(Check out Part 1 HERE)

I knew that the way out would involve me finding a way to include myself in my circle of care. I could sense that if I felt more whole, more joyful, more creative, more energetic, more in alignment with my own destiny and self-actualization, I would be able to offer these qualities to my daughters, not only by having more to give them but by being a model. 

Amaya, my youngest daughter, brought me the deepest, most profound shift of all. She brought me the terrible gift of postpartum depression and anxiety. Terrible gift because it literally sucks balls. It was truly a dark night of the soul that took me to the depths of despair, but it also offered me the tremendous gift of profound transformation that would ultimately serve me immeasurably, not only in my own life but in service to the mothers that I mentor. 

When Amaya arrived on the scene, she made it clear that I needed to create a shift in my work that would allow me to be more present with my expanding family.

She gave me the gift of MotherFly, which is clearly the next step in my own destiny path because it offers me a way to go deeper with my work and midwife women and mothers without having to be on call all the time. 

In January of 2017, I founded MotherFly as a way to support the incredible transformation that takes place when a woman becomes a mother. 

Did you know there is actually a term for this transition. It is called Matresence, coined by Anthropologist Dana Raphael in 1973. We understand and acknowledge the transition of adolescence, and yet matrescene is apparently way more complex on all levels–hormonal, psychological, physical, and spiritual. 

So I started MotherFly with a mission is to provide workshops and programs for pregnant women and mothers that support their highest evolution in service to themselves, their children, and the world. 

About a month later I fell into a 3 year period of depression and anxiety. It was as if the Universe was mocking me. 

So you want to guide mothers through the thick of it? 

Take this! 

 Over many months it was my task and my healing to find each one, examine and re-examine it and decide if it still fit. I also had to search out and weave in new parts of myself, namely self-compassion. My inner critic kept asking, 

How could Corina- the calm, wise midwife who had so much awareness and so many tools- be so completely and utterly lost? 

A big part of my healing was finding a new level of compassion for myself. 

Much of my suffering was not from the feelings of fear and sadness and overwhelm themselves, as painful as they were. It was the added layers of guilt and shame and anger at myself for feeling the way I did that created true suffering and kept me stuck. I felt like I had so many tools, and yet none of them were working. 

It felt like somehow, with this last shift into being a mama of three, all of the pieces 

In June of 2018, I faced my last gates–the gates of Holy Terror and Humility. The holy terror was about my existential fear of death on every level. 

The death of my identity as a strong, wise, grounded person, the death of my faith as a spiritual warrior, and even my own physical death as I flirted with the idea of suicide. 

The humility was finding the courage to do what in Birthing From Within we call the “one forbidden thing.” This is the place in birth (or life) where the birthing woman has to let go of ideas about herself and how she should behave, or let go of the fear of being judged by others in order to do what it takes to bring her baby out. 

This could mean turning into a roaring lioness when she had imagined herself a calm and serene hypnobirther. Or maybe she planned a drug-free birth but decides, 

“Fuck this! I want an epidura!”. 

Whatever it is, this one thing is what frees her from the constraints of any former identity and allows her to transform into her next level of being so that she can bring her baby forth into the world. 

In my case, it was the decision to join the one out of six Americans who are taking psychiatric medication. This was something totally outside of my worldview, my identity and my beliefs. 

I was terrified. 

I decided to do ceremony around it. Gathering my sacred items for an altar, I went outside under the full moon in late June. 

I called in the four elements, as well as my own spiritual guides. With my Chinese herbs in one hand and my Lexapro in the other, I just prayed that these two would be real medicine for me. Because, aside from all my concerns about the side effects of taking meds, and the question of what did this mean about me, there was also the fear that it might not work at all. Many people have to go through trial and error with several meds before finding something that works. 

Thankfully, my therapist was right. 

Two weeks later I began to feel better. In a month’s time, all of my relationships began to shift. 

First and foremost I shifted my relationship with myself, learning self-love at an entirely new level. I fell in love with my children again and was finally able to enjoy and appreciate their beauty. My spiritual faith was reborn and I came back into connection with Spirit. My relationship with money shifted and I no longer lived inside of constant fear of scarcity. And I finally got clear about needing to leave my relationship, which was a huge piece of the puzzle and one that I could not have arrived at without the clarity that comes from doing deep, personal growth work and the support of powerful mentors. 

All of my tools were working again and I was feeling so good that I was able to wean myself off of the Lexapro. I’m thankful for its contribution to my healing and to shifting my rigid ideas about taking meds. I now know it’s another tool I can use if I need to but I prefer more holistic medicines. 

My experience with postpartum anxiety and depression truly deepened what I can offer to the pregnant women and mothers that I serve. My ultmate vision is the help midwife, along with many other mothers, the birth of a new archetype for motherhood. One that allows mothers to be fully human, to nourish dreams, to rest, to give and to receive. 

This new archetype is based in the feminine principles of relatedness, interconnection and a compassion that includes ourselves. It is a sharp pivot from the martyrdom of our great grandmothers and the perfectionistic supermom of our more recent lineage, up to and including ourselves. It is mother-authored, creative, and based in “systemic love, equity and inclusion.” 

I call it MotherFly. 

Like the transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly the process of matrescene is profound and total. And yet, the MotherFly is not swallowed whole by motherhood. She continues to grow herself along with her children, cultivating her Mama Essence, and through it develops wings to fly. 

Learn more about Corina here:

FB at Bellymama Midwifery and MotherFly
IG @bellymamamidwifery and @motherflytribe

www.motherfly.mom

www.bellymamamidwifery.com

Corina Fitch is a Licensed Midwife, Certified Professional Midwife, and Registered NICU Nurse with 20 years of experience in the field of maternity and newborn care.

