How to Cope with the Fear of Motherhood

Ceridwen

Welcome back to the Postpartum Prep Podcast. My name is Ceridwen, I'm your podcast host and your guide to preparing for a smoother start to life with your new baby. Today I'm joined by Vanessa from Matrescence in Color.

She and I just recorded a full episode where we talk all about matrescence and survival mode and early motherhood and regulating the nervous system, all sorts of good things in there. But today we're recording or for right now we're recording our Q&A episode about how to cope with the fear of motherhood. Thank you Vanessa for joining us and welcome back to the Postpartum Prep Podcast.

Vanessa

Thank you, thanks for having me.

Ceridwen

For our first question today about how to cope with the fear of motherhood, the first question that we have is, is it normal to be scared about having a baby, not just the birth but everything that comes with new motherhood?

Vanessa

Oh absolutely, absolutely, like this isn't like a, it's not a small undertaking and I think one of the things that I hear a lot from my like my new moms is I'm afraid to lose myself, like I'm scared to lose myself. And I think when they're, not I think, but oftentimes when they're talking about that they're not just talking about like I'm afraid to lose my sense of self, they're also talking about like I'm afraid to lose my relationship, I'm afraid to lose my friendships, I'm afraid to lose my job, I'm afraid to lose my financial wellness or my financial, the word's not coming to me right now, but like being able to take care of myself financially, being able to take care of my family. There's a lot to be afraid of, my health, my well-being, like will that decline? Will my quality of life decline?

Everyone's fears are going to be unique and different to them and personal to them in terms of the things that you might be afraid to lose or afraid of who I'll be as a Am I going to be a good mother? Am I going to have an easy kid? Am I going to have a hard kid?

Is my kid going to be healthy? Is my kid going to be well? There's so much to I think like think about in your level of fear is it's going to look different for everyone.

You might be more fearful about this thing but not necessarily this thing. And so I think fear is a very natural, normal course for doing something that you've never done before and something that you have no idea what it's going to look like until you're in it, until you've done it. And so that's normal and that's okay to be afraid.

Yeah.

Ceridwen

Something that we touched on a little bit in the episode, in our full episode, was about the experience of feeling like two emotions at the same time. Yeah. You'd be super excited and also really scared.

Vanessa

Absolutely, yeah. Excitement is very much a part of, you know, this too and that and I think we've heard this before but it's both and like it's not always just one thing. There's so much excitement.

There's so much to look forward to. There's so many like beautiful, amazing, out of this world experiences. I tell people all the time I absolutely love being a mom.

Like I love it. I've always wanted to be a mother and so I love the identity of mom. I love mothering.

I love sorting through that. I love sorting through like mothering my child and what that looks like. I don't always love motherhood.

I don't always love motherhood as a hood, as the institution, as a cultural thing but I have learned to figure out my motherhood experience and growing to love my own motherhood experience. There's both sides of the coins. It's like if you split the two sides of the coins and they're both facing up.

It's like this is what you're gonna get. There's fear and there's also excitement. There's ambivalence.

There's I love this. This is what I want. I could never see myself doing anything else.

I love being a mom and then there are people who are like no this is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and some people are like this is the easiest thing I've ever done like it's so it's so it's so excuse me it's so different for everyone.

Ceridwen

Yeah um thank you. I'm gonna we're gonna head on to the next question which is what if I lose myself in motherhood? I know we touched on this a little bit but I guess this person is thinking like like what if I actually do lose myself in motherhood?

Vanessa

Yeah yeah this one's a hard one um because you will. You will lose yourself. It's the kind of loss where when you lose your you lose your key you're hoping to find it right.

You lose something you're hoping to find it. When you lose yourself you're hoping you're going to find yourself. This is the kind of loss that is actually supposed to happen.

