The Mom Limbo
Before I dive into “Mom Limbo”, and how many Moms resonate with the term, let’s understand what it means to be “in Limbo”. “To say one is in Limbo means that they are in a situation where they seem to be caught between two stages and it is unclear what will happen next.” (-Collins Dictionary) Some of you may already comprehend where I am going with this, while others may be questioning whether this relates them or not. Let me just say this: If you are a Mom that is past that 2 year postpartum check up, and you haven’t hit peri menopause or menopause yet, this blog will absolutely be for you! You are not alone is this overwhelming and confusing phase of Motherhood. So many Moms struggle to find a “normal” balance in these in between years due to a lack of information and proper health care geared towards “mom care”. Let’s see if we can’t help one another out until our health care system catches up with us.
THE BEGINNING OF LIMBO
In case anyone is unaware, pregnancy puts an immense amount of stress on a woman’s body. Not only is the stress apparent in our physical appearance, the stress of morphing chemicals, organs, nerves, cells, muscles, and pretty much everything on the inside lingers for sometime…even long after giving birth. It used to be believed that it takes about 2 years for a woman to be back to “normal” after giving birth. Well, sure, if we are only talking about organs settling back into place, and some muscles reattaching like they should. More recent studies have been finding that it actually takes close to a decade for a woman to fully heal after giving birth. Now those studies, I can fully support based on my own healing journey!
Here’s where Mom Health gets a little shaky. We get pregnant, get through pregnancy, give birth, and heal up quite nicely (according to the 2 year postpartum check up). Now what? Most Moms never see a doctor again until something abnormal pops up, or we get sick. Good luck getting any Mom in for their annual check up! And while some may say we need to take better care of ourselves, most Moms I have talked to agree with me in saying, the annual feels like a waste of time. Moms have a billion things to do every day! Why should we take two hours of our chaotic day to only talk to our doctor for 20 minutes, be told we have a high stress volume, and be passed a script we know we don’t need? Many doctors are not even open to the idea of naturopathic or functional medicine, and while many are beginning to come around to the idea of collaborative medicine, they have no idea where to even refer patients. Now can you see why Moms are feeling stuck in a LIMBO from 2 years postpartum up to menopause? Our health care system has ample support for us during pregnancy, during labor, and once we hit menopause. But, the in between years…we are on our own!
SELF ADMITTANCE AND RECOGNITION
Before we can step into any healing modality, we have to be able to say into a mirror, “I don’t feel okay. I feel tired. I feel exhausted. I can’t think clearly. I can’t sleep. I can’t lose weight. I lost way too much weight, too quickly. I can’t feel any emotion.” The list of how we feel inside can go on, and on. The list that only we know about. The list we share with no one else in fear of being seen as weak, lazy, or crazy. Standing in front of a mirror and admitting to yourself truly how you feel, is the very first step we all have to take before we can even think about healing. This isn’t to create a negative sensation in your mind, body, or soul. This is to build clarity towards the fact that you know something is wrong, and you want to fix it! Ever notice when you say something out loud, all of a sudden you feel better? As if something you were suppressing for so long had finally been released? That is the point! You are finally bringing something you have been suppressing for so long to a confrontational recognition…with the person in the mirror, YOU!
Admitting and recognizing that something isn’t right, has to be the hardest part of EVERY MOMS healing journey! We are so mean to ourselves in the sense that we try to “hide” all of our struggles. We don’t want anyone to know just HOW TIRED we feel, especially when we slept for the 7-8 hours we are supposed to get. We don’t want anyone to see the tiny amounts of food we eat every day because we think eating little to no calories will help us shed the “baby weight”. We hide away inside and don’t join in the social aspects of life because we fear our staggered sentences, or lack of thought processes will be looked at as strange by others. We create false emotional reactions to daily activities and celebratory events so others don’t think we need to start taking “happy pills”. There are so many ways we Moms camouflage, or hide how we are truly feeling, sometimes we convince ourselves that it really is “all in our heads”. It’s time to just admit what is really going on, to the one true practitioner that can heal you…YOU!
