A bit of background…
Last year I trained as a postpartum doula with Women Offering Mothers Birth Support (WOMBS). I took this training because I wanted to provide support to new mothers and families in the first twelve months after having their babies. This incredible time of matrescence is one of vulnerability, transformation, and power.
I’d found this first year after birth very tricky, often lonely, and frequently stressful. I know that I’m not alone in this — too many mothers, have the same experience I had. It needn’t be that way, and that’s why I believe postpartum support (in whatever form that takes) is vital.
I was raring to go with my doula plans, and then, as if the universe was playing tricks on me, I discovered that I was pregnant with my second child whilst I was studying. My plans of offering postpartum doula support in person in 2025 had to change.
Happily, my second experience of early motherhood has been different, and I have a lot more energy and bandwidth than I expected to have at nine months postpartum. But, I’m still not quite ready to venture out of the house to provide support for new moms in person, as my own little ones require the majority of the caring energy I have.
I’ve been a published writer since 2009, and I was writing for myself a long time before that. Writing about my own birth experience, and talking about it with others who were open and ready to hearing it, helped me work through my changing feelings and made me feel supported.
And it’s not just me. Research has shown that writing about your birth experience can have a positive impact on your health and can “serve as a powerful reflective intervention that may help women process their emotions and perceptions related to childbirth and even reduce post-traumatic stress symptoms.”
So, with this in mind, I thought of a slightly different way to offer support and honour mothers…
Writing your birth story
I think anyone who has been through, witnessed, or supported a birth can agree that birth is an absolutely wild experience. It’s also true that our feelings about our birth experience may change as the days and months of motherhood progress.
Whether your birth went exactly according to plan, or it did not, it is an experience that is monumental, powerful, and deserves to be honoured. Whatever your mode of delivery, your birth is important.
I’d like to combine my writing and doula skills to offer some very special writing workshops over the rest of this year. These will take a few formats.
1. Writing your birth story: moms with babies 0 - 6 months
As a new mother you have a lot going on. You’re doing all the feeding and nap maths, you’re very very tired, and you are still physically recovering from your birth and pregnancy. You’re trying to learn your baby’s cues, and your own. If you have a partner parent, you’re both working out a brand new dynamic in your relationship. Leaving the house can feel really tricky, and you’re going to take a while to find your groove.
In short - you’ve got stuff going on, and it might feel impossible to think of sitting down to write about your birth in those early days, weeks, and months. I get it! I’ve been there too.
To honour and acknowledge where you are in life right now, I’d like to offer a workshop over five days, with a total of three hours of writing overall. It’ll look something like this (allowing for flexibility with the participants who sign up):
Day 1: 30 minute online call to introduce the week of writing, and set our shared writing boundaries and expectations. First writing exercise.
Day 2 - 4: 20 minute online call each day where I will help you work through a series of writing exercises.
Day 5: 30 minute online call to wind up our writing, and debrief, sharing referrals for emotional, physical, and medical support.
The price for this will be R500 per person.
2. Writing your birth story: moms with babies 6 - 12 months
For those of you who are a little bit further on the journey, and might have a bit more of a daily groove, I’d like to offer a three day workshop, with an hour of writing each day. So it would look something like:
Day 1: 1 hour online call to introduce our writing plans, and set our shared writing boundaries and expectations, and get some writing done.
Day 2: 1 hour online call while I lead you in some writing exercises.
Day 3: 1 hour online call to do some more writing, and debrief, sharing referrals for emotional, physical, and medical support.
The price for this will be R500 per person.
3. Writing your birth story: toddler moms: babies 1 - 5
Just because your baby isn’t technically a baby anymore, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to write your story.
Maybe you’ve been holding it in until you felt you could write about it. Maybe you’ve been holding it in because you simply have not had the time. Maybe you’ve written about it before, and want to write it again with a bit more distance. Whatever your reason, your story deserves to be written.
By this stage of motherhood we can hopefully do a bit more concerted writing (correct me if I’m wrong on this - these workshops are for you!) so I think we can sit down together for three hours and immerse ourselves in writing.
The workshops will take the format of a three hour in-person workshop in Cape Town, and a three hour online workshop from wherever in the world you are. It’s up to you what works.
The in person workshops will be R650, will have a maximum of 8 people, and will include some snacks.
The online workshops will be R500.
For now these workshops will be held on weekdays, which I know personally is very difficult for working mothers. But, with my second child being so little, I need the weekends to rest and recover myself, and to run my other writing workshops.
Dates
The first workshops will be taking place in July and August as follows:
16 July:10 - 1pm:Write your birth story: Toddler momsonline.Postponed due to family commitments. Sorry!21 - 25 July: Write your birth story: Moms of babies 0 - 6 months online. Time TBC depending on group participants.
4 - 6 August: Write your birth story: Moms of babies 6 - 12 months online. Time TBC depending on group participants.
20 August: 10 - 1pm: Write your birth story: Toddler moms in person in Cape Town.
I’ll be announcing dates for September - December later on. Subscribe to get this information as soon as I share it.
How to sign up
Send me an email to jenthorpewrites@gmail.com, and let me know which group you’d like to sign up for.
I look forward to writing with you soon.
If you have someone who you think would benefit from a workshop with me, please share this post with them. I’d be ever so grateful.
Jen, this is such a fantastic offering. And so needed! We had a birth story that did not go to plan AT ALL and writing about it helped enormously!