12. Marci: An emotional, transformative, humbling first year | Episode 12
The following article may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. I do not promote products that I don't personally use or recommend.
A very special guest on the podcast today - my sister, Marci! Marci is a first time mom to baby Marek and shares in this episode about how this emotional first year of motherhood has transformed and humbled her. Marci thought life would be “pretty much the same, but with less sleep”. The reality? “Everything about my life changed”.
Marci talks about:
Unexpected feeding challenges when starting her baby on solid foods
Comparison in motherhood that brought on feelings of fear and shame
Navigating changes in her career and the decision to leave paid work for a time
The importance of improving communication with her husband and finding connection and common ground outside of their roles as parents
Asking for support with the mental load around feeding her baby and baby sleep
The pride she feels in learning, growing in patience, and letting go of control
I’m so thrilled to share parts of Marci’s story with you - I’m glad you’ve joined us!
Resources:
Communication Habits of Successful Couples
Eight Ways to Keep Your Relationship Healthy During Postpartum and Early Parenting
Returning to Work After Maternity Leave: 3 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed
From Marci:
Marci’s instagram: @marcellaruth
Transcript:
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Hello! We have such a special guest on today's episode. My baby sister, Marci, is going to join us to talk about her first year of motherhood. Her first baby just turned thirteen months, so she is fresh off the first year and agreed to be interviewed for the podcast. I loved getting to talk with her about her first year of motherhood and as she was sharing about some of the unexpected challenges and just some of her experiences, I had the incredible experience of both resonating with what she shared and remembering my own experience of being a first time mother in the first year and just feeling such pride and happiness for my sister and getting to watch her transformative first year and be part of her support in that.
So I love, love this episode, and I'm so thankful that Marci came on to talk with us to share about her first year. And with that big build up, let's get into it and hear my conversation with Marci.
Marci, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your family?
Marci:
Yeah. Thanks for having me. My name is Marci. I'm thirty one, and I live in Colorado Springs, Colorado with my husband, Keith, our son, Marek, who is thirteen months old. And our two cats, Kendrick and Chance.
My husband teaches and coaches high schoolers, and I currently work part-time from home, as an administrative assistant for a financial advisor, but mostly I am home taking care of my son.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
What three words would you use to describe your first year of motherhood?
Marci:
Yes. My three words are emotional, transformative, and humbling.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. I mean, that just, like, hits. Like, that just, like, yep. That's exactly what it is. It is so humbling.
What was the model in your head of motherhood? What did you think that your first year would be like?
Marci:
I think my model of motherhood came mostly from seeing my three older sisters become moms. I didn't have a lot of close friends that were moms prior to me. So, yeah, my sisters- And they all just made it look so fun and effortless. And from my vantage point, I didn't really see their lives change drastically. So I thought my first year would be kind of the same as my life up to that point with less sleep and a baby in my arms everywhere.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
And how well did your reality match up with that expectation?
Marci:
Yeah. It didn't really match up at all. There was less sleep, so I was right about that part! But everything about my life changed and part of this is because my family ended up moving across the state when my son was only four weeks old. But another piece was that almost immediately after my son was born, I knew that I did not want to return to full time work outside the home.
So I ended up staying home full time with my son, and my day to day looked very different. From going to the office from eight to five, five days a week, and spending evenings and weekends hanging out with friends, and Saturdays to home all day with my baby, usually alone and my husband is at work. And we lived in this new very small community. We didn't know anyone. So our social life was non-existent.
So, very different. And I think there's lots of different aspects to that, but it was nothing like I expected.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. It sounds like all these changes kind of happened at once and you're like, nothing stayed the same. Like, everything in your life - kinda your world - turned upside down in almost every way.
Marci:
Yeah, basically. And so when comparing, you know, my husband and I would talk about like, being parents is like a lot harder than we expected, you know, or we don't do anything fun anymore. And that's because we have a kid. I'm like, well, that could be because we have a kid, but it also could because we did all these other changes. Right at the same time.
