Melanie Raimundo

From rewatching our favourite movies or shows, re-reading books that enchanted us, listening to music we loved in different stages of our lives or indulging in some comfort food from our childhood, there are so many ways we can feel held through our senses to trigger some of our happy hormones: oxytocin and dopamine. What’s your favourite happy hormone fix??

As a child, did you ever feel you had to shrink your emotions for an adult’s?

The things that have been keeping me from losing my shizzle:

- Catching it before I snap and tapping out with my husband = noticing when I’m more tired, have a headache and telling my husband that I’m about to snap and need him to take over.

- Journaling: I personally love journaling because it allows me to process what I’m thinking/feeling without verbally vomiting it on others (like my son or husband).

- Making sure I get lots of cuddles from my babies for oxytocin (skin to skin with newborn as often as possible).

- Listing everything I’m doing out loud to my husband or friends so that I can also hear how much I’m doing at the moment which gives me grace for myself.

- Have booked an appt with my Psychologist for 6 weeks postpartum and keeping a note open on my phone with things I’d like to process.

- Ensuring I have a shower and do my skincare every day. Especially with postpartum hormones, I’m needing my daily reset and some me time.

All this being said, I could not do this without my village. My incredible husband who has had his own struggles with taking on the primary parent role with our toddler and household talks, my mum who has been helping us each week and beautiful friends and family bringing us goodies and food.

Feeling so loved and held this postpartum and equally stressed and torn.

Acknowledging our luck in certain parts in life can help us hold space for other’s experiences, sometimes even our own past. Particularly in pregnancy, birth, postpartum and beyond.

As mentioned I’ve been on both sides of this story. I had a traumatic birth with my first and hard first postpartum and now second time, I’ve been lucky enough to experience the complete reverse. So I wanted to prefix this before I share my birth story with you all.

From personal experience, I remember hearing people’s stories of breastfeeding and think “yep I can’t hear that right now” and I’d need to actively shut it out or let it go. For example, telling someone I was struggling to breastfeed my newborn and having low supply with someone responding with “oh that’s interesting, my babies would choke on my milk because I had so much!”

This time, having been lucky to have had the birth and breastfeeding experience I dreamt of, I’m trying to be careful of how and when I share my story. Of course I will falter, I’m human and I can never predict what will trigger someone, the most I can do is be cautious that my luck this time round is not perceived as a gloat or equal to someone’s harder journey.

Some of us are learning to run on a flat surface while others are scaling mountains. No two experiences are the same and we can’t compare. Acknowledging the difference of our experiences can remind us to be grateful of our journey while holding space for those scaling the mountain.

Here is the full list of what is in my nappy caddy. I missed a few in the video.

For baby:
- Change mat
- Nappies
- Wipes
- Nappy bags
- Nappy rash cream
- Muslin cloths/breast pads for spit up
- Body cream
- Soft hair brush & comb
- Spare clothes

For me:
- Lip balm
- Scrunchy
- Hydration powder sachets
- Snacks (when toddler isn’t present)
- Magnesium gel
- Ni**le cream (barely use)
- Silverettes (barely use)
- Hydrogel breast disks (love!)
- Breast pads (use more for bub)
- Tissues
- Water

For toddler:
- Little books he likes

Next to my bed:
- My vitamins
- My journals + pens
- Sound machine with light
- Books
- My Lactamo (will share more soon)
- Tissues

Anything else you think I’m missing?

I remember hearing Sven (my husband) say “at least our son isn’t a people pleaser like us” to which I responded “children aren’t born people pleasers, they become them in order to be seen/loved”. This is how we break cycles.

Please don’t get me wrong, this is in no way to add to the guilt and concerns that modern parents juggle, it’s just something that crosses my own mind as a therapist who has heard the wounds of the “easier” child time and time again. Now with an “easier” newborn I already see how much simpler my life would be if I put the burden on her rather than taking it on myself.

She deserves to have her own needs met as often as we can. Of course our children will both have to wait at times for their needs to be met while we manage one or the other (alas I can’t clone myself) but I hope they will grow up to learn that they matter and they do not need to shrink for someone else.

Sometimes we just have to filter out the noise. Anyone says something to you about their baby or what your baby should be like that’s hurtful or plain not helpful? In the bin! If you’ve only had an “easier” baby then you can’t fathom what it’s like. Take it from therapist me, a lot of people can’t walk two seconds in someone else’s shoes. You’re doing an amazing job!

When you’re 10 days postpartum and your husband comes home with a vtech fire station for your 2 year old 😅🤦🏻‍♀️ add on the sleep deprivation + being highly sensitive…. Lovely combo. Life is literally loud enough as it is without a singing fire truck 🚒

Did not expect to cry when I started this video but there you go!

When I finished my exclusive pumping journey with my first at 18 months I decided I was ready to read a bit about breastfeeding trauma and face it a bit. As a therapist myself I’m constantly trying to practice what I preach. I had done so much work on facing and healing my birth trauma but I couldn’t face the breastfeeding trauma. It was too hard.

So I sat in a bubble bath with a tea and opened up the book Why Breastfeeding Grief and Trauma Matter by Amy Brown and the tears immediately began to fall.

I read case study after case study of mums in the same or similar boat as me and I felt less alone, I felt so seen. The stories that hit me the most were the ones of mothers who had successful breastfeeding experiences first or second time round and had then faced struggles with their subsequent babies.

Hearing them say how much harder it was when their babies couldn’t breastfeed was something I didn’t know I needed to hear. I hope that my story can do the same but in the reverse. I won’t go into all the elements that makes it hard because that’s a whole post/story in itself but the list is long.

So to those in the trenches, I see you and I’m with you. All those midnight pumps. Those tears when you drop the milk or the pump wasn’t on properly etc. You’re not alone. Countless of women are right there with you going through it too. It is so hard and you’re doing an incredible job. No one can fully comprehend it unless they go through it so focus on yourself and your baby and please seek help if you need to chat. ❤️