The Mother I Used To Be

Both children sleeping, to both of you I am ‘mama’.

Judah has an understanding of what that means, he knows that I grew him, he tells me it’s a hard job to look after him and Autumn-Violet all the time. He says he is too clever for me. To him I am almost laughable, a joke, errand woman, silly mummy… and he holds his face up and shuts his eyes for a kiss of blessing.

Autumn-Violet, it’s more base and instinctual, what is mama? She is a clean nappy, an animated face, pretending to chew on her fingers, the soft breast to nuzzle against at night.

I wandered blindly into pregnancy with Judah, my strongest memories of that time the way he would do a double kick and punch and leave me breathless. I would grind the coffee at 7am, trying not to puke at the smell of the pastries, and he would kick and squirm as I woke him up. I remember before even conceiving him, lying in my bed and imagining him, creating him in my head before I did with my body. His birth expanded my mind and opened up a whole world of possibility. I see myself, newly-wed, hopelessly optimistic… lavishing my love on this tiny baby who quickly grew round and jolly, just from my milk, my happy boy. It was a simple time. Cleaning my little two-bed flat on Elm Street while he slept in the sling, going for coffee and playdates, walks on the beach and to castles with his brothers. Long naps in the afternoon as he swapped breasts over and over again and we dozed in perfect harmony.

His will was strong – maybe I loved him too much, poured all my unwanted love into him, was thrilled by him, his assertiveness and courage making my heart swell. He was never put down as a baby. Then, complex words spilling from his toddler mouth as he directed us all and watched us scurry around to meet his demands. Slamming the door in my face as he goes off on his adventures. He has always seemed larger than life to me. He is my boomerang, always returning home.

Sometimes I think he had the best of me, the sweetest, the most soft. Fresh, unfiltered love, with barely any of the trauma that was to befall us before he was two. I see us laughing together, mama and baby, growing up together. Raw and boundless.

Autumn-Violet, you are a catalyst. To say I cherished my pregnancy does not even cover how I felt about you. How to explain the joy of your movements even while my body stiffened with adrenalin and my body nearly wore itself out? You were the one who made me feel beautiful.

How do you see me? Here I feel some guilt. You used to kick in protest in the womb when I would set boundaries for Judah and he would wail. I often joked maybe you did not want to come out at all based on what you had heard from me so far. I worried that I had damaged you somehow with my sickness, stress and grief. You were bundled up in the sling at a week old and dragged on school runs, to the park, to soft play, your feeding and changing always on the go, never slow, never a bonding time. Then when rest finally came Judah would wake you up and smother you with love.

You are the light. You knit our world together. How we adore you.

To you, maybe mama is the one with the strong voice and the set jaw. The warrior who in the midst of chaos still gets arrested by your amazing smile. You are happy, uncomplicated, you like your space. You make things easier, taking everything in with your wide, gazing eyes. You’re strapped in, swept along, on a mission again, with the woman steering this unsteady course for our family.

Have you missed out? My love for you is more doing than feeling, the depths I have gone, the things I have done...

I have moved mountains for you.

You missed out on the sweetness but you came along just in time for the strength. 

Placenta Magick | Jenny Wren

I've written before about the amazing placenta, and my own experience encapsulating and consuming my own. I believe it is a way to bring our journey to motherhood "full circle", completing the process. There are nutritional and hormonal benefits, but I also think there is something more to it that we don't fully understand...

I've had lots of thoughts swirling around my head about preparation, intention and energy involved when encapsulating. I have to be completely honest that when I came away from my training having worked on a real placenta, I was excited and yet apprehensive. I wasn't sure if it was for me after all. The whole experience had felt completely otherworldly.

When I was preparing my first ever placenta, I wasn't ready to be attuned with somebody else's energy. I had no warning. I'd never experienced anything like it before.

I came home and began to consider how I would like to proceed in this art (and if I would!)

I thought about the placenta, the baby's constant companion in the womb and source of comfort and life.

It was clear to me that as I was drawing feeling from the placenta, surely mine must be going in - like an exchange. Just like when you're about to enter a birth room and you leave your "crap" at the door (personal emotions and worries, stresses of life) in order to be completely there for that woman, the same goes for the placenta. This is special work. 

The first way I get ready to begin my work is to take a few deep breaths and put on my birthing playlist that inspired me for Autumn-Violet's birth as it puts me in the right frame of mind and to harness the strength and beauty of my memories.

