In her book “In The Other Room: Entering The Culture of Motherhood” (2009), Fiona Nelson wrote:

“Motherhood changes everything. The rapid transitions that occur in women’s lives, bodies and identities as they journey into motherhood are largely without parallel. A woman entering motherhood can experience changes in her bodily appearance and functions, her emotions and psychology, her sleep and work schedules, the tasks she performs, her social circle, her sense of self, her sexuality and the roles she plays. These dimensions of life are never completely static for anyone, but the speed, ubiquity and pervasiveness of change that accompany motherhood are unique among life transitions. Motherhood places women in a new social category; it would appear, in fact, that motherhood also places women in a whole new cultural space. The motherhood metamorphosis is embedded within, facilitated and constrained by, and reified and rendered articulable within particular social, cultural and historical contexts. These processes frequently remain invisible, or obscured by romantic sentimentality, to all but the women who are experiencing them. In her omnipresence, “mother” becomes the taken-forgranted, and the real, live women who occupy the role of “mother” are left to negotiate, by themselves and with each other, the tensions between the ideals and the realities of motherhood. We often speak easily, too lightly, of someone becoming a mother, generally when she has given birth to or adopted a child, without giving much thought to what this “becoming” is. There is a general social acknowledgement that motherhood entails the care and nurturance of children, and, accordingly, we find a wealth of materials, including books, magazines and videos, designed to assist women in doing that. Much less attention, by academia or popular culture, is paid to the subjective experiences of women as they traverse motherhood. I mean “traverse” here in both of its major senses, as a journey through a terrain and as a thorough exploration and discussion of a subject.”

Fiona Nelson really summed it up phenomenally. Traversing the path of motherhood can be difficult, stressful, confusing, divisive and … hard.

I am here for you to help you traverse and negotiate your journey as you discover, uncover and reveal what motherhood looks like and feels like for you.