It's talking about the grief that's associated with that, talking about the anger that's associated with that, talking about the ambivalence, talking about how some of it might feel forced. Those are a lot of the conversations where those conversations is, is when I bring in the, um, the pieces about the institution of motherhood, the pieces about like the structural supports we do

[00:33:53] or do not have in the U S for, for moms. Um, the, the ideas of, or the ideologies around like, um, um, uh, the motherhood penalty. There are different conversations that might come up at that point because what they're feeling is very real and often a response to the system coupled with their own, their own stuff. Can you, um, I haven't heard that term before the motherhood penalty.

[00:34:24] Yeah. So think of it this way. It's the idea that once you become a mother and you're a woman who has a professional job, um, you're in the workforce that once you become a mother, there's a penalty that comes with it. Often what we see is women don't get raises and which is interesting. And I'll have to pull up the statistics somewhere, but men will become fathers and get raises. That's not the

[00:34:50] same case for women in the workforce. That's not the same case. And I want to say, I don't want to mis, uh, misquote the number, but then there is a number associated with that. The statistic, um, a mother's schedules will need to change. Um, they're often looking for more flexible work because they now have a small child at home. Um, and we don't see this with, with men who are also in the workforce with fathers who are also in the workforce to the same extent, to the same degree

[00:35:19] that we see it with, with mothers who are in the workforce. Um, and so that that's the motherhood penalty is that often she will hit this wall of how far she can go in her career. And what happens is that some moms take a career pause because of the motherhood penalty. Um, I can't remember who, who, who came up with that term. Um, but yeah, if folks want to dig into that, they, they can,

[00:35:47] but that is something that I do see with a lot of my clients is now we have to talk about that. And we have to talk about how, like, this is not you, there are just not enough structures in, um, infrastructure in place or supports in place for someone who does what you do. And you want to go back into the, into, you know, you want to go back to the corporate office. You want to go back to whatever you're doing, um, that there might be a penalty with that. There might be some walls with

[00:36:15] that. And that's hard too. It's, it's yeah. And I like, I loved what you said, you know, touching on just the, the, the support that comes from just having the opportunity to talk about those feelings. Yeah. And I guess as a therapist, that's really a big part of your job is holding space for that. Yeah, exactly. And I love holding, holding space for the real and the raw of motherhood.

[00:36:42] And it's not just about caring for baby. Um, I have a mother that I'm supporting now. Who's like, I, I love my baby. Like I, I love my baby. I love being with my babe. I love being his mom. I'm not enjoying motherhood. And she's like three months in, I'm not enjoying motherhood. Like, I really don't like that. I have no space for myself. Like there's no space for me. Like,

[00:37:07] when does that get better? How long? And I think that's hard. You know, I think a lot of the moms that I support are wired like me in some ways where it's like, I need to know, like I need a timeline. I need to know when this gets better. Um, I'm thinking about that meme, like, when does this get better? I had a, I use Pinterest sometimes for like sharing the podcast. And one of my most popular posts on

[00:37:36] there is like a literal timeline where I was talking about different points where things felt like they were starting to get better. And that was one of the most popular pins. But I think it is, I remember like actually Googling that several times, um, when I was postpartum because, and you know, you get responses from people who have teenagers and they're like, it never gets better. No, you obviously don't remember what it's really like.

[00:38:04] Yeah. Yeah. You're so far removed, you know? Um, so in that, I like to think of it as seasons, like motherhood of seasons. And, um, I'm not going to say her name correctly now, but she talks about the seasons of matrescence. Um, McCann is the last name that's coming to me.

[00:38:28] The first name is escaping me, but I like to think of motherhood as there are seasons to motherhood and every season is going to come with its stuff. Good stuff, bad stuff, the good, the bad, the ugly, the wonderful, the beautiful, all of it. It's all going to come with its stuff. The early seasons is just so unique. It's just so, there's a lot of stuff and I'm doing this, but the words aren't there. There's a lot there.