You are supposed to lose parts of yourself that's that's part of this matrescence this rites of passage this process that you're going to go through is that much like I guess the best way to describe this is like a butterfly you think about the the the um what's the word in the in the chrysalis the chrysalis you think about the the caterpillar geez the caterpillar in the cocoon and you think about at some point it's going to lose some things to become this butterfly um this is going to sound a little bit gross but I promise it's not as bad as it sounds.

So we're in Houston. I'm in northeast Houston. I have this forest behind me.

I have water near me and so we've been getting uh it's warming season and it happens around Mother's Day. It's the weirdest thing but it happens every year around Mother's Day the swarming season and what this is is the termites coming and the termites aren't coming to like eat up your house it's not that kind of termite but they're coming to to find a place to be able to bring you know bring up their colony to mate and bring up their colony um and so what happens is when they get into your home they lose their wings and so it's weird when once they get inside they lose their wings that's the process each time um so in a weird way I'm making a connection here but there is something you have to lose to become this version of you this part of you that becomes a mother and in this space once you go through that in this space there will come a time there will come a a season in your motherhood where those losses don't feel as daunting as it felt before motherhood because you will have gained some things you will have grown into a different version of you you will have figured it out the thing that you lost might have been something you actually wanted to lose and you may not miss it anymore or you'll figure out like in my case I loved running um that was something I had always been afraid to lose my autonomy in motherhood um and I remember that sounds so bad but I remember in the beginning of my motherhood um I was like somewhat a couple of months postpartum and I left the house with my son we had gone somewhere now that I'm thinking about like it's so bad um we had gone somewhere we had gone to like a a fair or a farmer's market or something along those lines and I was walking around with him and someone said oh my god how are you how's motherhood and I said he's always there and when it came out I was like oh my god that sounded terrible but it was the first time I think I realized like oh my gosh like I'm I'm never alone I mean it's very relatable yeah right it's not just it's not just Vanessa anymore and I think that this is how like some women are afraid of like self-erasure and there's a lot in society that kind of enforces that or or um perpetuates that um but what I'm saying is you get to a point where you start to rediscover you and you start to rediscover like okay yes it is me and he's always there but I we're not we're not one in that way like I can still have my selfhood yeah I can still have my selfhood but what does selfhood look like in this season of my life where I do have a small child who depends on me um and so yeah there is loss because when you're changing and you're growing and you're becoming this version of you there's some things we're going to lose and you can grieve it you can be upset about it um you can feel ambivalent about it you can kick and scream whatever that process looks like for you um just with anything we learn to grow with it move with it go through it and and that will also be a process of matrescence too

Ceridwen

um and for anyone who is curious about that word matrescence we covered it in our full episodes so make sure to check that out um thanks I love that I love that I feel like it's yeah a journey of coming to accept that there may be some things that you really that really do you know loss is a part of becoming a mother yeah and it's okay to grieve that and it's also um yeah I love how you talk about also everything that we gain um yeah and kind of I guess I don't know I know what you think about this but the the thought that came in my mind is that we're losing we might be losing things but what is replacing that yeah yeah what do we get to reclaim later yeah yeah I think and you also mentioned seasons and there might be a season where things like in certain areas extremely like you know when he is always there and then I'm kind of at the moment my son is three and I'm sort of coming out of this he's always there and suddenly I do have like a couple hours more to myself each week and it's it's it it's constantly changing as well mm-hmm yeah our last question for this Q&A is how can I trust myself as a new mom

Vanessa

when I've never done this before yeah yeah that's hard um what you don't know what you don't know and I think that's the theme that you don't know until you're in it um but trusting yourself is believing that you can do something right and so it's the trust will come in terms of like building and I think well let me break to break this down a little bit because I think when I hear that I'm thinking are we afraid we don't have the skill we afraid we don't have the knowledge we afraid we don't have like what what does that really mean when we think about trust I think breaking that down love to like distill things to like the rooted the rooted

