This is about loving and raising an ‘unplanned’ pregnancy/child(ren).
One mom is sharing an emotionally raw post about what it’s like to love and raise a child you didn’t plan to become pregnant with.
Olivyah Bowens‘ post is valuable for so many mothers because we all have those moments when we aren’t the best versions of ourselves and our thoughts are anything but motherly. However, mothers who experience an unplanned pregnancy have an added layer to these feelings.
23-year-old Olivyah is a mother of two and a Puerto Rico-based doula. Olivyah, who was an unplanned pregnancy to two teenage parents, said her mom didn’t even tell most of her family members about her until she was too far along to conceal it any longer — ‘out of the same shame and guilt that plagues young mothers, I’m sure’ she added.
On Sunday, she shared an Instagram photo of herself with her 2-year-old daughter, Ozara while she was having a very toddler-esque meltdown and wrote:
“No one teaches you how to love a child you didn’t plan to have,” she writes. “No one shows you how to traverse the emotional complexity of loving a child you weren’t happy about being pregnant with. It’s even more difficult at those times when they’re having tantrums and pushing you to a point of emotional exhaustion.
It’s confusing. When the same people who told you that you pretty much ruined your life are smiling ear to ear at your baby shower a few months later.
It’s hard. Looking at a beautiful baby and being bogged down by the thoughts of how you will take care of them and how much life will change.
It’s so easy.. To project the pain of your wounded inner child onto your baby. It is the lethal cycle of undealth with trauma….This stage of motherhood has forced me to look at my reflection in my daughter’s eyes and realize that no I don’t enjoy being a mother all the time, but this child has been the catalyst for major growth. She is the mirror that allows me to look into my past and see the fears still controlling me now.
When we heal our deepest pains we are speaking to our ancestors across the space time illusion and holding a cross-generational conversation within our dna that heals old wounds and rectifies long lost problems. Motherhood hasn’t just healed me it’s healed the mother’s that came before me.
The reality is I don’t want to be a mother everyday. I don’t want to feel held back from chasing my dreams and goals. I don’t want to be exhausted. But I KNOW this little girl has brought me face to face with things that would have otherwise been ignored in my bubble of childless freedom.
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Dear mama, who is going through an unplanned pregnancy, don’t feel guilty, don’t feel afraid, don’t feel ashamed. That baby chose YOU to be it’s mothers at the perfect time. Surrender to the journey of unpredictability and let this new being show you a whole new part of yourself you didn’t know was there. ????#takebackpostpartum#thefourthtrimester#motherhoodunplugged#birthofamama#blackmomsblog#milenialmom.”
I appreciate you sharing my post to help it reach more mothers. The information in here about me being born to two teenage parents is incorrect. I’d really appreciate if this was corrected. Another writer put this in her post and it was about HER story not mine. Once again thanks for covering the story.
I appreciate you sharing my post to help it reach more mothers. The information in here about me being born to two teenage parents is incorrect. I’d really appreciate if this was corrected. Another writer put this in her post and it was about HER story not mine. Once again thanks for covering the story.