And so we couldn't - there's, like, no control. You know, when you do a a test and there's, like, this control subject, we didn't have a control subject. Everything changed. So here, we're just figuring it out as we went along, but it was still super fun, fulfilling, but challenging and different than what I thought it would be.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Mhmm. How did you feed your baby in the first year?
Marci:
Yeah. So we started off breastfeeding. And my goal was to exclusively breastfeed and that ended up working well for us, we didn't have any big issues right away. So we continued that. In the first four weeks, I did pump once or twice, and we did a bottle kind of expecting that I would return to the office and we wanted to be prepared for that.
Once I made the decision to not return to the office, I kind of stoped worrying about pumping for probably five or six months until there were opportunities for me to get some time away from my son, like, a girlfriend had a a birthday party, like a two day trip that I went on. And so I would pump - I pumped ahead of time to prepare for that. Or a date night out with my husband occasionally, give the grandparents a bottle. So I did pump a little for those kind of situations and that ended up working for us well. And then we started solids at six months and kept breastfeeding.
Solids took quite a while for us to to get down. My son really struggled with starting solids. He had little to no interest in food. He lost a lot of weight when he started solids. So I ended up increasing our breastfeeding sessions to make sure he was still gaining weight and eventually, we did figure out solids.
We kinda started with a baby-led weaning approach and switched to more of a combo feeding with purees as well. And it just took a lot of patience and a lot of cleaning up food, but we figured it out. And now he's a he's a pretty good eater.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Thanks for bringing that up, introducing solids. I think we kind of forget about that because we talk about, you know, did you breastfeed, did you nurse, did you pump, did you use formula, but yeah. In that first year, you're introducing solids and kinda setting the stage for your child's relationship with food. And I had also forgotten about that piece of the first year how kind of time consuming and like, I remember really researching - and it sounds like you too - like, is baby led weaning the best thing for us is purees is the best thing for us. Like, that was a whole big a major decision that I kind of forgot about.
And it sounds like you faced some challenges there and I imagine it was probably pretty scary having your son drop weight. What was that like for you?
Marci:
Yeah. It was. And well, first off, it was just so unexpected. My son put everything in his mouth. From day one. He just loved to put things in his mouth: toys, his hands, everything he picked up.
So we thought we'd put food in front of him and he'd put it in his mouth. And I was not prepared for the amount of resistance that we faced when I tried to give him food. And then when he actually started crawling right around five months, six months, he got his first big sickness, he got a cold and an ear infection at the same time, and then we started solids. And so those three things caused his weight to decrease, which ended up, our pediatrician that we ended up with said that's pretty normal, to be expected. It's all very reasonable for the situation.
But at first, a different pediatrician we are seeing really made me feel panicked about it. They said, oh, there's no need to worry, but we're gonna have you come back in every week for weight checks. And we're gonna send you to a nutritionist and we're gonna take blood samples and all these things that I was like, well, if it's nothing to worry about why are we kinda jumping to, like, weekly appointments and the extreme? And then I also had a nurse just with some bad bed side manner that said, oh, well, we just wanna make sure you're not doing anything wrong. And I was like, okay.
Okay. That does not make me feel good. So it was… yeah. There was a little bit of just comparison when I would see other babies eating and like a fear or shame that I was doing something wrong, but logically, I kept telling myself, this is normal. This is his situation.
It's unique to him, and it makes sense that he lost weight. And at nine months, I think.. Yes, at our nine month appointment, he was back on his growth curve. And then at his twelve month appointment, he had the highest, he was a highest percentile for weight he'd ever been. So we got through it.
But it was yeah. It was a challenge, and it made me question a lot of things as I was going through it. I had a lot of good support, though, with people close to me reminding me that it's normal and that I'm doing everything right.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah, totally. Whenever, like, big challenges like that come up, it's so easy to take on the responsibility and take on like, that becomes the thing in your life. Right? It's like, okay. I have to figure this out. I have to make sure and it can be, like, kind of consuming.
