My Story - Part Two
Once my daughter was no longer in constant pain and breastfeeding well, I wanted to learn how to help her continue to thrive. Being the researcher that I am, I dove head first down the rabbit hole of oral and airway health and development. Tension, ties, and a high palate (when left unaddressed) can cause milestone delays, speech problems, issues with solid foods, crooked teeth, airway, sleep, and behavioral issues and more.
We couldn't afford professional help very often, so I was determined to do what I could from home. I wanted to prevent what I could by being intentional and proactive. I watched hundreds of hours of videos, followed professionals online, listened to countless podcasts and webinars. I purchased courses. Every resource I found along the way I saved in my Notes app. I wanted to make sure I had all of this to refer to if we ever had another baby with similar struggles.
As I worked with my daughter daily, implementing what I was learning, I saw At-Home Bodywork start to transform my daughter in that first year of life. Each day, she became softer, her high palate began to widen, she met milestones with ease, her hand-eye coordination was incredible, and her vocabulary exploded once she started talking.
It was working!
As my list of resources became longer and longer, I started to think about how much time I had spent trying to find answers – how much information I had sifted through, researching and scouring the internet. The whole process had taken forever. I didn't want other moms to have to go through that. I wanted them to find answers faster than I did.
So, the idea of Know and Nurture was born. When I started this journey, I didn’t even know what the term “bodywork” even meant – let alone how to find someone, or what kinds of bodywork were helpful for babies like mine. A lot of the information I was seeing online was very fear-based: “XYZ is a red flag and it will cause XYZ problem down the road.” I saw very little explanation for what to do about it or how to prevent it. As my daughter got older and I started seeing results from things I had implemented, I wanted to share it.
After my daughter turned 1, we moved across the country to the very rural Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Professional resources for bodywork were very limited – especially for babies. I had heard of Craniosacral Fascial Therapy (CFT) when I started researching bodywork for babies, but we had no one remotely close to us. I dreamed of taking the classes to learn it myself. It was open to anyone – even moms with no other professional experience. I loved the idea of being able to treat my own family. I also wanted to have skills for any future babies I had – especially if we were to stay in rural Michigan.
In October 2023, we had saved enough for me to attend the Foundations and Infant Classes in Holland, MI. I was thrilled to have the opportunity and soaked up everything. I came home practicing on everyone who would let me. I loved working with my daughter (though she wiggled a lot). Even my husband asked for it often.
Preparing and Waiting for Our Second Baby
It took us 3 full years, after our first, to feel remotely open to the idea of having a second baby. My husband and I had planned on having a family on the larger side, but after my daughter, we were “one and done”. Neither of us liked the possibility of going through what we had experienced with our daughter again. I also had lingering postpartum depression and anxiety that came to a head in 2022. I finally reached out for help and did an entire year of trauma-informed somatic therapy. There were threads of depression and anxiety throughout my entire life - my postpartum experience only amplified them and brought them into the light. I had just been numb. Motherhood cracked me open. It was raw and painful but I wanted freedom from the intense fear that had been holding me hostage for so long. Once old patterns and beliefs began to unwind, I was surprised to come out the other side wanting a second baby.
It took us 6 months trying to conceive before I got pregnant. I’m kind of glad I had those 6 negative pregnancy tests. I was still a little scared to have another baby, but after each negative, I found myself wanting a baby more and more. I became more disappointed each time there was no baby.
In 2024, we were in the middle of packing up to move back home to Arizona when I found out I was pregnant. I was shocked and so, so excited.