[00:38:53] In the early, I mean, one of the things I talk, or that is often comes up on this podcast is the mother baby dyad and how, uh, acutely like interwoven you're in every way, your, your, your mind, your body, um, your emotional kind of world, your nervous system, um, how closely

[00:39:22] connected you are, I guess, in those early days, which, um, obviously you always have that, or you hope you'd always have that bond with your child. But I think there's something so, you know, especially if you're in formative years, yeah, you know, even like your sleep is so connected with your child. If you're breastfeeding, um, you're, you're still like

[00:39:47] literally physically attached to your baby. Like, um, that's something definitely unique about the early years. Absolutely. It's so tender. And I think I'm doing this because it's so raw. It's so open. It takes a lot. Um, and you know, for better for words, like some women find it, like this was the most beautiful time of my, my motherhood. Others don't, they're like,

[00:40:16] this was the hardest. It's so personal. It's so unique, um, to you. And, um, I think that's the thing with like early motherhood and a lot of my comments and why I stick to early motherhood, why I work with moms who are in that like zero, sometimes all the way up to 10, but I really love working with them in that zero to five. Um, because it's, you really get to see the evolution

[00:40:44] of their matrescence and how they move through that, how they move through that early season of motherhood, um, and how so much can be solidified within those first early years that helped to give foundation to the later years. Um, it's just a, it's a beautiful season for me, I think in supporting women through it and I'm still in it. Like I'm, my son is only four and a half. It'll be five in

[00:41:08] September. And I have seen the evolution of us in the last almost five years. And, um, that's such a, it's such a tender season. And so the support for that season, I wish could have, could be on this grander scale than what I think we have sometimes. Um, and so, yeah, I think I've jumped around to a

[00:41:35] few different things. No, I'm loving it. I actually wanted to kind of bring it back to you and your son. Um, because one of the questions that we always ask on the podcast is if you could go back in time to when you were pregnant with your son and talk to her, that version of yourself, what would you tell her? What advice might you give her?

[00:42:00] Oh my gosh. You know, I went through, I think different eras in my pregnancy. The very first, so I had had a previous miscarriage miscarriage. And so the first, um, 14 weeks were really, I was riddled with anxiety, like so much anxiety about like what would happen. Um, um, you know,

[00:42:27] could I do certain things? I don't want to harm baby. I don't want to, there was a lot there. There was a lot. And so I had really sought that my own therapy for support because I was so afraid to lose my baby. But I had also had an experience where I had been, um, praying one morning and doing my devotional and writing and writing down that God had told me like this one was mine to keep.

[00:42:53] And so that felt, I think I could, I could rest in that sometimes, but it was, it was, yeah, the first 14 weeks were really hard. And then you get into like second trimester and it was like, oh, I'm pregnant. Like this is really happening. Like I'm really having a baby. And so there was more excitement that came with it. Um, I could do more movements and I was also doing, I was still at that time, um, running the community center. And so I was doing a lot of like what I used to call at

[00:43:22] that point was my common community nights. So a lot of, um, co-regulation, um, somatic practices within community. So I was going on walks with people. I was doing like sound baths. I was doing different things and I loved it. And I was also doing like hypnotherapy. So I was practicing hypnotherapy. Um, and, um, then I hit this point later in pregnancy where, and I talk about this

[00:43:49] with a lot of my clients, where I started to see myself saying, this is how I want to be as a mom. This is what I'm going to do. This is what I want things to look like. The thing that we do when we're like, it's going to be Montessori. It's, and at that point I didn't know what I was having. Cause I didn't want to know the gender of the baby. And so, oh, I definitely want to do Montessori. Okay. This is what I want the foods to, for them to eat. This is what, so at that point,

[00:44:17] this is what the experts say. This is what me as a mom, how I should show up. So I think I fell really deeply into like intensive mothering, uh, very early on. So even before my baby came, like reading up on everything, like half of the books back there, like pregnancy books. Um, and so I, if I could go back, if I could tell her like, relax, like relax, take it easy,

[00:44:45] be in the moment. Um, not necessarily enjoy the pregnancy because I think I hate that advice. Even like enjoy the early years. They'll be small, but for so long or, but just be in it, experience all of what it's bringing. Um, and not always thinking ahead to what, who you're going to be, because you don't know who you're going to be until you've had that baby,

[00:45:14] until you've been with that baby, you've been with yourself, you've been in it. And the, some of the decisions I thought I was going to make ended up not being that. So I would have just told her to like, in my own way, cause I can talk to her like that, like, take it easy, like chill out, you know, like relax. Um, you're going to be just fine. You will figure this out.