Marci:
Yes. Yes. So at first, I think with feeding, I was worried about just getting variety and, like, exposure to all these different things. And then suddenly, I was hyperfixated on just, like, him gaining weight and just consumption and amount. So that was also kind of a struggle because I ended up only feeding him the foods I knew he would eat.
And then later on, we got to the point where he's a little bit particular and picky because I didn't expose a lot of things. I was just like, I don't care what he eats as long as he's eating. So I was just, like, wild, how one little thing can… you can really focus on it and it can just kinda overtake everything else that's going on.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Totally. Right? And it makes sense. Like, you're like, this is a threat to my baby. Like, this is, this feels like a very real threat. It feels like this is the biggest thing in the world. And so, of course, you're like, I'm gonna do everything I can to fix this. Like, I'm gonna figure this out, which you did. But it can take… it can take on a lot of big emotions. For sure I really experienced that with sleep with my first. What was sleep like for you in the first year?
Marci:
Yeah. You know, sleep was also a challenge early on. I think very quickly into my son's life, he just wasn't, like, sleep wasn't something he that came naturally to him and looking back I’m like, of course, it didn't. I I think I had all these expectations that, like, he would just sleep. He would just figure it out, but it was all it's all new.
And so looking back at it, it doesn't seem as hard as it did in the moment, but he was just never, he never got really long stretches at night. He was up a lot in the night feeding a lot. And then especially once we hit, like, three months, he just really started to struggle- just would not sleep unless he was in our arms. And so we spent quite a few months, I think two or three months, both me and my husband, just up at night with him and really frustrated really, like, not understanding what was going on.
Lots of sleepless nights. It didn't ever really get better on its own. So at five months, we did a sleep training program and that was amazing to me how quickly that turned things around for us within about two weeks to a month. Just, he went from never having slept a whole night in his life to consistently sleeping a whole night every night and basically haven't had any issues since then.
So sleep training really worked for us and our son took to it really well. I feel like I could not continue on the way we were living before sleep training. So it was probably the best thing we did for my mental health during my first year was doing some sleep training and getting a full night sleep. Mhmm.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
What challenges did you face that you didn't anticipate in this first year?
Marci:
Yeah, I think the biggest unexpected one was starting solids. It's like I said, I was just so sure that he would love food. So that was the biggest challenge that was unexpected. And I don't think we had too many other big unexpected challenges. I think there is some unexpected things like how once we did get him on a sleep schedule, how inflexible he became and we became about that.
Which came first? I don't really know. I think it was us being inflexible and then he was like, now I'm really set in this, and so now I'm not flexible. But that was kind of a challenge, how much we were tied to his nap schedule during the day and how much we're, like, nope, we can't do this.
I never expected me to be that type of person. It's like, sorry, it's my baby's nap time. I can't I can't go. But that is exactly who I was. That was unexpected.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. Well, I mean, if you go from not sleeping at all to following a schedule and then you're sleeping, you're like, I'm not gonna change anything. Like, I’m gonna sleep.
Marci:
Yeah. It's like there's nothing more important to me than my sleep, and it's directly tied to his sleep. So this this is important to me. It became a really high value. Yeah.
Ad Break: Lovevery Play Kits
Okay. Quick break here because I wanna tell you about Lovevery’s' Play Kit subscription. As Marci was talking about, there are so many choices that you make in that first year as a parent. Am I gonna breastfeed? Am I gonna feed formula? Am I gonna introduce purees first or do baby led weaning? Is baby gonna stay in my room or their own room? There's just so so many choices and they're big decisions. And I found myself really getting in the weeds a lot and was researching the best thing to do. I mean, you know, down to the minute of how much tummy time my baby should be getting every day.
