Makings of mama

Before motherhood, I was already learning how easy it is to lose Myself

For a long time, I was really good at doing the right thing, overperforming at work, pushing myself to hit the best health habits I could find, and making sure I was always showing up for plans.

I was in a corporate marketing career right out of college, learning from everyone around me that working more and never resting was how you get praise. I was ambitious, dependable, productive, and, oh, too familiar with the kind of anxiety that can disguise itself as being “on top of things.”

I knew how to research something like a pro, make a plan that felt foolproof, and keep moving even when I was exhausted and somehow tell myself that was what success took. I learned how to get really good at convincing myself that if I just worked a little harder, organized things a little better, or finally got to the other side of whatever I was pushing through, I’d feel more like myself again.

Spoiler: that strategy had an expiration date.

Eventually, I hit a level of burnout that made it really hard to ignore how disconnected I had become from myself. While I was trying to crush it at work and realizing all I did was anticipate what other people wanted from me, I was simultaneously paying more and more attention to my health. While that sounds like a good thing, I unfortunately went overboard fast with disordered eating and obsessive workouts ruling my life. I was strict about everything that went into my body and that level of control was something so much more than my body was asking of me; I just couldn’t see it on my own under all the pressure I was carrying.

I will never forget the day that I decided to test my hormones. I knew things felt off, and never really questioned why I wasn’t getting a menstrual cycle or what it meant that I didn’t know what not being stressed even felt like anymore. When I had an honest conversation with a doctor about how out of whack my hormones were, the next topic that immediately came to mind was that the way I was pushing myself from every angle was actually a risk to my ability to be a mom one day at the rate it was going.

I had to seriously look at my life for the first time, and go way beyond the surface level measures of success I had been living by.

This meant sitting with the hard truth of pausing with questions like:

“Is this really how I want my life to feel?“

“Why am I so good at knowing what everyone else needs but have zero idea what I actually need?“

“What would happen if I stopped making every decision based on what I “should” do?“

That season was uncomfortable, but it also started changing everything.

Then I found work that brought me back to myself

That questioning eventually led me into coaching. All that experience with diving head first into nutrition, hormone health, fitness, and stress got me excited about learning more. I also worked with a coach myself to regain my menstrual cycle after several years, and really look at mental health as a critical part of the wellness conversation I had neglected for so long.

I was inspired and still have no idea looking back how I had the confidence to leave my comfortable corporate role and salary to go out on my own as a coach and writer. My path led me to a private mental health practice where I got to pour myself into the world of sitting in someone’s corner and reflecting back the potential I saw as they chased the life they wanted to live, too.

As an ICF-certified life coach, you’ll still find me geeking out in a new training or course that deepens my work through women’s health, relationship support, and mind-body approaches that help us reconnect with ourselves at every level.

I continue to be fascinated by what happens when we stop trying to push ourselves into the “right” answer and actually listen to what’s underneath everything. Every time I get to share space with someone moving through huge career transitions, relationship challenges, understanding their unique experience of anxiety, processing identity shifts, and prioritizing themselves without the guilt, I see just how important self trust is in it all.

And if I’m being real, I didn’t become a coach because I had mastered all of this myself. This isn’t a story of curing myself of all my own anxieties, people-pleasing tendencies, and overcontrol. Instead, I share this because I learn more and more by witnessing real human experiences and what it’s felt like in my life to stop abandoning myself every time things got uncomfortable.

Learning to trust myself was really important to me through it all, and then three years later, I got pregnant. And suddenly, that lesson became the focus again.

pregnancy made everything personal

I’ve always known motherhood felt like home to me, but I was terrified of birth. Not just the messy or less than comfortable parts, but the idea that the body I’ve spent so long rebuilding a relationship with that isn’t about force, shapeshifting, and judgement, would be responsible for bringing a human into this world.

I knew that a history of body image and eating challenges along with the anxiety of hormone issues were there under the surface, but I had no idea how much pregnancy was going to bring up in me.

There was information everywhere, which is pretty addicting to someone who needs predictability and control (as if pregnancy is something I could get “right”). Podcasts, apps, classes, books, forums, videos, advice from people I trusted, advice from people I absolutely did not ask; it was all there and I dove in.

If I had a question, I could usually find 47 answers within five minutes.

What I had a much harder time finding was somewhere to put everything I was feeling while I tried to make sense of those answers. Over the last few years I’ve done the incredibly hard work on myself of making space for awareness of all emotions without needing explanations. That awareness made it easier to see how unexpected some of these new feelings were to me, and brought back that familiar sense of wanting to know what it meant for me, for my baby, and for my future as a mom.

I looked at my body like a science experiment I couldn’t understand, while telling anyone who asked just how “beautiful” and “fascinating” all the changes were. I started to not recognize myself in the sudden struggles to breathe fully through a workout, sleep soundly, wear clothes that felt good, eat the way I feel best, read my hunger and fullness cues, relate to other friends in different stages, be present at work, and focus on myself without the guilt of feeling “selfish”.

I also found an incredible love for being the only one with that level of bond to my baby, hearing his heartbeat at appointments, dreaming of what his personality would be like, thinking of ways to better myself now to break generational patterns with the best motivation of all, and slow down with myself more.