LISTEN TO YOUR INNER PRACTITIONER
It may sound strange, but even when you go into full blown details at your doctors office, your doctor still doesn’t know EXACTLY what is going on inside your body. Only YOU know what’s going on, or perhaps what is not going on. If your general practitioner tells you everything looks fine and “normal”, and you still feel like something was missed, get a second opinion. Don’t let any doctor tell you “it’s just in your head”! If you feel it every day, and you notice it every day, then it is your body telling you something is wrong. Don’t ignore your symptoms. Most conventional doctors are not heavily trained or even educated in most health complications that women in Mom Limbo are struggling with. And worse, those doctors don’t necessarily refer out to the correct specialist, if they refer anything at all. Find a doctor that will be open to listening to your struggles, and truly hearing you. I would even encourage a little research on your end before visiting a doctor so you enter with prepared questions and suggestions. The doctor is not the God of our body, they are partners in our health journey. We have to take the initiative to heal ourselves before we can take advice from outside sources.
Being our own practitioner gives us the motivation to want to heal and feel better. That has been the missing equation for so many on their healing journey. In order to heal our body or mind, we have to WANT to heal ourself. We cannot walk into a small room, with a paper covered bed, talk with a person for 20 minutes, and hope they will miraculously heal us with a magic pill, or a fast acting cream. Our body has never, and will never function like that. Our body needs us to respect it and understand it. When we overstretch it, our body sends us signals that we are overworking its systems. That is when it is imperative that we listen, respect, and begin to understand what WE need to do to fix the damage we have caused. Not to say we purposely damage our bodies. But, in knowing what is causing the dysfunction, we can gain a new respect and understanding that our body does not like what we did, or perhaps that we need to allow it more time to heal, and we need to learn how to heal it.
NAVIGATING MOM LIMBO
Let us begin by going back to admitting that we are struggling, creating a list of our symptoms, and letting a good cry release us into the hope that the healing will happen, and we are going to make it happen! Take a deep breath, and let that all out! Now that we are completely aware of the dysfunction our body is undergoing, we need to find someone that can help us understand our body, our mind, and our soul as a whole. They will never be able to fully understand our body. That is our job! They will be the one that can guide us through the best testing, reading through results, taking proper supplements or prescriptions if needed, the correct doses, the best treatments and therapies. They will give us the recommendations they feel will assist us in our struggles. They will be the ones that want to see us heal.
For me, I found an amazing naturopath. I also worked with a functional doctor. Both assisted me in finding the best modalities and supplements based on my test results. Naturopathic doctors are amazing for Moms in the Mom Limbo years of life. They have been trained to not only prevent illness and diagnosis, but in healing those of us that are struggling with a diagnosis in a gentle and non invasive way. I always highly recommend Naturopathic doctors to my fellow Moms in Limbo due to their knowledge of hearing their patients and working with them as a partner. They make us hold our end of the bargain as well. I always have homework when I leave my naturopaths office, and she can tell if I don’t complete it. While I know Naturopathic and Functional doctors can be a bit expensive (I try to remind those that hesitate due to finances) being sick, missing work, and not being able to execute your daily life is way more costly. The devastating fact of Mom Limbo, is these are the years that Moms begin their disease span, and most of us don’t ever escape that disease span. In fact we get even more sick when we hit menopause because all those bandaids we kept putting on never truly healed the root cause of our disease. Even if we are diagnosed, there are so many things we can do, in partnership with the right specialist for us, that can reverse that diagnosis.
Throughout my blogs I will be sharing many of these healing modalities, basic health care tips, how alternative medicine works, regular testing Moms should have done, and all the other amazing things those of us in Mom Limbo can integrate in to our regular practices to assist in our healing journey.
Stick around! Tell your Mom Limbo friends! It’s time to be set free!