You want to do everything just perfectly right. And one thing that I did early on that I'm just so pleased with was subscribe to Lovevery’s Play Kits. So the play kits are made up of toys that are developmentally appropriate for your child at that age. It's a box full of toys that your child is going to love and that's going to build brand new neural connections. Yes, please.
And you don't have to research any of it because it's so already researched and evidence based. So we did this very early on with my first, and I just never had to worry about getting toys for her that she would love or that we're good for her because every two to three months I was getting this box full of toys that she was obsessed with and that I knew were good for her brain and helping her develop. So we signed up this when she was like two months old and we're still getting toys now that she's over three through Lovevery and she still loves them. Also included in the box is a guide on how to use the toys and play with your child to build connection because that's a really important part of brain development, the connection piece.
All that to say, I'm a big fan, I'm a big believer, and I'm gonna put a link in the show notes for Lovevery Play Kits.
Alright. Back to my conversation with Marci.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
So you talked about pretty quickly realizing after your son was born that you did not wanna go back to full time paid work. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and that decision for your family and what that looked like?
Marci:
Yeah. One piece of it was just my lack of desire. Like, I was really passionate about my job before I had my son. I worked up until the day before he was born in the office. I went to work, and I was passionate about what I was doing, felt like I was in a role where I was really serving and helping others. But as soon as he was born, I, like, could not like, I could not think about my job. I just could not care about it. And I actually did end up going back to my original job that I had before my son was born, but remotely for about two and a half months. He was three months old.
I went back remote, and I did have reduced hours, I was not working full time. But I still really struggled to find a good balance between caring for him and caring for my team, the people I was working with, my job. So, yeah, I would be like trying to get my son to take a nap, and I'd have emails coming in on my phone and my watch. And I just, I was just furious.
I was like, why? Like, what else could be important right now? What else could be more important than my son? You know? And so I really just mentally struggled with the care and the desire and the passion that I had before.
So that was part of it. The other part was just the childcare aspect. Before he was born, we had some temporary childcare lined up and it kind of fell through right as soon as he was born, which kinda led to the decision to move across the state and be closer to family. And then our family was really helpful in offering to help out and watch my son, but there's also just only so much family can do and provide when when thinking about going back to work full time, having family step in to help here or there isn't really a viable long term option. They have lives. They have commitments.
They have other things coming up. So it was either find childcare, which I really wasn't super excited about and didn't really wanna put in on the energy to look into options and research, all that when I didn't feel super passionate about returning to work. So it kinda was a lot of different pieces coming together. I didn't really want to be away from him, and I didn't want to even put in the effort to see what options I had to be away from him. So I ended up doing about, like I said, two or three months of remote work and at that point, he was about to turn six months old and I went to start solids. We already talked about how time consuming that was. I was like, putting it off. I was like, I need to have my full day cleared. No meetings or anything on the calendar because I'm gonna have to spend a lot of time preparing food, cleaning up food, all this stuff. So, yeah, in December, I think or January early January, I stopped working and was able to fully focus on him.
Just like, I enjoyed being home with him. I loved seeing every milestone, being there for every nap. Making sure he went to sleep. All those things - playing with him, going on walks with him, Yeah.
So it really was I think the right decision for us, and I still really enjoy being home with him. And then I did pick up a little part time, fully remote work just to kinda stay active and involved in the world outside of parenting, and then also just financially for our family to have some additional income. And I only work doing nap times, it is super flexible, so that's been a really good fit as well.
It's just finding something that keeps me active and engages my brain in a different way than motherhood does, but is flexible and puts my family first.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. Totally. We've talked about on this podcast before and I've talked about with clients, like finding ambition and work that fits for your family versus trying to fit your family into, like, the gaps of your work or your ambition and it does, it shifts. So it sounds like it was a total journey for you to find, like, the perfect fit for your family and it's changed over time and it's still evolving.
