Have you heard the term fourth trimester yet? Lately that term is being thrown around a lot and yet deserves all the exposure it’s been getting. Fourth trimester is defined as, “Your baby’s fourth trimester starts the moment she’s born and lasts until she is three months old. The term is used to describe a period of great change and development in your newborn, as she adjusts to her new world outside your womb.”
For me, as much as I appreciate this definition it fails to mention or acknowledge the mama who is also in the fourth trimester. The mama who is thrown into a world she is also typically unfamiliar with. We need to acknowledge the mama who just birthed the baby, keeps the baby fed and is healing from a traumatic experience ( because birth is traumatic even if beautiful). We as a society are beginning to acknowledge the transformation a woman goes through after birth. Emotionally, spiritually and physically. There’s a quote that’s near to my heart, “the moment a child is born the mother is also born, she never existed before, the woman existed but the mother, never, a mother is something absolutely new.” This quote hits it directly on the head. The MOTHER is also brand new. And this applies to every stage of motherhood, whether it’s your first or fifth. You are new to each experience and that needs to be acknowledged. You DESERVE to be acknowledged mama!
I myself am currently in my fourth trimester with my fourth child. I AM currently relearning and newly learning how to do this motherhood thing. There are highs and lows, ups and downs, hots and colds. It’s all what motherhood is about. No instruction book and no guide… well maybe a doula but all in all there’s no checklist. Just hopefully a team around you, a partner next to you and your very own conscious cheering you on. Cheers mama to this new chapter!