When working on the placenta of a friend, I thought long and hard about her birth, how she might be feeling, and my hopes and intentions for her postpartum recovery. I thought about her children and how I hoped that fourth trimester period and transition would go for all of them. Just that simple thinking is willing those positive things to happen. I wanted to put as much happiness and hope into her capsules as I could. 

The magic is in the intention.

The transmitting of feelings definitely happens the other way too, which was what I struggled with in my training as it overwhelmed me. 

One placenta I can only describe as joyous. While working on it I was at a difficult point in my life, and I found myself grinning as joy sparked within me as I cut the placenta into thin slices. It had such a lovely feeling emanating from it that I just had to message the mum to let her know how much I was enjoying the process. There was no other reason for me to be so randomly happy at that point. I definitely wanted to give something back - I thought of the specific reasons she wanted her placenta encapsulated, and her difficult experiences, her beautiful birth and family and focused just on that until I was done.

While preparing my own placenta I felt a bit dizzy, like I was getting vibrations from it!

What we put into our bodies is so important, and I definitely believe that emotions and energies can be transferred in this way, especially with something as miraculous and unique as the placenta. I am still learning, and enjoying getting to "know" all these different amazing and life-sustaining placentas and hope more women can benefit from remedies postnatally.

Cord Burning: Reclaiming the Sacred Third Stage

When we decided to freebirth, we had to make a decision as to how we would separate Autumn-Violet from her placenta. In most hospital or home births, that is done with clamps and scissors, or maybe a cord tie, which are gaining in popularity.

Having recently trained as an IPEN placenta encapsulator, my fascination with the placenta had grown and I became very interested in the concept of lotus birth. The placenta is considered in many cultures to be the baby's twin, its other self, and the harsh separation with scissors can come as a shock to the baby as it is cut off from its blood, oxygen, nutrient supply and constant companion. Particularly if the one separating them is a stranger, or even the father of the baby. The baby may even experience this as violent.

Although I loved the idea of lotus birth, that is, leaving baby and placenta attached until the cord naturally falls off, I also wanted to use my placenta for remedies. That means it must be chilled very soon after birth. We decided that cord burning was a good compromise, a gentle and gradual way of separating baby and placenta, while within the time limits of good food hygiene to make sure the placenta was fit for consumption.

Cord burning is essential in some countries where the cleanliness of tools cannot be guaranteed. It is a hygienic, accessible way for all. In old China they believed burning the cord was warming and helped to move "Qi" into the baby. Anecdotally, this is said to help birth recovery for both mum and baby and boost milk production. It can also show visible improvement in babies with low APGAR scores and get them to "pink up". There is no need for a clamp as the umbilical cord is clean and cauterised by the flame. I decided to write "lotus birth" on our birth plan to ensure we could do it in private.

In preparation for this ritual, Autumn-Violet's father made candles himself from stubs of the candles we light while in the bath. He melted them down and added essential oils, then reset them. He liked the idea of creating the candles that would separate the baby from the placenta and having a greater involvement in the birth experience.

After a stressful birthing of the placenta that took two hours to come, I was relieved to return to the sofa with my baby and her placenta. We had a midwife to check the placenta and perineum, and after she left we decided it was time for Autumn-Violet to say goodbye to her womb companion.

Autumn-Violet's father had made a cardboard shield from a cereal box a few days prior (circle with a slit for the cord) and we used this to create a distance between the baby and the flame. She latched on for a feed and her father held the candle to the white umbilical cord. The flame gently crackled and began to blacken the umbilical cord as we sat watching the progress. The room was dark, quiet and intimate and we watched as the cord twisted and burned slowly in response to the fire. Eventually there was a louder crackle and Autumn-Violet gave a wriggle as she was fully born into this world.

I am so grateful to Autumn-Violet's father for taking charge during this special process as I really wanted to experience it, but was nervous of getting it wrong. He approached the whole thing with real confidence and assurance and that's what made it feel so powerful to me. I feel so moved that Autumn-Violet was gently separated from her placenta by the confident energy of her father taking charge.

I would definitely choose this method for the third stage again, were I to give birth again. It was a mesmerising, calming event that brought the birth to a beautiful end. If I had to estimate I would say it took ten minutes. Her cord stump  was pointed and black at the end, and although longer than I would have liked for nappy changes, dried and fell off in four days which is a testament to how clean and effective this method is.