An interesting article was published this past Summer on the very real, little-discussed changes that occur in the brain of a pregnant, postpartum, and/or caregiving person.  There are a number of rapid and monumental changes that happen to the portion of our brains that control social-emotional processes or the “ability to atttribute emotions and mental states to other people- key to raising a human.” “The more brain change the mothers experienced, the higher they scored on measures of emotional attachment to their babies, a finding that echoed past studies. And the changes in most brain regions remained two years later.” Whoa.  Two years?! … Continue reading Why Does My Brain Feel Like it is Leaking?

This week my son turned 4 years old.  It seems like he has been here for a minute and at the same time that I have known him my entire life.  Of course this has me thinking about my pregnancy, what I was doing when I went into labor, my labor, my labor, my labor (that’s one ‘labor’ for each day), his birth, our first night all snuggled into bed together, and those postpartum weeks.  I have to say-  it was glorious. It wasn’t glorious because I ‘did everything right’.  It was glorious because I was just able to be. … Continue reading Birth and rebirth