Marci:
Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
How did your relationship with your partner change and evolve in that first year?
Marci:
Yeah. I think, yeah. We I think became really a lot better at communicating, which we kind of thought maybe we had down before we had kids, but we really did not. So our communication became something that at first, you know, we really struggled with because it wasn't good enough.
And we learned how to communicate especially in times of stress, anxiety, panic. Because just yeah, things with the baby would feel sudden and, like, we have to figure this out right now. We have no time to, like, think about it and process it. My husband is a very verbal, external processor, and it takes him quite a while to get to the point where he's processed something fully. And so that was something I became really impatient with.
And so that we had to work through that, how to communicate and be on the same page. It took us quite a while to figure out kind of a schedule to, like, spend time together. And we had friends tell us, like, we had to schedule a date night where we were not allowed to talk about our son. And we're like, oh, that's that's not gonna be a problem for us. And then it was, like, constantly, we're only talking about our son, everything he's done, everything about him.
So figuring out how to, yeah, have connection that was based on something other than our child and what was or wasn’t going on with him at that point. But, yeah, communication really improved and yeah, just seeing him my husband step in and really take charge of certain aspects of parenting that will kinda traditionally fall on the mother. I think that was really cool to see after I had explained, like, oh, I feel like I'm carrying so much of the responsibility for this. I have to do the thinking through of, like, where are we gonna feed him? When are we gonna do this?
Oh, I know that he needs to go to sleep by this time, so we have to be home by this time. All these, like, scheduling things. He really heard me when I expressed, like, the weight of that, and he jumped in and started carrying a little bit more of that mental load. So that's been really cool to see. I've just gained a lot from seeing him as a parent and parenting with him.
So that's been a really, yeah, wonderful piece of becoming a mom.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
So the idea of how you guys spent time together and communicated shifted. How did the idea of self-care shift for you in that first year?
Marci:
Yeah. I'm kind of an introvert who loves quality time with small groups of people. When I said, our social lives were non existent, since we moved to a new community or we didn't know anyone- that I think, was really challenging for me. I was getting a lot of alone time. A lot of the alone time with a baby who didn't speak.
So I was just craving like, adult interaction. So before, I think beforemy self care looked like, oh, I wanna go to a movie by myself. I wanna take a long bath and read a book. And I still do enjoy some of those things. But more than anything, I was like, I just wanna, like, talk to a friend on the phone.
I want to, like, go and hang out with a group of moms. I want to have connections with someone other than my husband, no offense, but like, it was just me and him. Like, I was like, I love you. You're great. You are enough, but not really.
So I found a mom's group through my church that was meeting every week. So once every other week they would do like a morning, a get together with children there, and then the opposite weeks they would have evening get together where children usually weren’t there.
And I found a lot of value in going to the evening groups where there was, you know, it was child free time to connect with other people, other moms, especially that was so helpful just to have people who were in the same life stage as me. So my husband would take dinner, bath, bed time, take that on every other week, once a week, and I would go to moms' group and socialize with moms. And that was kind of the biggest form of self-care during my first year that just, yeah. It was so amazing that I found and was able to make that work.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah, there is something so special about being with other moms who are in it with you, who get it, like that kind of support and camaraderie is so so powerful. Is there a moment or a period of time looking back on this first that stands out to you?
Marci:
Yeah. So it was, I think, when my son was around seven months old, he did this thing, and it's really small. And I'm sure that it will happen again. It just isn't right now. But before I put him down for his naps, he would give me the sweetest snuggles and cuddles.
And I just, I remember I took a few videos, a few pictures during that time because I was like, this is one of those moments that may not last that long. Or, you know, maybe this will become a new norm for us, but I loved it so much. That it was like the sweetest thing to have him initiating a cuddle with me. And I was right, it did not last very long. I think by the time he was nine months, he stopped. He went through a big, like, dad holds me before bed, Dad puts me in the crib phase. And even now he's just very active and mobile and he doesn’t sit still to cuddle very often. So I used to look back and treasure those times. And I'm anticipating more sweet snuggles in our lifetime together. But for now, I am just, yeah. I look back at that time and and really treasure it.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. So sweet. What makes you feel proud about your first year as a mother?
