Another plane ride, another blog post. This Spring has been a busy one hasn’t it? We blinked and 2022 is almost halfway over! I feel like my life is moving at the speed of light. There’s not enough time in the day, or in the week, and then we are on to the next. I really struggled on what I wanted to write about this month. When I decided to start a blog, I envisioned it being a combination of educational information, but also wanted to tailor it to a piece of me that loves to share and write. In honor of Mother’s Day, I’m going to talk pregnancy and Chiropractic, but also talk about motherhood, fertility, miscarriages, and how we love mom’s at Inspired. I am winging this one, so it may be too packed for one post, but let’s see how we do!

An Inspired Pregnancy

If you didn’t know, one of my favorite elements of my practice is the opportunity to see so many moms in the office, and being a part of their motherhood journey. I am certified in the Webster Technique, which is a technique that is specific to pregnancy that allows me to administer very safe and specific prenatal and postpartum care.

Webster is shown to help decrease labor pain and delivery time, support optimal position, and help make mom more comfortable throughout pregnancy and birth. Because we are a neurologically based office, how I adjust mamas is very specific to create harmony within the nervous system.

We don’t want moms with dysregulated systems which leads to being in fight or flight sympathetic overdrive. Our technique is supportive to the parasympathetic system, which is best for momma and the developing baby. We have a lot of good information here on the site to learn more about what Chiropractic care can do for your pregnancy, and would love to help support you!

May is for ALL Moms

What I really want to talk about is all the other experiences of mamahood. Unfortunately, most of us women have had experiences in this journey to motherhood that’s maybe not exactly blissful, and can be painful and stressful in many ways. I want to talk about that. As women, we could probably list countless friends and family in our circle that have either struggled with fertility, have had miscarriages, lost children, or had an unsupportive and traumatic birth experience. These are all moms. And we are a community for every single one of them.

Fertility Struggles

Some years ago it felt like our parents and their parents could think about babies, and they’d be pregnant. In the last 10 years or so, fertility issues has been a coined term, and it’s a battle that a majority of women face at some point in their journey. Physiologically speaking, getting pregnant is actually a really hard task. There’s a pretty small window each month that pregnancy is even likely, and that’s considering optimal conditions. If we take into account the stress of culture, it becomes even more unlikely because that stress loves to settle in our reproductive system as women. PCOS, fibroids, harsh and irregular cycles? It’s not a coincidence. There’s tremendous stressors impacting the health of women in a pretty dramatic way. 

We do see many mommas that get pregnant after years of trying by just being under Chiropractic care. The simple reason is Chiropractic adjustments create balance within our nervous system, which reduces our stress load. This allows the body to function more optimally, and then the body does the work. Does this happen for everybody? Nope. There are many ways we can reduce the stress load on our reproductive system, along with Chiropractic care, and I will share those along with some resources to hopefully support you in this journey.

Miscarriages Happen, But We Still Need Community

I had a miscarriage in 2019. I remember thinking how excited I was to have this healthy pregnancy because pregnancy was my specialty! I couldn’t wait to be such an example of what a healthy pregnancy could feel like, and then I miscarried. It was humbling, but it also was the catalyst to a journey that brought growth and healing into my life in ways I would have never imagined. 

My initial response was obsessing over trying to explain how this happened. I had the thoughts of “what about me wasn’t healthy enough that I couldn’t carry a healthy pregnancy?”. My motto back then was a healthy body makes healthy babies, so I just needed to get healthier. I dove deeper into reproductive health, and got certifications on how to do more fertility work in my practice. As the years have passed, I’ve realized how much of that effort was for me to keep control and assume blame on why I lost the pregnancy. And at the end of that journey, who did I have to blame? Me. 

How many of us women do that? I’d bet all of us.

But ladies, we never had control to begin with. A hard truth is that miscarriages not only just happen, but they are in many ways psyiologically normal. What we lack is the community around them. Culture has isolated the community around motherhood in general, so women are going through the pain of loss usually by themselves and/or their partner.

Many of us don’t talk about this hard stuff, I know I don’t. In fact, this is the first time I am talking about my experience publicly since this actually happened. If you’ve had many miscarriages, or just one, or a few between your pregnancies, I want you to know your pain is seen. Although these are outcomes most women will face while trying to get pregnant, it doesn’t reduce the pain of the loss and the loneliness of the process. It takes tremendous strength to go through these experiences and be willing to do it again. You are a warrior.

Birthing Life is within our Potential, not within our Control

Creating life was never in our control, and it’s easy to look at all these diagnoses and possible causes, and think we somehow are creating this problem. I’m here to tell you to release that burden.

You are not the problem, and there is nothing wrong with you.

As I have reflected on my experience of loss, and sat with many women that have had loss, I’ve come to accept that life in conception, life earthside, and life lost all hold incredible gifts of love, incredible pain, and serve as catalysts for growth. I would have not regretted having that baby earthside, but I’ve found peace and gratitude in the fact that I didn’t bring a life into an unhealthy marriage. That I had extra time to grow and heal my inner child so I can one day show up as a better mom. And that event in my life was truly the catalyst to reconnect with myself, and choose a different life than I was choosing at the time.

I’m not here to say that your losses should have meaning like mine maybe does. Some don’t, some are breathtakingly painful and always will be. I am here to say that you have tremendous courage in your journey as a mom, however that looks for you. Allow yourself to pull people alongside to bring voice to your pain, and celebrate your ability to move forward. This is our heartbeat, and the culture we are creating for all the moms we get to serve at Inspired.

The Solution is Us

I still believe deeply in the principle that if we do the best we can with what’s in our control, outcomes will be better. But also remembering losing a baby goes beyond that, now we are talking about having control over life. Which we just don’t. Not during pregnancy, and not after birth. Life and death were never our responsibility to carry. If you DO want resources in a way to be supportive to your reproductive system, and remove external loads that are within your control, I would love to empower you! 

I live the non-toxic “crunchi” life, and have for about 10 years. I have a few non-negotiables to still enjoy like my nails and my hair color, but my daily routine is intentional to keep as much toxic load off my body as possible. I’ll share my favorite go platform that literally has all the nontoxic ideas for your home and body all in one place. I started using crunchi makeup with Meghan back when I met her and her hubby in Chiropractic school, and she’s grown a huge supportive community since. This is the bible for nontoxic living. She has options for everything!

Nutrition is obviously a huge piece, and supplementing what we lack is the other. Some foods just are not as nutrient dense as they were 20 years ago, because of mass production of food, so I get what I can from my diet and supplement what my body lacks.

My “go to” local nutritionist is Nadine Young. She’s who I have worked with over the last year, and who I refer to!

I also highly recommend being under consistent care with a naturopath. My favorite aspect of this type of practice is that your body is looked at as a whole. We aren’t mechanical cars, and sometimes when we are treating the body parts that are showing weakness instead of looking at the whole unit, we miss the big picture. Dr. Caslyn is who I refer to and see regularly. 

We made it. Thanks for letting me share my heart, I hope it encourages yours. There’s still so much to dig into regarding the postpartum journey and how we can be supported through that transition as well. I’ll save it for the next post! 

Sending big love to our momma community.

XX

Dr. Nicole