[00:45:40] And I think that that actually became both the thing that stressed me out, but the thing that was also exciting was like, Oh, I can just figure this out. Yeah. Which means like, Oh, I have choice in this. Like I have autonomy in some of this. Like I can decide despite what society tells me, culture tells me, I actually can decide what I want this to look like for me and my family.

[00:46:07] So that became exciting in some ways. Um, and of course my partner was a part of that too. Um, and you don't know what kind of kid you're going to get. Oh yeah. And you don't know. Yeah. And in my pregnancy, so I had developed preeclampsia towards the end of my pregnancy. So at 30 weeks, um, there's protein in my urine. And so Massachusetts is really progressive, like aggressive rather

[00:46:37] in like how they approach preeclampsia, preeclampsia. So they, they said to me at that point, they're like, we're going to keep you in the hospital for seven weeks and we'll, we'll induce you at 37 weeks. And I was like, what? They're like, yeah, like we can't just send you home. And we know that preeclampsia with black women, with women of color, like there, there are big risks there. Um, and so they didn't want to take any, and you know, they want to take every precaution that they

[00:47:04] could. And so they were saying like, we're going to keep you when I continue to monitor you. And so I was hospitalized for about a week and then, you know, things had improved at that point. Um, I hadn't reached a level of like a high risk at that point. It was very low risk, but I did show signs of preeclampsia. And so they had sent me home. I was discharged and I was sent home, but I needed to at least see my OBGYN twice a week. Um, so for the rest of my pregnancy twice a

[00:47:30] week, but then I ended up going into early labor at 34 weeks. So you never know what any of that is going to look like. And so at that point I was like, Oh, I, I, here we are like the only thing. And that has been, I think half of my, my like approach to motherhood is at the seat of my pants kind of like, just, okay, we'll figure it out. Because that was like my, and like my entrance into

[00:47:58] it with my delivery. It was like, Oh, I'm going into labor. And I expected. And there's just so much that you can't control in motherhood, but I, and I think sometimes the stress comes when we do try to control things. Yeah. Yeah. So much of me wanted to, you know, and I share this in different spaces, but I live with ADHD. So I live with autism and ADHD. And so there is a very part of me,

[00:48:28] the real, the autism part of me that's like, no, everything has to be. And then the ADHD comes in and it's like, no, we can just, you know, just go with the flow. Um, and so there is a part of me that would, that wanted to be prepared that wanted to, um, and that time that, that 30 to 34 weeks was really scary at times. It was, you know, I knew at that point, like, okay, this preeclampsia could

[00:48:56] worsen. And in fact, it does worsen. Um, and so when that happens, I don't know. Um, and so yeah, that was a scary, that was a scary point. That was actually a really scary point now that I'm talking about it. Like it was actually really scary. Um, living with, or coping with uncertainty. Yeah. For someone who kind of thrives off of that and at times like really needs it. Yeah.

[00:49:27] I imagine that there are probably, um, some moms listening to this podcast who may also be in a similar position. I think, um, whether it's preeclampsia or anything else, I think in pregnancy, especially, um, at different points of pregnancy, there can be so much uncertainty at times. Would you have any, I don't know, perspectives for any moms in a similar position? Yeah. I think

[00:49:56] specifically with preeclampsia, I think what I did was I really educated, of course, I really educated myself on it. I asked a lot of questions. Um, I made sure that my doctors knew what was happening with me. I was tracking my, my blood pressure, tracking different things. Um, and so I had a doula as well.