Marci:
Yeah, I think mostly I'm just proud to have made it through. It was really hard. It was like, really hard. And I look back on years before I was a parent and having friends or family have kids. And I'm like, oh my goodness, I was such a bad friend to those new moms. I learned, just so much by experiencing it myself. And so now I'd like to say, like, I'm proud of how where I am and how I've had a lot of friends since have their first babies, and I've tried to reach out and tried to be more of a support to those new moms. So I'd like to say I'm proud of how far I've come in that aspect of being a support to other people.
But I'm also just proud that my son and I have a good bond, that when I feel like I make mistakes or don't do my best that I'm able to, like, even though he's a little, to come back to him, and to repair and to be like, “oh, I was really frustrated because you were throwing food on the ground. I love you. You're a good baby, no matter if you throw food or not.” I'm proud of how I'm able to overcome some of these things that at one point to me felt really really hard and unable to conquer it. I felt unable to conquer those. And now I feel like I can come back and say, okay, I've grown in this. I've grown in my patience. I've grown in my ability to not be so controlling over situations. So I think there's a lot I'm proud of, but mostly just that we’re through the first year. Hopefully, I'll just keep continuing to learn and grow in motherhood as we face a lot of other first and new things that are ahead.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
I am tearing up because I'm so proud of you and so honored to get to see your growth. As a mother and as a person. I'm so proud of you.
Tell me about your son's first birthday.
Marci:
Yeah. It was actually only a month ago, which is crazy. Like, this feels like it was forever ago. It was a month ago. Yeah.
So my son turned one, and on his actual birthday, we just did… me and my husband were home and we just did some balloons for him when he woke up in his room and just spent time together. We did kind of our normal daily routine. I didn't do anything crazy special. But just, yeah, spent the day with him. We had some family come into town. And then that weekend, that whole weekend, really, we just got to celebrate with friends and family. We had his child dedication at our church in the morning, and that was a really, really special time, something that we had talked about even before, when I was pregnant, we talked about, when we do his dedication and anticipating that day. And then later in the afternoon, we had his birthday party, which was a Little Boy Blue theme because he loves blueberries, we lived in a small community. So I was like, it's kind of a farm theme and really he is really into farm animals. So we had just a little farm birthday party theme. We actually had quite a few of our friends and family show up. It was amazing to me how many people came to celebrate him. I just felt blown away with all these people that love our son and love us and that supported us that day. It was super fun. We had him dressed in cute little blue overalls.
He had no interest in his birthday cake, which does not surprise me. Even today, like, we tried to give him ice cream this week. We're like, ice cream! It's really good! And he was like, oh, it's cold.
I don't want it. We're like, all the good things in life… You don't even wanna try. But he is kind of a sensitive baby and he gets overwhelmed by too much stimulation. But he just had the time of his life at his birthday, even though there was tons of people at our house.
So, you know, it was just super fun and special. I think I wouldn't change a thing about the day that we just got to celebrate him.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. Really special.
What delights you about Marek right now?
Marci:
Yeah. Right now, so much. He is so… he's just so happy. He loves animals. We have, like I said, we have two cats and he just, anytime they come around, he'll squeal, he'll run after them, often he doesn't get to pet them because they don't like that. But sometimes, one of our cats will let him and he just full on tackles, buries his face into our cat and just like, is in heaven. And he does similar things with his stuffed animals. He just, like, will just hug all of his stuffed animals and just make the happiest noises. When he sees a dog, when we're walking, he's just squealing and kicking his legs with joy.
