Owemama Unfiltered #4
This week, I met with a nurse in the maternity field who’s a bit on the sidelines of the traditional healthcare system (her words). Even though she’s not a mom, I could sense her caring nature and curiosity for motherhood. As we spoke about my experience with childbirth, she asked me a thought-provoking question, “Would you say giving birth was the moment you transitioned to motherhood?”
I paused and smiled, not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I had thought about this before — What does “transition to motherhood” mean? When does that transition happen? And what happens during this time? — after a second, I answered, “Actually, I think it happened way before that, during my pregnancy.”
Like many pregnant women, my first trimester was anything but a breeze. I’d often wake up with a sudden wave of morning sickness; I felt tired, battled food cravings and aversions, experienced bleeding, and even started getting back pain. How could this be just the beginning and already so uncomfortable? But looking back, I believe my transition to motherhood actually began with those first symptoms.
Without a visible bump and no baby in my arms, how else would I know I was pregnant? Sure, the pregnancy test confirmed it, but what was the underlying cause behind these unpleasant symptoms? Today, with so much information at our fingertips, it’s easy to forget how incredibly intelligent our own bodies are. Those symptoms served as a signal; a way for my body to remind me: “Hey, you have a little human growing inside! Don’t *bleep* it up!”. I was reminded, time and time again, day and night, that I needed to slow down and care for myself. A shift had taken place, that shift or transition to motherhood would translate itself in each choice that I would make for my baby, and I was starting to get a taste of what “unconditional love” actually meant.
Pregnancy often gets painted with broad strokes. It is either romanticized or only depicted as this challenging time. The truth is pregnancy, just like being a mom, is a nuanced experience. Staying on the surface, only talking about how beautiful or challenging it is would be limiting and would not do justice to the strength that emanates from it. So before writing this newsletter, I not only wanted to understand how other moms experienced pregnancy but also, how they experienced their transition into motherhood. Through meaningful conversations, I realized that while each woman’s journey was unique — some loved their pregnancies, others not so much, and many were somewhere in between — there was a familiarity in the choices they had to make. Basically, the common thread was the sacrifices involved.
With Sacrifices comes Transition
Yes, being pregnant meant making sacrifices, like that one friend who bravely admitted that each movement of her baby made her feel uncomfortable, like an alien was growing inside her, feeling her independence slipping away as she surrendered her body to someone else. Or that other friend who had to let go of old habits, like smoking cigarettes or weed. These habits, though unhealthy, had been her way of coping with life’s stresses for years. She would now have to rewire her brain to learn new, healthy coping mechanisms. Finally, I think about that one friend who’s a CEO. She’s been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) from an early age and has been on medication since. Defining herself as career-driven and a workaholic, it was a huge sacrifice for her to manage a successful company without her medication. She also had to fully accept the strong possibility or the inevitability that her career might suffer because, guess what? Not only did the pregnancy come with its load of symptoms, all there to remind her she was indeed pregnant, but she could no longer work with the same amount of focus and efficiency.
All these brave women had to make choices that were no longer just about their needs, their wants, or even what they accepted as their definition of themselves. Their transition to motherhood was happening as they started putting someone else first, and just like every transition, it came with challenges. It was a way to get them out of their comfort zone and push them to their extremes so they would eventually get through it with much more to offer: more wisdom, more strength, and more love.
So, considering all this, would you say my transition to motherhood began in the first trimester, or did it start even earlier?
Well, I think it happened when I started contemplating the idea of surrendering my body to someone else.
And I don’t believe we can ever reverse this transition, whether it started at the moment of birth, during pregnancy, or with the first thought of having a child. It’s a powerful, deeply personal shift that can be both grounding and destabilizing, pushing your boundaries in ways you may not expect.
So, while this journey will undoubtedly bring wisdom, strength, and profound love, the best way to navigate it is by having the right support and information by your side.
Coco, Founder of Owemama.