I wish I'd known

before I was a mother about the possibilities.  I became a teacher because I love kids an I love teaching kids.  But if I knew then, what I know now, I would have chosen a different career.  I am passionate about birth, about babies and about a beautiful start to life.  The foundation of everything else.  The bonding time with the mother so crucial to emotional development.  Because of this new found love :passion: even. I am beginning a journey.  I am certain it will take me several years, but I am determined to be educated as much as I can so that I can :help: new mama's through the most amazing transition every.

A few of my goals (which I am sure I will revisit often) are:

1. become a LLL leader.

2. become both a birth and postpartum doula

3. become a certified lactation consultant.

4. have a midwife assisted homebirth (after two births with complications there is NO way I would consider an unassisted birth.

5. become a Bradley Birth Class instructor.

This new career path I am looking toward is one for much later in my life...because now, now I am focused on the emotional well-being of my own family.  I will not be a doula until I can leave my family at any time day or night with or without their father home.  We are no where NEAR that point.  But, no sense in holding off on the education. 

So step one become a LLL leader.  Here we go. :)

birth of a mother.

the overlooked birth experience.

birth: n. the emergence of a baby or other young from the body of its mother; the start of life as a physically separate being

Every time a first child is born into a family, another quieter, less celebrated birth takes place. It is an important birth. The birth of a new mother. Each consecutive birth from then out for a woman is empowering and beautiful, but nothing compares to the first, the instant where through labor a woman transforms into a mother. The transformation takes months. The birth experience alone does not make it complete. But in an instant. A woman becomes something so much more than she has ever been. She emerges from herself and becomes more. More aware, more attuned, more reliable, more needed. A mother is more than a woman.

The journey to motherhood is exhausting, strenuous and emotionally taxing. Becoming a mother is a beautiful thing. The birth of a new mother should be celebrated no matter what the circumstances are. Birth, a joyous occasion where baby breathes the first breath of new life, is an experience that brings new life not only to the child now being suckled at her mother's breast but also to the woman who brought her into the world.

Today, a mother was born. A beautiful mother, a strong mother, a woman who through the journey now holds a baby in her arms and heart. Celebrate the journey, not just the destination. Celebrate the trials, not just the joys. Celebrate the birth. celebrate the less acknowledged birth. celebrate the mother. becoming who you are meant to be.