Carli Vokes

Carli Vokes (31), Leda (3), and Elayna (14 months)

Guelph, ON | Toronto

Carli shares -

“Becoming a mother has changed the way I think of myself in so many ways. I dealt with a lot of body image issues as a teen, hating parts of myself and trying drastic things to try to change them. It took a long time to get past that. It's so important to me that my children learn to love themselves and grow up with the self confidence to accept themselves and others for who they are. I know magazine covers and a society full of negative messages will follow my daughters around but I also now know how powerful a mother’s words can be. I want to show them what it looks like to be happy in your own skin and marvel at the things we can do. My body has done too much for me not to have respect for it and love it. My body has grown and nurtured my babies, and until my last breath it is where they can always find arms to wrap around them, warmth and true, non-judgmental, fierce love. I want my daughters to know this.

My first pregnancy was fairly uncomplicated and I was determined and excited to have an unmedicated home birth. I got to take home the “home birth kit” from the midwife clinic after my 37-week appointment but the next day an ultrasound revealed that my daughter was breech. I tried everything from yoga to a very painful and scary ECV (external cephalic version) in the hospital where an OB attempted to manually turn the baby from the outside of the belly. Nothing worked. I felt like I was completely ripped from the driver’s seat and had no control. When I asked about trying to deliver on my own in hospital I was met with the horrifying possibility that I could be putting my baby in danger and I couldn’t take the chance. I remember signing the release for an “elective” cesarean and thinking that the form might as well say “mandatory.”

The surgery was scheduled and everything went textbook; physically, my baby and I were both in great shape and I was in love with my little girl. I did, however, struggle with what had happened. I had been planning my method of birth one way and got the complete opposite and I felt guilty for complaining because my baby was healthy and happy. I was later diagnosed with PTSD and started working through the cesarean. I had found it cold and violating; arms and legs being tied to the operating table, no one telling me what’s happening while half of my body is numb and separated by a curtain. I had wanted to experience the birth but it seemed to have happened without me.

I was very nervous about my second pregnancy. I wanted desperately to try for a VBAC and was a good candidate as the baby was head down. My midwives were fantastic and encouraged me to try. It was a very empowering experience. My second little girl arrived and I got to hold her immediately. I got to be totally involved. I can now look back and be thankful for these two different births and perspectives. The methods were very different and needed to be processed in their own rights but the first sounds of them crying, first time my girls looked up at me, had the same power. My babies are here now and I am forever changed for the better.

This movement has helped change the way I see myself and I want my children to see that I am proud of the body I have so that they can be proud of theirs.

It is so easy for us to criticize ourselves but our children look up to us to guide them through this world, I don’t want to be another negative voice to them.”

Katie Meidlinger

The marvelous Katie Meidlinger and Severin Fox (22 months). Katie also experienced a miscarriage two months ago.

Katie was really prepared to do birth naturally with Severin and had read Ina May several times in advance. She was preparing for her body to open but her baby was breech and didn't have any interest in turning. She had an external version which left Katie feeling like she'd been assaulted. They decided to then go ahead and schedule a cesarean. She was grateful for her doctor who is an amazing surgeon, though it wasn't the birth she had planned to do. Still, reflecting emotionally she feels fine about it. Her physical recovery was much more difficult than she had imagined and she doesn't feel anyone had prepared her for that. She also got mastitis which made it difficult to carry or lift him and they were having their house renovated at the time which greatly added to the stress those first six weeks. Breastfeeding was hard and painful at first but Severin has a great latch and Katie says it's been awesome since.

Katie and her husband decided it was time to start trying for a second, with transitions coming up in work and life and location they wanted to give it a go while they still had their support networks near. She conceived the first month of trying but found out at 8 weeks that there wasn't a heart beat and her baby left her the next week. Katie says, its been really hard but really good in the way that people have responded to her openness about all that has happened. She's been going to a support group and pursuing therapy but it's still been tough. Her loss isn't real for her husband so it's hard for her to explain it in a way that makes sense. She says it's fair, it's his experience, but it's not hers.

It's really important for people to know that women's bodies are different after they have children and it's okay. We're all just normal! For Katie, body image in general has been difficult. Even when she was really little she remembers experience skinny shaming, people spreading rumors she was anorexic just because she was thin. But she's not, it's just the body she's got and she doesn't want to compare things with other women. She notes that everyone has a body and it's important to love the one you're with while harnessing the strength to change the things you can. 

Tiffany Grayson

The gorgeous Tiffany Grayson and her daughter Lily (13 months). Now that Tiffany's daughter is over a year old and a toddler Tiffany has found herself very much wanting a baby. She and her husband do want more children but he says he feels bad even asking her to be pregnant again. The first few months of her pregnancy she was so sick she could barely function and right as she was about to get better she developed kidney stones. There wasn't much they could do for treatment other than provide mild pain relief and tell her to drink a lot of water. Tiffany had to be hospitalized a couple of times for rehydration and joked that she would be able to answer the age old question of whether giving birth or passing kidney stones was worse. At 39 weeks she couldn't feel her baby move so she went in to the ER for monitoring and learned her baby was breech. She was offered an external version but didn't want to put herself through more pain and decided instead to follow her doctors advice of a scheduled cesarean. Her daughter was born without incident and while Tiffany healed without issue, her first few days in the hospital were rough. She didn't react well to the morphine and threw up for the first 36 hours after birth. She was able to nurse her baby but between her incision and sickness she wasn't able to hold her much those first few days. She was able to breastfeed but found it incredibly painful and uncomfortable. She learned that they both had thrush and once she was able to get it treated things were much easier. Tiffany had planned on returning for work but as she prepared to, learned that they could no longer afford to support her decision. She had also been dealing with postpartum depression and realized she could not handle the rejection of searching for another job and ultimately chose to stay home which has been the best thing for them both.