In Bloom Doula Services

This week I wanted to focus on mom guilt. It’s a big multi layered onion, and I’ve spent the past 3 years pulling it apart. You can feel guilt for the littlest thing like serving your kid a pop tart, and no mom escapes mom guilt completely. This past January I embarked on my doula journey. I completed my birth and postpartum doula trainings, and learned more than I ever could have imagined. I learned about doula work of course, but I also learned a lot about myself.

The more information I gain, the more I can look back into my past experiences with pregnancy and postpartum; motherhood in general and see everything with much more clarity. A theme throughout both trainings was dealing with guilt and dealing with grief that we are made to believe is guilt. These lessons were revolutionary to me and I figured they may be revolutionary to other moms as well.

Firstly, I harbored a lot of guilt about becoming a second time mom. I worried I was cutting Holden’s babyhood short, denying him of attention, ending our breastfeeding relationship too soon. Throughout the end of my pregnancy I worried he wasn’t getting the best of me, and wouldn’t for a long time. I was worried about how he’d transition into being a big brother at only 19 months old. To top that off, I felt like I had focused so much of my pregnancy on Holden that I sometimes neglected to take care of myself and the baby I was carrying. I had a very stressful school year, a lot on my plate, and dealing with new certification test and a job search left my last trimester feeling quite hellish. All of that stress, all of the chaos and I still felt guilty about taking my “leave” four days earlier than planned even at the expense of my mental and physical health (my due date feel on what would have been field day and my last day of work.)

Then Waylon was born. Right on his due date. He had a blissful, easy, swift, and peaceful entrance into the world. Very much an indicator of his personality now, however I spent the first 6 weeks with him in a fog. Waylon had horrible colic and would cry for 6-7 hours a night. Hours of non stop crying. I’d bounce him, walk him, wear him, nurse him, change him, burp him, nurse him. Nothing would help. Eventually he’d pass out from exhaustion and we’d repeat the cycle the next night. It was awful.

And then whole other wave of guilt hit me.

Not only did I feel like I was missing out on Holden, but I had the guilt of every experience for Waylon being less than than it was for Holden. Less attention, less one-on-one time, less of a maternity leave (6 weeks less in fact). Between my leave, holidays, and vacation time I got 6 months of Holden’s first year at home with him. Waylon got not only less leave, but I was returning to work at the beginning of a school year at a brand new school in a new district. A lot more was being asked of me, in and outside of the home all at the same time. I wouldn’t get summer vacation with him again until he was a year old. I felt robbed. I felt like I’d cheated him. I felt guilty. I felt grief. I mourned the end of summer and tearfully returned to work. We weren’t ready.

A few weeks later I returned to work at my new high demand job. A few weeks after that my grandfather passed away, our family was in a wedding, Holden had a birthday, the holidays happened and suddenly it was a new year. Life happened before my eyes. Waylon turned 6 months old, 7 months old and is getting older every second. The guilt was and is all consuming as the days fly by. I feel like I pushed my feelings down and tried to get things done, get through the days, take care of the next task and roll with the punches. Not lingering on the difficulties of our postpartum months.

Then I took my birth doula training first with Laura DePasquale. It was fabulous and full of inspiring stories, insightful, evidence based information. I left it on a high and more excited than ever to begin my doula journey.

As we discussed high stress during pregnancies, I learned there is a strong correlation between high stress pregnancies and extreme colic. It all clicked and I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Our class conversation moved on and I raised my hand for clarification:

“A high stress pregnancy can cause colic?”

Laura said,  “yes, but don’t beat yourself up!” as she could see tears welling up in my eyes.

I have flashbacks to times I was raising my voice at students who were louder than the announcement as they were about to miss their bus. Rushing to job interviews, and filling out applications, and trying to prepare for maternity leave until 7 pm, on top of dealing with 50+ students daily. I remember crying after work once for screaming at students and realizing as it was happening and as I was telling them “there is a baby right here! He can hear everything the loudest!”  while pointing at my stomach and thinking how dare you make him listen to this?!

Part of me was happy to make the connection like “ah ha! It all makes sense!” And part of me was like “oh my God. I feel awful that I put Waylon through that.” The guilt for letting anything push me to that point where I compromised Waylon makes me feel sick to my stomach at this very moment.

