My name is Kelly and I am obsessed with pregnancy, labor, families, and babies.
I have taught pre and postnatal yoga for almost 20 years, have been a birth doula for a decade, and I developed an app to help support families donate and receive breast milk.
Another thing about me; I don't have children, I never once considered having them. People ask about this a lot; 'what made you decide to not have children?', 'What happened to you?', 'Why would you not want children??'. I used to get really upset at these questions, they were not only annoying, they were actually quite rude. I came to realize that the people asking rarely accepted my 'nothing happened to me' or 'I just never thought about it' responses so I began to flip the script to 'What made you decide to have children?'. I love the typical reaction, almost always a shocked face, 'omg, what in the world do you mean? I never 'decided' anything, I just always knew I wanted kids!'. Yeah, it was exactly the same for me.
Can we normalize people making their own decisions and alleviate the 'shoulds' we are surrounded with?
We SHOULD plan for a 'natural birth', we SHOULD only breastfeed, we SHOULD enjoy every aspect of pregnancy and early parenthood. These rules we have for how you should approach all aspects of child bearing and parenting are causing a lot of stress and anxiety for families.
What if instead we encouraged families to do their research, figure out what fits best for them, and make informed decisions?
After years of working with families, I have found what they truly want, and seem to thrive from, is support, not lists of 'should dos'. What if instead of asking new mothers about the baby, we focused on them? We could talk to them about what they need in real time instead of which brand of bottles they are using,
What if we created more supportive environments while they are pregnant, with a focus NOT on the baby that will soon be here, but the MOTHER that is born as well.
So often I hear peoples' excitement around the baby coming and we focus a lot on how Mamas will get the babies out, but rarely on the Mama herself. If we changed the language of pregnancy and turned the focus on teaching women the support and resources they will actually need, could we possibly improve both the physical and emotional well being of new mothers? Could that then trickle down to the rest of the family as well?
I always remind Mamas that labor and delivery are the sprint; the true marathon is building the family unit the first few years of life.
Let's start celebrating the growth of the family as a unit, rather than just focusing on that cute baby!
Learn more about Kelly and her app on her website, her instagram page, and you can put her on your BeHerVillage Registry!
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