To truly understand my birth story, my parenting journey, and where my opinions and views come from you have to understand this part of my journey. This part of my family’s journey. It shaped how and where we birthed, who we are as parents, and who I am as a woman. So, it is a big deal.
It all starts before the pregnancy was even thought of. Nathaniel and I planned a 3 month honeymoon through Latin America after our wedding in 2014. Our intention was to fly into Panama, spend some time exploring the mainland and then head to some islands he heard about at the end of his 2008 bike tour. The islands are called San Blas or Guna Yala by the locals. We planned to catch a boat to Colombia from the islands and continue on through South America.
We explored the mainland for a few weeks and then headed to the islands and 66 days later, we left. We never made it to South America! We fell in love with the culture, the climate, the people, and the whole package in Guna Yala. I had many epiphanies and shifts during our secluded time there, away from all of our family and friends, away from wifi and the internet and the news, away from it all in every sense of the word. Nathaniel and I have both traveled extensively and have seen many different cultures. Between us we’ve seen India, Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North and Central America. We like visiting and exploring other cultures and traveling slow. These islands are the most unique and interesting place either of us have ever been. It’s like traveling back in time as well as traveling to another culture and climate. It’s getting to experience what life was like 100+ years ago on a tiny remote island, what life is like in an indigenous village using the same technology they have used for a 1000 years. It is an opportunity to understand our own primal desires, thoughts, fears and instincts.
One of the biggest shifts for me was this: Realizing it is not that I didn’t want kids (which I believed wholeheartedly to be true), it’s that I did not want kids in my society. I was not sold on the strung out mom with soggy cheerios in her hair, with no sleep and no support who was also probably trying to work and just looking overall stretched too thin, lonely, and overwhelmed. Why would I sign up for that? I wouldn’t. What I would sign up for was what I saw on this beautiful, primitive tiny island. An intact village, a support system of extended family and neighbors where everyone has their role and is supported and supporting one another. Where mothering is full of connection, community, and support. Where all day the women, mothers and non mothers alike, enjoy each other’s company and support as they go about their daily tasks and hobbies. Nathaniel and I decided when we had kids, we would do it here, somehow.
For me, it was so good that it helped me connect to my true desires about having children, it inspired me to get pregnant shortly after returning home from that three month honeymoon, and once we were pregnant it was worth risking…a lot. It was worth risking all creature comforts during pregnancy and postpartum, like running water, electricity, beds. Access to the foods I am used to especially for the pregnancy and postpartum cravings. The ability to shop on Amazon or run to the store to get something to prepare for baby or buy for fun! The ability to Google thoughts and fears only pregnant women and new moms know exist. Connection with my family and close friends. The comfort of my own culture and my own society and familiarity of cultural norms and how people will treat baby and I after baby arrives.
That is what I gave up. What I got in return was access to wisdom of centuries past. I learned how to potty my baby from birth, I knew when she needed to eat, sleep, potty or cuddle because I got to spend all day and night with her in a hammock just soaking up motherhood, learning her, learning myself as a mother. I had 3 meals a day cooked for me and my husband every day. I got my husband’s support because he was right there with me not returning to work after a few short days or weeks to leave me alone in the house with a baby. My own parents flew down for the birth and also spent a week with us on the island and though my own mother couldn’t offer much support about how to do things on the island she was still so supportive emotionally and to have around and love me and her granddaughter! I also had women around who know how to help me with the baby on the island. They taught me how to safely co sleep in a hammock. I learned to listen to my own intuition, my own voice, rather than look out to google, the dr, mom groups, my own mother for every question I had. I did learn plenty from other places but learning to be guided by your own maternal intuition is worth everything. It’s a hormonal bond, an emotional bond, an intellectual bond, a primal bond with your baby. I don’t do anything with my child just because ‘that is how it is done.’ I know those things change throughout time and across cultures. What I can count on is my maternal intuition to know what is best for my baby. That self connection and connection to baby lets me know when to ask for support, for more information, and when to let things be, when to keep doing what I am doing.
I was motivated to seek all this out because I was truly inspired to see what a supported mother with lots of connection looks like. She is calm, she is happy, she is content, she is satisfied and full of life. In addition to that, I wanted to know everything about how they were raising these happy, content, confident kids who were so capable, never fought, played all day and were a delight to be around. I wanted to be that mom and I wanted these kids. By sacrificing all the things I listed above I was given a live model of how to obtain both. I learned that a newborn especially needs constant connection, mainly from their mother, but a crucial piece to that is that it can not be only her mother. Her mother’s nervous system was not designed for that. That baby needs aunties and grandmas and Daddy and older kids around to connect with as well and this provides mother with time for self care. She is never far away, but that time is essential. I learned what a child who’s attended to with love and connection and presence consistently turns out like! Anora was literally in my arms almost consistently for the first three months of her life. She was also in her Daddy’s arms and the arms of the all the grandmas and aunties and sisters around me on the island. They always offered to hold her so I could eat, or go nap, or shower. I didn’t take them up on it enough as much as I should have because I enjoyed Anora so much, but I did when I needed to and I always appreciated knowing they were there!
I think the most valuable thing I took away from this experience was learning to parent outside the box. Being so removed from all that was normal to me, and having support and connection and time with me baby, led me to a place to view every single thing with new eyes. Although I have spent tons of time with kids as an Aunt, as a nanny, a teacher’s aid, etc, I had to learn everything from scratch. How the baby will sleep with me, how to bathe her, how to attend to her needs, how to shower and eat and care for myself, all outside my own cultural norms. It was a huge gift. It left me with a huge open mind to know that whatever was being presented to me was just an option, just one version of how one group of people thinks babies should be cared for or treated. It gave me a more global perspective, a desire to look around and back into history and say why are we doing this or that? Where does that desire or strategy come from? To my own surprise, it changed some strong opinions I held previously very drastically. This experience shaped me into a completely different parent than I would have been otherwise, and for me that is worth everything it cost me, which was a lot.
I am always thankful for those times where I am stretched and challenged because that is where I grow. I reach for and create those times because I value growth so much. Going to Guna Yala to have my baby was all about stretching and in return there was so much growth and for me and my family that made it worth it.