Had I known the effects on Waylon would last for months, maybe longer I may have let the kids miss their bus, or not learn that day, or let my dog stay ran away for the 5th time that week. Maybe I would have skipped the job interview process, or let my house stay dirty. But I always thought I was doing the right thing at that moment. I always thought I was doing what was best for my family, my students, my dog, my co-workers. The guilt takes over my life some days. My house is a mess, I neglected my dog, I didn’t read enough, we didn’t play outside enough, I forgot to brush Holden’s teeth- again, I was snippy with Nathan, I was unorganized and frazzled at school, my lessons were crap, I ate out lunch everyday this week.

Two weeks later I excitedly attended my postpartum doula training with Anne Grauer. I had left my birth training on a high and was thrilled to do it all over again. The topic of mom guilt inevitably came up while discussing breastfeeding difficulties. She said many women grieve the loss of a breastfeeding relationship, but the feeling is labeled as guilt, so we think of this grief as guilt and it is damaging to the healing process.

I suddenly felt so seen and heard. YES! I have all of the “guilt” about being a working mom. About my maternity leave ending, about being away at work, about having to pump and not nurse exclusively, about our childcare situation, about missing things, about separation anxiety, and the list could go on and on.

But I realized I don’t feel guilty about that. I have to do it for my family, which I am proud of, but I have been grieving for the past 2 and a half years the loss of the time with my infants that we both biologically need. And I am not sure that I will ever get over that. I am not sure that can ever be healed. It will always be a loss. It will always be grief I feel deeper than an grief I have ever know.

I never felt validated in those feelings because I had never heard it spoken that way, but I never felt more understood than in that moment.

I can’t escape that guilt though. I may have labeled the grief, but I feel the complexities of mom guilt a little bit more on a day. Yesterday for example, I took the day off the take the boys to their well baby check ups. Waylon’s a month late, Holden’s a month early to make sure I only needed one day off. I decided since I harbor so much guilt about missing things while I am at work, that we’d do something special… go to the zoo on the free entry Tuesday after their appointments. I rarely get a week day with great weather home with them, so I wanted to make the most of it. I did this in October for their previous appointments and we did the Build a Bear birthday pay your age for Holden. It was a huge mess, but thankfully yesterday was the best day ever.

But as I put in my absence I was hit with guilt about that. I began to ask myself, “maybe I should just take a half day? Maybe I shouldn’t post anything about this on social media? Maybe I should clarify to my coworkers that I’m not just having a fun day with my kids. I’m condensing their appointments (that they need) so I miss fewer days!”

All that justification in my head wrestling with guilt from missing work and then I finally said, “NOPE.”

Guilt has no place in my brain for the day. My boys deserve to go to the doctor and have their mother there. I deserve a day with my boys away from work. We all deserve a day together as I rarely miss work, and have guilt every other day about that. It’s ridiculous that I’d sit here and obsess about the guilt consuming me about missing one day of work as I take a step toward addressing my guilt about working away from my boys each day.

There are so many situations where moms can’t win for losing. We will feel guilty regardless. Work out and feel guilt about missing hours in the evening with the boys. Not work out, and feel guilt about not taking care of ourselves. Cook and clean the kitchen and feel guilty for taking up the evening doing household chores. Order take out and play outside, then feel guilty about spending money and eating trash. The guilt is a trap and it seems unavoidable most days.

But that is where grace comes in. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything. There is simply no way to be perfect at everything all the time, there is no way to be a perfectly pristine, patient and together wife, mother, teacher and dog owner 24/7.

I’m not capable of mastering everything without guilt in something at some point. But that’s why there is grace. That’s why there is a Savior. There is power in accepting that perfection is unattainable and that striving to be more Christlike is the only was I can escape that all consuming guilt. I can’t do it all, but Jesus can. He can take the broken mess of a mom, wife, woman, like me and make me able.

We have got to say NO to the constant guilt trips. We’ve got to give ourselves grace. We’ve got to own that we can’t to do everything everyday, or fill every role and wear every hat at every moment. We’ve got to take personal days without guilt. We’ve got to let ourselves be happy when we are trying our hardest to be the best momma we can be each day. We have got to surrender to the one who will hold us through it all and let Him guide us when we don’t think we can go on anymore, when we don’t feel worthy of this job of motherhood thats been given to us. We have to lean on Him.

I can’t change mistakes I have made, but I can learn from them, and they can influence how I handle other challenges that will come my way. Every lesson just teaches me more and more how I am not capable when I try to do it all on my own. Of course I will fail, and of course I will feel that guilt. When I lean on Christ though, those burdens become lighter, and the guilt becomes less.