112: Motherbirth

How have your personal experiences launched you into a certain line of work or the pursuit of a passion? Today’s show is about someone who used the tough and challenging journey into motherhood to find ways to help others through their difficulties. If your road to motherhood has been anything but smooth sailing, then you don’t want to miss today’s show!

Mellisa Reeves is a doula, coach, and the co-founder of the Motherbirth podcast and community. She shares her personal story around postpartum anxiety and the difficulties that caused in connecting with her son, along with the subsequent loss, birth trauma, and milestones that came and went. She shares about what she had to overcome and how she felt disconnected after the birth of her son and how her experiences have shaped the work she does today. Mellisa works with women who have experienced pregnancy loss and want to trust their bodies again, helping them find their path to hope and healing through the innate intuition they each possess. Brought up with an innate love for simple, natural, rhythmic living, Mellisa’s perspective on motherhood and life comes from a slow reawakening to the depth of feminine wisdom through her experience of stillbirth, multiple miscarriages, and postpartum anxiety. Mellisa is based in Portland but travels semi-fulltime with her husband and two children. 

Show Highlights:

• How Mellisa’s interest in perinatal wellness was sparked by her first pregnancy loss, and then intensified with a difficult postpartum period with her son and the stillbirth of her second son
• As the oldest of ten siblings, she grew up on a farm in Canada with a hippie mother who was either pregnant or breastfeeding for Mellisa’s entire childhood and youth
• How her mother was very intentional, thoughtful, and present as a mom, and how Mellisa drew confidence from her about the manual aspects of motherhood, but felt severely lacking in the emotional preparation
• The challenges with a difficult birth, postpartum, and bonding issues with her son
• How she struggled with postpartum anxiety and felt like that trying time period would NEVER end
• How she was so overwhelmed that she couldn’t comprehend having more children, lacked any peer support, and lacked connection with her intuition and inner voice
• How her son reacted with force to her attempts to control him and she thought she would never have a connected relationship with him
• She got pregnant with her second son when her oldest was 3, and she still had high anxiety and felt the darkness of that time
• Why she couldn’t reconcile her “different lives” as mother to her oldest as she was pregnant with her second, who was stillborn at 42 weeks; this became the turning point in the healing of the relationship with her oldest
• Now, when he is 9 years old, they have a difficult relationship, but a beautiful and dynamic one in which they both sense what it takes to stay connected
• How the healing happens in a non-linear way
• Mellisa’s journey into doula care and birth advocacy, supporting women and coaching them through pregnancy loss and birth trauma
• How her personal experiences have resonated and taken her into certain fields where she finds passion to help others
• How a doula supports mental health for mothers where relationships and connection are usually lacking
• How we can change the first few months of motherhood to impact the rest of a woman’s journey
• The experience after Mellisa’s daughter was born last year, despite a difficult postpartum and multiple losses previously
• Why it’s difficult to admit that our relationships with our children are less than ideal because of what it says about us as mothers
• How her podcast shares stories and experiences of women and the significant identity shift that takes place with the birth of the firstborn
• How the podcast shares stories of the transition to motherhood and its themes and narratives that are common and shared
• Her co-host, Laura, is finishing up her doctorate in Nurse Midwifery and focuses on the power of storytelling and group coaching

Resources:

The Conscious Parent by Shefali Tsabary

Find Mellisa online, along with her courses and group coaching:  http://www.trustyourbodyagain.com

Find the Motherbirth podcast:  http://www.motherbirth.co

Connect with Mellisa on Instagram