A little about me…
Hello and welcome! I’m Julia, a Certified Postpartum Professional with Newborn Mothers Collective and a Certified Breastfeeding Counselor under the International Doula Institute. I am passionate about changing the narrative around motherhood and empowering new moms to achieve a joyful postpartum. To this aim, I am continually working and learning in order to fill the gap in support to mothers.
I am seeking all the little joys life has to offer while living in beautiful Traverse City, Michigan with my husband and two sons. I strive in my own motherhood journey to lean into the good, the hard and everything in between—no matter how uncomfortable it can sometimes be. I love to garden, sew, read and listen to audiobooks, and go on hikes with my littles!
What this is all about…
There is a small window of time after a woman has given birth which in almost every other culture is set aside for healing, restoring nutrients lost during pregnancy and birth, bonding with baby, navigating the ins and outs of motherhood and setting up body, mind and spirit for future success. This is a sacred space in time that is meant to be held intentionally apart from our busy lives. And yet, somehow along the way, Americans have become one of the few (mostly western) cultures that has woefully overlooked this vital and nurturing time.
Instead of holding a space for healing, we’re supposed to be “getting our bodies back.”
Instead of restoring lost nutrients, we’re hard pressed to have the time or energy to grab half of a granola bar to keep us going.
Instead of a sacred time of bonding with baby, we’re expected to be attending every function and entertaining guest lists excited to meet and hold the new baby.
Instead of time to navigate all of the ins and outs of this new journey of motherhood, we’re pressed with impossible standards of being, doing and knowing everything AND looking fab meanwhile.
Instead of a natural village of support, we’re left alone with our insecurities, unsure of how to ask for help and feeling like a failure if we can’t keep it together without help.
I am here to tell you, this is not how it’s meant to be…
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It is time to change our ways, to pick up the threads of knowledge that we forgot and weave them into a new kind of fabric to hold the mother. It is time to reclaim the postpartum period and reinstate it to its rightful place as the important conclusion of the childbearing story, something that deserves as much forethought as pregnancy and birth. We must do it for ourselves AND for our children, because the way women become mothers profoundly affects the way their children awaken to this world. When you take care of the mother, you take care of the child.
/ the first forty days by heng ou /
Rewriting your story…
I propose that we reject the negative narrative around motherhood and reclaim postpartum from the isolating place of exhaustion and depletion it can become. Let’s work together to pull it into the light of bonding, resting, healing and restoring that it is meant to be. I am offering you professional breastfeeding support, verbal processing, warm and nourishing food as medicine and help with whatever gets in the way of you feeling at peace.
I am offering support for you the mother, who so often gets overlooked during this time. Support doesn’t mean that you won’t still experience doubts and fears. It doesn’t mean that you won’t still ride a rollercoaster of contrasting emotions. Support doesn’t mean that I will give you the key to the “right” way of mothering - only you know what is best for you and your baby. Support does mean that we will navigate this all together. We will sit in all of your feelings and hopes and fears together. And we will find the tools that are right for you and your family to navigate your entrance into motherhood.
I am offering support so that you are able to bathe in the richness of everything you are about to experience, so that when you are ready, you can enter into this new season of life, whole in body and spirit.
Do you want to know more? Great!