Welcome to my first featured “Resources For Growing Families” blog post series! Today I will be sharing with you my dear friend Kaitlyn of Motherhood Alchemy. In this post she shares about her passion for helping women throughout their childbearing years through Ayruvedic medicine, what lead her to this passion and how she can help women and families through their journey of becoming a mother/parent and after. Her responses to my questions truly made me tear up because of her vulnerability and the way she talks about her work. She is holding her “Empowered Postpartum Planning” class on January 28th in my studio in Oceanport. Be sure to reserve your spot now!

Kaitlyn and I first met right after my first baby was born and right before her first baby was born but we didn’t fully connect until our second pregnancies when she was studying to be a certified Ayruvedic coach. We had a session in my home before my son was born to help me prepare for his birth and postpartum period. Having had a baby already, putting measures in place to care for myself after my son was born was potentially even more important than the first time around as I now had two babies in addition to myself to care for. After my son was born and then again after my third was born, she came over with really nourishing meals, snacks and tea plus other goodies like oil for daily massages for myself and the baby. She also helped with the baby while I showered and cared for myself. She has a wealth of knowledge and most importantly love to share with all mothers. The work she is doing is profound and I cannot wait to share with you how she can help you. Please read on to learn more about her, her services and how you can reach out.

Kaitlyn is a wife, homeschooling mama of 2, and Ayurvedic wellness coach and postpartum doula. She is passionate about living an intentional life, infusing each moment with purpose deeply seeded in her values to leave a more healed world when her time here is done. Chills.

Ayurveda found her in the early stage of her healing journey, after a series of traumatic events that happened in her early-mid 20’s. These events left her depleted, depressed, anxious, and unsure of who she was or what she was doing. Ayurveda and yoga showed her the path inward, to seek these answers for herself, from herself and Mother Nature. After years of self study, she dove into certified Ayurvedic coaching where she was introduced to Ayurvedic postpartum traditions. Having already had one baby and being pregnant with the next, she felt drawn to supporting new mother’s during the most sacred time of their lives.

She serves women during the childbearing years. She is able to support a woman or couple to prepare their bodies for a healthy pregnancy and birth, as well as prepare for a supported, healing postpartum. She is also here to guide women who have already had children to reconnect with themselves again after birth and the early years of motherhood, this may be especially important for those who didn’t have a well supported postpartum.

A woman or couple can reach out when they are preparing for conception, during pregnancy, planning for postpartum, or after having a baby and feeling ungrounded, out of touch with their purpose and/or intuition, or feeling imbalanced in their body by experiencing depression, anxiety, bloating, digestive issues, or similar. No matter what point of your journey you are in, as soon as you are ready to make real changes to your lifestyle in order to support yourself through self knowledge and self care first, reach out to her.

Kaitlyn can offer support during your conception planning and give you guidance to help support your fertility. She says “everything we expose ourselves to in everyday life will either support our wellbeing or build toxins that lead to dis-ease. From what we eat, put on our bodies, listen to, watch, and how we spend our time can either be medicine or poison. And Ayurveda shows us how we digest each of these inputs builds each tissue in our bodies and in what order, the very last of which is our reproductive system. So in order to improve fertility we must improve how we nourish our bodies through a lifestyle and diet that reduces toxins, increases our ability to digest the good and eliminate the bad, and build a reserve of energy.”

For families already expecting she can help you to begin to set the foundation of self care routines that will allow you to support yourself and fill your cup after baby is born. Creating the lifestyle around deeper self awareness will allow the new parents to be more in tune with their intuition when it comes to parenting. Much of the work you will do together is learning to regulate your nervous system, which will be an invaluable asset for postpartum life.

The most common issue she has heard and been able to support women through is reconnecting with themselves after giving their all to their children in the early days, months and years of mothering. Guiding women back to understanding their needs, making space to honor those needs, and being able to ask for help are at the top of the list. It’s so easy to lose ourselves and prioritize our children’s needs over our own needs and Kaitlyn can help bring us back to caring for ourselves.

Some tips she has for supporting a healthy pregnancy, birth and postpartum are: eating a Whole Foods diet, prioritizing rest, drinking raspberry leaf + nettle leaf tea, especially in the last trimester. Education on the physiology of birth and preparing supports and plans for both birth and postpartum.

A big part of what she does is to support the postpartum family. She does postpartum visits with meal preparation, gives space to process the birth through open, no judgement conversations, and teaches self care techniques like self massage or meditations that ground the new family’s energy and support healing.

Some resources she recommends for expectant and newly postpartum families are: “The First Forty Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother” by Heng Ou, “Nurture: A Modern Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, Early Motherhood―and Trusting Yourself and Your Body” by Erica Chidi,

Banyan Botanticals for massage oils and herbal supports,

Local doulas - Om Mama’s Doula Service, Little Sister Doulas, postpartum doula - Jeanette Sealy,

Chiropractic care for expectant moms and new families - Circle of Life (spoiler alert, you may see some of these services featured in upcoming blogs!)

I asked her what she would like every woman, parent or caregiver to know and she said “It is so easy to become overwhelmed and begin looking for answers to all the questions having a new baby will throw at us from others. But we actually have all the answers within us already. It is a matter of learning to listen for our intuition and honor what it tells us. That gut feeling is our body communicating with us. Our innate ability to care for our baby is so much stronger and smarter than all the external advice we could receive.” Amen my friend!!

Thank you for sharing your art and wisdom with us, Kaitlyn. You are healing our world through your care for mothers and in turn their care for themselves and their children.

To work with Kaitlyn and learn about her offers, visit her website and reach out: https://www.motherhoodalchemy.com/

You can also follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/motherhood.alchemy/ and https://www.instagram.com/kaitlyn.desider/