Ceridwen

something that we talk a lot on the podcast like I think this is probably um a phrase that have come up several episodes in this podcast about you know um trusting yourself as your baby's mother kind of in making your choices for your baby um trusting your intuition um I don't know if that could be you know someone's thinking you know it's all good and well to say like you can trust your own feelings about your baby but like can you when you've never actually done this before when you've never done it before right

Vanessa

but I think that's what it is I think that's what I'm saying is that like for you yourself if you're feeling like I don't know if I can trust myself like really break down what are you trying to trust yourself with like what is the thing right because if if I don't trust myself to um to feed the baby then what it really means is well what do I need to gather what do I need to get to be able to trust myself do I need the skill do I need the motivation do I need the support do I need the knowledge like what is it that I need yeah to be able to believe in myself a little bit more the trust will come with that belief with that practice with time it's like when folks say like um uh mother's intuition or like like that's there's no such thing it's like you're building the practice yeah there's some things that start to feel like oh okay I think this is in the cells of my body this has been passed down from my four mothers it's in my you know there's some things that I think just come with it but a lot of it is practice a lot of it has been because you've been doing it you've been learning it you've been reading it you've been watching it um you've been practicing it and so I think that allows you to believe in yourself a little bit more um so if you're if you're afraid at this point you're not sure if you can trust yourself and you know really think about which part right which thing are you afraid that you can't trust yourself in and what will help you to believe in yourself a little bit better with

Ceridwen

that thing yeah I think um you mentioned feeding and I think that's a great example um in with breastfeeding we talk a lot about how it's yes it's kind of instinctive but it's also a learned skill exactly and if it's not feeling that you know instinctive intuitive what is the skill that we need to learn here and what support do we need to learn that yeah exactly and that's what I mean

Vanessa

it's like it's a mix of them some things going to be instinct because you're you're you're your body has not done this but bodies have yeah yeah exactly and so what does my body I mean that was my experience with breastfeeding I'm like I know I'm supposed to like it feels like it's supposed to be like this I've seen it like this in other spaces I think I'm supposed to do it like that but it took a month for me to figure out breastfeeding a month or a month and a half to

Ceridwen

figure out breastfeeding yeah um because it's a skill yeah exactly yeah I think that was a great way to answer that question thank you um the last question that I have and this is I guess it's obviously we've just been recording the whole uh podcast before this so we've spent an hour and a half together even if you've only been here 15 minutes but I know it does so the last question that uh we have for our time together is where can people find you if they want to learn more

Vanessa

about you or if they are curious about working with you yeah absolutely so I do um mental health counseling so therapy with clients who are in Massachusetts and Texas so they can find me on my website if they want to explore those services at mattressesandcolor.com um for folks who are not in in Massachusetts and Texas and still want support they can go to my coaching website which is coaching.matressandsincolor.com and if you want to hang with me then hang with me on Instagram that's where I put out a lot of my my stuff that I'm thinking about and the work that I do um it's all on Instagram and then I do have a weekly newsletter that I send out every Monday-ish that's called the weekly tending and they can sign up on Instagram as well for that

Ceridwen

awesome yeah your Instagram is so fun too or maybe fun is I mean fun is a good a word but more like insightful yeah it's very it it's it really does often make me stop and really actually think which is not a common thing to to have on Instagram but yeah it gets me thinking it's very yeah I'm like wow a lot of wow moments yeah good that's confirmation for me oh well thank you so much um for recording this Q&A episode and for being here with us on the postpartum prep podcast thank you so much and for everyone listening um just a reminder that if you want to submit a question for a future Q&A episode you can get notifications of who is going to be on the podcast by following my email newsletter um and the easy the easiest way to do that is by downloading my free postpartum prep checklist where I've laid out everything that you need to know about you know everything that you need to do before birth to prepare for a smoother start to life with your new baby so um and then you'll be added also to the email newsletter and you'll get all the updates about the podcast and any future guests um otherwise yeah I'm gonna leave it there love you and leave you and we will see you in our full episode bye for now