Why Birth Stories?
What is it about these stories that I have dedicated my life’s work to? Why do they matter so much to me, and to the people I process them with?
✨Birth stories involve our entire bodies. This means often confronting stories about the way we care for our bodies, the way we feel about our bodies, the way we connect to our bodies. They are somatic stories more than they are anything else. We might face questions about sexuality, about food, about movement, about pain: these stories are so full of wonder and places to go. In the postpartum period, often we are confronted not just with a new adjustment to a baby, but also confronted with beliefs and messages about our mothering and personhood.
✨Birth stories involve our entire identity. It obviously (and often complicated-ly) involves our identity as a parent. But birth stories also involve our identities as daughters, as siblings, as friends, as partners–there is often very little relationally untouched by our birth stories. We come in with a whole history, and that is part of our birth story. (This is particularly important when there is childhood/complex trauma or sexual trauma. Folks with previous histories of any kind of trauma are far more likely to experience birth trauma, and this can make processing identity particularly complicated.)
✨Birth stories are a foundational piece of a matriarchal societies, and giving them language, ritual, and honor is part of the way we dismantle the way mothers have been disvalued or shamed in our society. I truly believe that maternal mental and physical health MUST include space to process and honor these stories if we want to see improvements.
Unprocessed, these stories will rage in our bodies. They want to be told, held, seen, witnessed. Particularly if there is any element of trauma (either medical birth trauma or story-based birth trauma), these stories will not metabolize in isolation. They must be communal.
✨I freaking love ‘em. Never once have I gotten bored or tired of someone’s birth story. I think I could do this the rest of my life and only grow to love it more. None of them sound the same, none of them sound small. I don’t need your story to be “birth trauma” for it to matter to me—I love the ones that feel beautiful and empowering, scary and unending, and everything in between. And honestly, almost all birth stories hold a bit of both.
If you’re stuck in your story: I would love to process with you. Like–truly, this is my favorite thing. I work in therapy relationships across the state of Colorado, and do birth story coaching for folks anywhere. If this resonates: reach out! Consults: always free, usually fun.
Areas I work with: birth trauma, birth story processing, birth stories, anxiety, depression, postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, motherhood, identity, grief and loss, bereavement, infertility