So I've just seen how much he loves animals and that just is so sweet to me. And he is really starting to understand the words I'm saying. I'll tell him, I can I'll tell him look in your bib for some food and he'll open his bib pocket and grab the food out, or I'll tell him, come grab your train and he'll come get his train or come get your car and he’ll come grab his car.
So it's just such a delight to be able to communicate with him a little bit more and see him understand. It's just been so so special to see him grow and develop and at this stage right now, I'm just full of awe, like, all that he can do and all that he understands and everything he does amazes me. I'm sure it's like, all the parents are this obsessed with their kids, and he's just doing very normal developmental things, but I’m like, you are a genius. You are the smartest baby.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. Yeah. And normal development at this age is so amazing. Like, it is so, like, miraculous. You're like, a year ago, like, you couldn't do anything.
You couldn't even hold your own head up. And now, like, you understand what I'm saying and there's this connection and the back and forth interactions and figuring out the world and it is, like it is genius. It's so amazing to watch and to get to see that.
Marci:
Yeah. Exactly.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
What words of encouragement or wisdom do you have for moms who are in it right now?
Marci:
Yeah. I would say the biggest thing that helped me is understanding and reminding myself that it's just a season, that it will change, and that's with both good things and bad things. Like, the things you love about your baby right now, they won't be there forever. And so indulge in them, delight in them, take notice of them, savor them. And then also the things that are really challenging, that are really frustrating you or making you anxious, that's also not going to last, like that will pass.
And so that is just something I say to my new mom friends, like, it's not gonna be this way forever. Both good and bad. Like, it will pass. It will change. If it's bad, we will get through this.
If it's good, like, enjoy it. Enjoy it right now.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Yeah. So you talked about some of the relationships and the activities you did that were supportive for you in the first year. Are there other resources that were helpful to you that you'd want to share?
Marci:
Yeah. I think it's pretty well known, but we did the taking Cara Babies sleep training course. I would recommend that to anyone who is interested in doing sleep training. That was really helpful for us. Like I said, Marek really responded well to it. So it's worth trying if that's something you're interested in. I want to be a resource for anyone who I know personally. So if you know me, like, I'm always here for you. Please text me, call me. Like, I'm willing to talk and willing to listen.
I want to support you. I'd love to be a resource for you, but also, if I don't know you, I just encourage you to find a group of moms or one or two other moms that you can depend on. I think that's so helpful for moms. Like, moms get it. Moms know.
Like, you don't even have to be, like, a professional or have a ton of experience under your belt. Just someone else who understands what it's like. I'd say reach out to them and really rely on the other moms in your life.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci::
Yeah. I'm just gonna, like, echo that and underline that because I am a perinatal mental health professional expert and that is the first thing I did when my second was born, to seek out that kind of peer support because it is just so special. Like, there's… when I was on maternity leave with my youngest, just those Thursday mornings where I went to mom group was so, so sacred to me. Just being able to sit with other moms, eat, talk, like just be with people who were in the same place I was was just really, really powerful.
How can people find you to connect?
Marci:
Yeah. I'm really only active on Instagram. My username is @marcellaruth. So you can chat to me. I'm private, so send me a message or request to follow me, and I'd love to connect.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
Thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story and sharing about how emotional and transformative and humbling this whole journey was and I really see that transformation and really see, like, the growth in you as you've shared your story, but also as your sister and as someone who loves you and your family. It’s just, this is a really special time to get to hear about what this first year has been like for you. And I'm so, so proud of you and so excited to watch your motherhood journey just continue to transform you and to humble you.
Marci:
Thanks. Yeah. It's been so cool to be able to share. Thanks for having me and thanks for, yeah, just the thought provoking questions and all the support, epecially, that you've given me over the first year.
Molly Vasa Bertolucci:
I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I I did. And if you did, you might want to subscribe to the podcast so you could be the first to know when new episodes air. Be sure to check out the show notes for any links, resources, or information that we mentioned in this episode. Thank you for listening.
