Inside each of us there are many potential mothers.
Some of those mothers you idolise.
You shower love and respect on.
Other mothers you shudder and abhor.
And some mothers – you ignore.
Still other mothers lie unknown, dormant, beyond the gambit of your experience.
There is the mother who births by her own power.The mother who breastfeeds exclusively and skilfully until her baby naturally weans.
The mother who balances her baby on one hip and stirs a delicious one-pot stew brimming with vegetables with one hand while she chats and smiles.
The mother who chuckles because by 4 months her baby sleeps through the night and she’s a 100% at the meeting – show them how it’s done!
Or perhaps the mother who cloth-diapers her baby and serenely allows her baby to play in the mud – so natural and good for them!
The mother who makes fresh organic purees and who smiles at the mom’s meet-up because she can’t imagine why a baby wouldn’t eat broccoli – you just need to prepare it right..
The mother who’s children are best friends for life.
The mother who brings up a brood who are good and brave, capable and accomplished.
In our hearts we long to become the mother of our dreams.
Watching our own mothers mother-us we make decisions on what we will copy and where we will innovate,
what we will hold on to and what parts we will definitely leave out.
As we watch people around us become mothers we begin to temper those dreams with allowances.
Maybe you decide you won’t stress about the occasional bottle,
perhaps you consider the fact that your serenity might need to be bolstered by me-time and self care.
You may wonder in passing how you might mother an infant with autism.
But you spend the most time and effort trying to become the mother of your dreams.
You carefully plan your life, read the right books, eat the right foods,
use all of your wisdom and power to create just the right conditions that will allow you to become the mother of your dreams.
But inside you, lying dormant, is the mother who loses her baby.
The mother who’s baby is born severely sick.
The mother who’s baby is born too early.
The mother of a disabled child.
The mother who’s labor is long and obstructed.
The mother who’s placenta is over her cervix.
The mother who’s baby won’t turn head down.
The mother who’s body reacts to pregnancy putting her own life and that of the baby’s in danger.
The mother who’s milk doesn’t come in.
The mother who’s baby cannot latch.
The mother who is injured at birth.
The mother who doesn’t fall in love with her baby right away.
The mother who’s hormones dip and swell leaving anxiety and depression.
The mother who is not well postpartum.
The mother who’s partner leaves her,
the mother who’s marriage falls apart.
The mother who’s baby won’t sleep.
The mother who’s baby won’t eat.
The mother who’s baby has a lip-tie, an allergy, colic, reflux, asthma, seizures.
The mother who’s maternity leave doesn’t materialise,
the mother who struggles to make enough to support herself while caring full-time for her infant.
The mother who’s country goes to war
The mother who births alone, in a pandemic, surrounded by those who can’t come or won’t come
All these and a million other mothers exist inside of each one of us.
Only when our babies come in to this world do we come into existence as mothers.
When our babies are born to us they come with their own programming – aspects and needs we cannot predict.
Inside everyone of us is an adaptable mother.
A mother who goes everyday to a place she never thought she’d go.
A mother who finds a strength beyond what she thought she had.
A mother who finds a path to survival on 2 hours of sleep a week,
a mother who gives up on her own dreams in order to nurture the reality in front of her.
A mother who grows while she is busy tending to others.
Hold space for the mother that you are.
Give yourself the time and love to grieve the loss of your dream of motherhood.
Pause once in a while to see the new shoots and branches you have grown.
Pause for a moment and notice the child that you have.
The child that gave you the complicated and immense gift of motherhood.
Life Circle Birth International 