She is also a transformational facilitator and mother of 3 daughters.  Each one has brought deeper meaning to her work. After her first daughter was born, she became intensely focused on helping her clients bond with their babies in utero and cultivate self-care practices that would serve them well into their mothering.  After her 3rd daughter was born, she developed postpartum depression and anxiety, which further peaked her interest in nervous system regulation and maternal wellness. 

Out of this she birthed MotherFly, an organization whose mission is to catalyze human potential through the cultivation of maternal wellness.  MotherFly programs serve to support and empower pregnant women and mothers to actualize their full potential in the home and out in the world.

I wear many different hats in this life–midwife, mother, artist, transformational facilitator. But what I want to share specifically is my story of becoming a mother and learning to juggle all of these passions. 

I came to motherhood really through midwifery and had been practicing for about 7 years before I had my first baby. Despite having already assisted hundreds of mothers on their journey to motherhood, my journey was nothing like I expected. 

I had imagined all our culturally promoted romantic visions– images of mothers and infants smiling at each other, deeply in love, deeply fulfilled, the picture of happiness. I imagined the joy and contentment of my baby feeding at my breast, that exquisite and intimate connection. Yes, I knew there would be sleepless nights and dirty diapers, but somehow that’s not what I focused on. 

The first unexpected twist was that my relationship fell apart in the first trimester. 

I was going to be a single mother. 

I had wanted a baby badly for many years, but I never expected to do it alone. The first half of my pregnancy was rough, both emotionally and physically. I was exhausted all the time, heartbroken about the breakup, and had horrific all-day sickness! All I wanted to do was lie in bed or hug the toilet. 

But I managed to enjoy the second half and actually loved being pregnant. After the first trimester passed, I honestly never felt more beautiful, more radiant, more alive. One of my favorite delights was feeling this little spirit move around inside me! 

And then… 

The birth and initial postpartum period knocked me off my feet with their raw intensity and overwhelming physical and emotional demands. I was completely humbled by my own experience. 

Nehama’s birth took me so far from what I knew as a midwife and so deep inside of myself as a woman, that I emerged literally transformed. The day she was born I lost all sense of the world outside of my own body. Thoughts entered and left my mind just as quickly, leaving me in a sort of mindless void, filled only by my breath and the deep, bellowing moans that flowed out of my mouth. 

After about 36 hours of labor I hit my wall. I had been stuck at 6 cm for many hours with a premature urge to push that I could no longer fight. I was failing. I imagined my midwives, who were sitting and chatting quietly together on the couch, were plotting my transport. 

But that was all in my head! The reason I could no longer stop it was because it was finally time. After 3 hours of pushing, Nehama was in my arms, her soft, wet body against my warm, sweaty chest. I felt high on love (and oxytocin!) as I looked around the room at my mom, my sister and my midwives. 

I had made it to the other side. I was a mother! 

This initial bliss gave way to sleepless nights, sore, wounded nipples, and a tornado of emotions! I was overwhelmed by the love I felt for my daughter and the thought of being a mother to this tiny, perfect creature. I remember looking down at her a few days after the birth, flooded with hormones, and thinking to myself, 

“Oh my goodness, she is perfect…and I have so many flaws. What the hell am I going to do with her?” 

I was totally unprepared for this level of vulnerability. 

After my postpartum initiation things did get better. 

But for me motherhood has been by far the most challenging task I have ever undertaken, particularly because I really wanted to “get it right”. I wanted to be that parent that loves unconditionally, honors and acknowledges her child’s feelings and models emotional intelligence. I didn’t want to be like my parents and birth culture, whose practice was to disregarded or belittle emotions. And yet I found that I so often fell into those patterns. 

Motherhood has an uncanny way of reflecting back to me all those areas where I still need to grow myself and it up until recently, it has been the area of my life where my inner critic showed up most often. I feel so much more in my zone of greatness as a midwife. 

Nine years, a new relationship, and 2 kids later, the reality of juggling my career and calling as a midwife, which was already super demanding and required me to be on-call 24/7, with the demands of being the primary provider for my family and a mother to three daughters, shook me to my core. 

I was exhausted. I felt burnt out, depleted, cut off from my creativity and inspiration. And the worst thing was that no matter how much I tried to get it right, I felt like a failure. I would lie awake at night in tears, feeling like there was something wrong with me. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out for motherhood. 

It was doubly painful because my work was dedicated to helping other women navigate the journey to motherhood. 

How could I do this authentically, when I myself was a failure? 

Of course… 

There’s no turning back on motherhood. 

But I felt like the only way I could do it well was if I let go of being a midwife and intuitively I knew that would be the death of my spirit. Not to mention it was how I paid the bills! 

I was confronted with the challenge of how to hold it all with grace.

Stay tuned for Part Two, coming out next week!

In the meantime, learn more about Corina here:

FB at Bellymama Midwifery and MotherFly
IG @bellymamamidwifery and @motherflytribe

www.motherfly.mom

www.bellymamamidwifery.com

Corina Fitch is a Licensed Midwife, Certified Professional Midwife, and Registered NICU Nurse with 20 years of experience in the field of maternity and newborn care.

She is also a transformational facilitator and mother of 3 daughters.  Each one has brought deeper meaning to her work. After her first daughter was born, she became intensely focused on helping her clients bond with their babies in utero and cultivate self-care practices that would serve them well into their mothering.  After her 3rd daughter was born, she developed postpartum depression and anxiety, which further peaked her interest in nervous system regulation and maternal wellness. 

Out of this she birthed MotherFly, an organization whose mission is to catalyze human potential through the cultivation of maternal wellness.  MotherFly programs serve to support and empower pregnant women and mothers to actualize their full potential in the home and out in the world.