I actually didn’t realize how much I enjoyed being in the challenges and amazing moments of pregnancy until I gave birth and found myself really sad that it was over so quickly.

That’s when I noticed that with all the information I had and all the research I did or birth stories I listened to, I was looking for ways that the uncertainty would somehow stop existing. What I didn’t allow in as much was the genuine check ins about how I was doing, and feeling about that uncertainty. While it felt good to get a quick answer or shift my focus to nursery painting instead of thinking about the scary questions about what I was doing with my career, our home, and who I would be as a mom, those are the things that needed my attention most.

Pregnancy was beautiful for me. It was also one of the first times I really understood that something can be wonderful and emotionally complicated at the exact same time.

And postpartum made the gap impossible to ignore

Then my son was born, during the sunset on a warm day after a labor that rocked me and a birth that repaired so many beliefs I had about myself. My birth story aside, I couldn’t believe how fast I could go from wanting to meet him so badly to suddenly being a mom. That’s an emotional shift that is hard to explain, and one of the first things I’ve realized it’s not important to understand or solve. It’s something I can let be there, as I’m continously growing into this new role in my life.

Becoming a mother is WILD. Like in the best way possible. Each passing week, I look back and realize that so much of what I’ve done as a coach and supported people with is what I needed for myself. Sometimes we can know what we’d do to support someone else, but forget to let ourselves have space for that same level of help.

Being told “that’s totally normal” or “my baby did that too” are great… but what do you actually do with the feeling? How do you process your thoughts around it all, or express what you need beyond what the baby needs?

These are the questions I kept coming back to:

How do I know when I need support versus when I’m just moving through something hard?

How do I make room for myself when everything suddenly revolves around another person?

How do I trust myself when I’m brand new at all of this?

Is it selfish to be thinking of myself when everyone needs something from me?

Somewhere in there, Makings of Mama started taking shape

I have a love for writing that has evolved from my days in marketing to a form of expression and connection around topics of mental health. I also have a passion for helping people see their full potential of life, and step into their power from a place of embodiment and knowing themselves well.

That’s why we’re here today. There are incredible (and I mean INCREDIBLE) people teaching us about birth, lactation, infant sleep, development, pelvic health, nutrition, mental health, and all the practical pieces that help us care for ourselves and our babies.

I am very grateful those people exist, and owe my experience to those who stepped into our village with the most tender love and care.

I also felt like there was a piece missing, and didn’t want to keep letting it be the case for moms at all stages of their becoming. That piece is a dedicated space to focus on the woman underneath all of it:

The mom who is reading the information.

The mom making the decision.

The mom whose relationship is changing.

The mom wondering whether she still wants the same career.

The mom feeling guilty for needing a break.

The mom who loves this life and misses pieces of her old one.

The mom who can intellectually understand why she feels something and still not quite know how to move through it.

The mom who doesn’t necessarily need someone else telling her what to do, but might need enough space to actually hear herself again.

That became the heart of Makings of Mama.

What I know & what I don’t pretend to know

By now, I hope you can see that trust is the center of this space. Trust in myself, trust in yourself, and your trust in me.

I bring my training as a certified life and women’s health coach into the way I think about identity, emotions, relationships, self-trust, body connection, and life transitions.

I also bring my actual lived experience as a first-time mom who is still very much learning as I go. That’s where I can share openly, and bring that sense of standing right there with you into anything I share, so we can lean on one another as we go.

What I will not do is pretend that makes me an expert in every part of motherhood. My GOSH even the thought of that is daunting and sends so much tension through my body. I think the best part of being a mama is learning, growing, listening, understanding, and letting there be value in every experience I’m witnessing without labeling it “right” or “wrong”.

What I care about is YOU. I want this to be somewhere you can come to read a quick article and feel seen, grab something that finally brings a wave of exhale to your day, or hear words that invite your whole body to relax a bit more.

I’m not your OB. I’m not a pediatrician. I’m not a lactation consultant, pelvic floor therapist, sleep specialist, or mental health provider. There are absolutely moments when the most helpful thing I can say is, this deserves support from someone who specializes in it.

I actually think there is a lot of trust in knowing where your lane ends. My role here is different.

I want to help you notice what you’re feeling before you judge yourself for it.

I want to help you untangle what you actually want from what you’ve been told you should want.

I want to talk about the emotional stuff that gets flattened into words like “normal.”

I want to remind you that learning from other people and trusting yourself are allowed to exist in the same sentence.

And I want you to leave this space feeling more connected to your own voice.

And I’m still living it too

This part is probably the most important to me. I’m not writing about motherhood from ten years away with perfect perspective and a neatly packaged lesson for everything.

I’m in it. I’m still figuring out what work means to me now. I’m still catching myself trying to make motherhood another area where I can be “good” if I just try hard enough.

I’m still navigating how to make room for my marriage, friendships, creativity, work, body, rest, and the parts of myself that existed long before anyone called me Mom. I’m still learning when I genuinely need more information and when I am five Google searches past the point where anything helpful is going to happen.

I’m still having moments where I trust myself completely and moments where I wonder if everyone else got some kind of handbook I missed.

I want to have the conversations while they’re still real enough to feel, and relate to.