[00:50:18] And so, um, talking with them, um, but really at that point, once something, if, if that does happen, because it's not every pregnancy, but if that does happen, that you get that support, then you talk to people, you ask a lot of questions, um, that you have your partner also ask a lot of questions and that your partner also knows if one is available or a family member, a loved one or whomever is going to be your support person, um, that they also know what's going on with you and that they also know

[00:50:47] what signs to look for. Um, and that, um, you feel supported through that experience. I think that was the biggest thing for me was I tend to be someone who's like, I got this. I'm good on my own. Right. And that, that is not one of those places that you want to, I got this, like you want to make sure

[00:51:14] that you're actually getting support and other eyes on you. I know. I think there's so much, um, in, in motherhood in general, there's so much urge sometimes to like do it all yourself. And then you can, I feel sometimes that's how we almost try to control the uncontrollable is by thinking, well, if I do it all myself, then at least I could do it the way I wanted to do it. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:51:38] I don't know. I, I, I appreciate you opening up and giving your, giving your insight, um, as this is obviously just a sensitive, um, experience for you. Yeah. Um, and in general, I, I am really grateful for everything you've shared about nervous system and survival mode and matricence. Was there any last thoughts that you wanted to give before we wrap up the episode? I don't know. I feel like we didn't cover it.

[00:52:07] I think we've covered a lot. Um, and there's so much more. I mean, I don't think you, you can ever really cover all of it because there's so much there. Um, there's so much there, but, uh, nothing that I can think of off the top of my head. I mean, I think that this is what I want folks to know. Um, you know, is that postpartum that period, there's so much that's

[00:52:32] happening. And I just, in my work and I think in, in what I'm trying to do is say, if we could have the information, if I was told, even if I couldn't understand it because I'm not living it yet, but if I had been told, Hey, you're going to go through this process of calm attrescence, you're also going to go through postpartum recovery and here are all the components of here's what it looks like. And here's what, um, you're going to need or whatever, right?

[00:53:00] Even if I wasn't getting that yet. And maybe that's just me. I tend to be someone who's like, the more information you give me, the better, even if I'm not in it yet, but Hey, your brain is going to change this way. Your nervous system is going to change this way. You're going to feel like you're losing yourself and you're finding yourself and you're recreating who you are. I think if I had been told some of that information and also as a black woman, if I had been told, you know, these are some of the things that are going to amplify in motherhood.

[00:53:28] These are some of the things that are really going to impact you. These are some of the things that are going to color your motherhood. Um, the hat had I been told some of that stuff, I think I would have felt more prepared to a certain extent because again, unless you're in it until you're in it, then those things start to, they start to click. Yeah. But if we could get

[00:53:53] that information, you can seek it out, read it, listen to podcasts like this. I think that's the, that's the biggest thing, um, that I think I can, can leave. Thank you. I love that. I think, um, one thing about like getting this information before birth is obviously it's nice to have, but it's, there's also something to be said for, you know, after you've given birth and you're thinking back about, you know, the things you'd

[00:54:22] heard actually now, you know, where you can go for support as well. Like someone who, you know, there might be juggling these words around matressants and survival mode in their mind right now, but then when it all does come together and click after birth, you think, Oh, now I know where I can go. So for anybody who may be thinking of you, um, where could they go to find you if they're looking for more support or just want to learn more about you?

[00:54:49] Yeah. Yeah. So I'm on Instagram as matressants in color. Um, and they all can also visit my website, matressantsincolor.com if they're in Texas and Massachusetts and they're looking for therapy. Um, otherwise if they're looking for just support, then it's coaching.matressantsincolor.com. Um, so those are the places that they can find me. Awesome. I'll make sure to have them all linked. I just want to also give a shout out, um, to your Instagram. I love following you on Instagram and I love

[00:55:17] all your posts and also your email newsletter. Oh yeah. Yeah. I do send it. It's really fun how you do it. Yeah. My, um, the weekly tending. So I do send that on Monday, Monday ish, some Mondays, but I do send that on Monday. So they're more than welcome to sign up for the newsletter as well. They can do that on the website, um, or on, um, the Instagram and the link in bio. Yeah. I love it. Cause it's like a little mini therapy session. Yeah. That's exactly how I have it. Yeah. Structured. Yeah. It's great. Well, thank you,

[00:55:47] um, Vanessa so much. We're going to, for everyone listening, we're going to be recording our Q and a episode next, which is going to be on the topic of how to cope with the fear of motherhood. So I feel like there were a few seeds that we planted in this episode. Uh, one of the questions we're going to be talking about is, um, that sense of like, what if I lose myself in motherhood? So for anyone who's curious to hear more about that, head on over to the Q and a episode and otherwise, yeah, we'll see you in there. Thank you.