Finding ourselves after baby.

“An Awakening, if you listen” – Sheri Delaney

Without knowing it, before you have a child, you possess the greatest luxury, time. When you leave work, you can do whatever you want. You can wake up and hop in the shower! Have your coffee while you scroll through garbage on the internet. You can linger. LINGER people. Your life is your own. When you have a baby, that all ends. Time becomes a precious commodity, cosmic gold, and you only have so much. If you want to accomplish anything in this life, you better do it during nap or when you have the babysitter for two hours. Even once you get back into the swing of things, every hour you are away at work is an hour you are not with your kids. The point not being you shouldn’t work, it being you better believe in what you are doing. The thing is, you only have this one life. You only have so much time, what are you doing with it? Will you spend it at work, missing your baby? Will you spend it at home, missing your work? Will you feel a calling and follow it, knowing you want your daughter to follow her heart like her momma? Will you grow a set and do the things you’ve been talking about for the last ten years? There is urgency now. There are people looking up to you. Time is precious and you have no choice but to use it intentionally. Before I had my first, my life was an ADD soup of careers. In this order, I earned a CPA a couple of years out of college, shifted to a finance role, started teaching yoga, joined a program to teach 7th grade math at a school in the south Bronx, worked at a luxury beauty consulting firm, kept teaching yoga, worked for my family’s bakery, started acting school, auditioning, writing and performing, and taught more yoga. Once I had my daughter, it was like someone took a frying pan and banged me in the head. I had an awakening. Deep down, I knew writing television and performing made my heart sing. Like Whitney Houston sing. I could never admit that to myself because in my world up until that point it was a silly thing to want. I thought about my mother. Her success, her resilience and how that positively affected me. Then I thought about myself as a mother, too afraid to pursue what I loved, and how that would affect my daughter. It was then that I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try. There is an awakening here. This is a ripe moment in time. Who do you want to be for this child? What matters to you the most, and how will you use your little precious time to live intentionally. Whatever you want for your children, you first need to want for yourself.

From Sheri, “The topic of “bouncing back” is always a juicy one, whether it’s our bodies, how we are socially, or who we are in our careers. Nothing is ever the same after we have a child, letting ourselves explore this new life can be scary, frustrating, and illuminating. What were our old habits? Rock solid abs at any cost! Work, work, work! This is a wonderful opportunity to question who we want to be, and how she is so much different than the version of us that wasn’t yet a mother.

Postpartum Care on a budget

1. First Forty Days (cook book)…make, have people make, and use this as a tool to help you at the beginning with meals.

2. Come up with a tag team structure for nights. Mom takes x shift, dad takes y shift. Even if you decided to breastfeed throughout, as opposed to maybe pumping and having mom and lover give a bottle at night, the process of changing and getting the baby back to sleep is long and you shouldn’t have to do that 24/7. When we had the baby at night, I would go to bed at like 9pm, wake up and pump a couple of times, while Dave would take over until 5am unless he was so shot he couldn’t and I would take over. Then 5am I was on and he would sleep til like noon. Just an example.

3. Go to a couple of different healers. I love Maura at https://www.rosewoodhealing.com. You might have an acupuncturist you love. Have a therapist lined up. Look into massage and bodywork! Having these things built in are incredible, even if you feel like you don’t “need” it.

4. Be in nature, take the baby for lots of walks once you are physically ready!

5. Remember it’s temporary!!!!!! Be really kind to yourself.