Tell us about yourself + your family. What was pregnancy like for you?

‍I am a perinatal therapist, a birthworker, and the mom of a sweet little three-year-old. My pregnancy with him was far from easy. It was filled with nausea in the first trimester and daily debilitating migraines in the second. I’m currently 20 weeks pregnant again, and I’m still battling nausea. All of my pregnancies have been challenging, but clearly I decided to do it again, so it must be worth it!

What was one of the biggest challenges you faced during your most recent pregnancy? How did you navigate it?

‍In my first pregnancy, one of the biggest challenges for me was anxiety. As someone who works in the field, I see people at the highest highs and their lowest lows. I have both researched and walked with people through some of the most heartbreaking pregnancy and birth outcomes. And as a Black woman myself, I am well aware of the mortality rates that we face. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and for better or worse, I am far from ignorant on this topic. So anxiety really hit me hard. I ended up making the choice to ask for psychiatric support through continued therapy and medication that eased my mind enough to help me get through the rest of pregnancy and postpartum. This time around, I preemptively sought out a perinatal psychologist, even before getting pregnant. I let myself get the support that I needed.

What brought you the most joy during your pregnancy?

‍Then and now, the kicks bring me joy. Feeling my baby move helps me to materialize them a bit. They’re no longer this abstract idea — they are this tiny human moving around inside of me, responding to my movements and behaviors. Even as the baby movements become uncomfortable or painful in the third trimester, I still love them and find myself missing them after baby is here.

Were there any traditions or new rituals that were important for you to incorporate during pregnancy or postpartum?

Rest rest rest. And I don’t just mean sleep. I mean finding any and every way possible to give myself spaciousness and ease. My family is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and this is a practice built into our culture. The community around you works so that you can rest, both in pregnancy and postpartum. For me in pregnancy, that meant taking the disability leave when I knew I needed it. It meant using every resource at my disposal to care for my body. It meant allowing my friends and family to care for me. And in postpartum, my mom moved in with us for 6 weeks to care for my family. My friends fed me. I let myself be held.

What’s something you wish you had known before birth that you know now?

‍I wish I knew about the ways that friendships can change when a new baby is introduced. I feel like not enough people talk about the positive and negative changes to friendships. I’ve met some of my closest friends in pregnancy and the first year postpartum. I also lost a lot of friendships — either through differing expectations and disappointment, or a painful drifting apart because of differing life stages and experiences. There is beauty and there is a lot of pain in the ways that friendships shift.

How would you describe your childbirth experience? What stands out most in your memory?

‍My childbirth experience was honestly so beautiful. I had a planned homebirth with an all-Black birth team, my mother, and my mother-in-law. My body was in control the whole time. My providers let my body be in control the whole time. In many ways, it was everything I wanted it to be.

This time around, I am giving birth at a hospital due to the high risk nature of my pregnancy. What I am hoping for is to be able to bring the memory and energy of my homebirth to my next birth. I know there is no right or wrong place to birth a baby. My doula in my first pregnancy reminded me that there are many traumatic homebirths and many beautiful hospital births, just like there are beautiful homebirths and traumatic hospital births. This was such helpful framing for me, and I just hope to bring my own inner sense of autonomy and self-advocacy to this new birth setting.

What has postpartum looked and felt like for you?

‍Postpartum was not easy. But they’re right when they say “it gets better.” Or rather, it gets... different. I don’t have a newborn anymore, and I’m not dealing with all the challenges associated with newborn life. But at three years postpartum, my body is still recalibrating from all that it went through in pregnancy and birth. Postpartum is truly no joke, and I wholeheartedly believe that postpartum is forever — it just looks different at the different stages.

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