I’m Not Who I Was Before—and I Like Her. How Motherhood and Stillbirth Transformed My Identity

Vallen Webb (: 00:01

Motherhood changes you, loss transforms you. In today's episode, I'm talking about the identity shifts that happen from becoming a mom, losing a baby, and navigating life and pregnancy after loss. This is a story about radical personal responsibility, grief as a catalyst, and learning to love every version of yourself, even the one that had no idea what was coming. Let's dive in.

Hey friend, welcome back to the Pregnancy Loss and Motherhood podcast. I'm your host, Vallen and Webb. excuse me, and today's episode is a deeply personal one. It's called I'm Not Who I Was Before and I Like Her. Because I've been through a lot of versions of myself and I'm sure many of you can say the same thing. I'm sure most of us can actually. ⁓

There's the version of me who had no kids and was still figuring it all out and was a complete mess and was drinking all the time in college and just not having any role models or direction, not knowing what I could or could not do, just not being prepared for being an adult. There's a version of me who became a mother and fell so in love with that new identity but also had a very hard time.

giving up who I was before. ⁓ Feeling a lot of resentment for having to change my lifestyle, a lot of resentment because I also had to stop smoking and I loved smoking, know, college as a kid, young adult, as an adult period. ⁓ I had to give up a lot of things to be the mom that I really wanted to be. I mean, I could have totally just not quit smoking. I could have just partied.

You know, but that's not who I wanted to be after I became a mom. There's a version of me who became a loss mom. And I was completely blindsided by this and was brought to my knees. ⁓ I wanted to die. I wanted to not live anymore without my daughter being in this world with me. ⁓ And then there was a version who said, I don't want to live as a victim of this.

I want to live a life that honors it. And that's kind of where I am today. And so this is for anyone who's felt like they're completely unraveled only to realize they're becoming becoming someone they actually want to be. So before kids, I really thought I knew who I was. I was the party girl. I was the fun person. I was, you know,

I was a person people wanted to be around when they wanted to have a good time and they wanted to laugh. I've always had a big personality and I've always been loud and boisterous. But deep down I really had no direction. I didn't really have any goals. I didn't have dreams. I didn't really have drive or a plan.

I was a mess and...

I just...

Yeah, I was just a mess guys. don't know how to really put words to how deeply troubled I was and how sad and lonely I was. All I knew was that I wanted something more and I was meant for something more and I wanted to be successful. I honestly didn't think about being a mom in a real sense of the word.

Yeah, maybe one day I'll have kids, but. And then, of course, I meet John and a few months later, whoops, I get pregnant like six months later. Our life moved very fast, but. It was.

The version of me becoming a mom, my God, she was fierce. She was also though tender, ⁓ softened. I softened quite a bit after I had my first daughter. ⁓ Luckily with my first child, she slept really well. So I never felt that sleep deprivation, but then along came my second and I was sleep deprived and all the things. And diagnosed with postpartum depression and postpartum rage. ⁓

our marriage felt like it was falling apart and he wasn't understanding what I was going through. I thought I was going crazy. And it was another point in time where I wanted to die because I couldn't understand what was happening to me. ⁓

motherhood reshaped me and it brought all of these challenges that I needed to overcome to become who I am now. And I hate silver linings. I hate like those types of things, but I don't know who I would be if I didn't go through the hard things. That's where my resilience comes from. ⁓ motherhood showed me what I was capable of. I became more present.

⁓ more vulnerable. I have really deep trust issues and I am I still to this day have a very hard time being vulnerable especially with my husband really any man that I dated in the past and opening up and being that soft feminine version of myself I was kind of more aggressive and like

you know, myself. ⁓ I was really like those are that was me holding on to the pieces of the old me, the girl who could do it all, ⁓ thinking like I would bounce back from anything.

And then Evelyn died, my third pregnancy, my third daughter. I was becoming a girl mom and it was a dream come true.

I became a different person again.

And it's the kind of change you don't really come back from. It's the kind of grief that splits your life into like before and after, season one, season two, ⁓ BC, AD, like whatever you want to call it. ⁓ There's a before and after and there's literally no guidebook for becoming a loss mom.

There's no mirror that reflects who you are when everything you believed in collapses. Like you don't see yourself in the same way. ⁓

It's incredible the type of transformation that you're thrown into. And I would say the beginning version of me after Evelyn died wasn't very pleasant, just to be real. And rightly so. My child was taken from me for no fucking reason. No reason that they could tell me. And

There was no way I could believe in a God that would kill a baby who is about to be born. So it's like, what? I don't understand. And so I didn't just lose my baby. I loss the version of myself who thought bad things don't happen to good people. ⁓ That's also a really great book that I have right here ⁓ by Harold Kushner. So if you want to read something like that. ⁓

I thought that living and being a good person was enough to deter bad things happening to me. ⁓ So I couldn't understand what I did wrong to lose my daughter. I thought, you know, I loss the version who thought love was enough to keep someone safe. I mean, I loss the version of me who trusted my body to be the safest place in the world for my baby, my growing baby.

Wow, she died in me like that. I don't think there's any there's no coming back from that. And if you you know you're here you understand that feeling like.

there's death inside of you and you were supposed to be the safest place. I just.

I had to find a way to meet this new me.

in a safe space. And I don't know, for the first year probably there was was compounding trauma for me ⁓ with my marriage and my husband. And so I had a lot more than just Evelyn.

⁓

I was just not a pleasant person. The only time that I was happy or felt joy was when I was around my girls or when I sat outside in the sun. ⁓

Weather is a huge determinant of my mood. So being able to sit in the sun and just breathe was enough for me at that moment. ⁓

I was raw. I was angry. I was deeply broken. So.

Sorry, this is just hard for me just thinking about the way that I felt.

⁓ this is, I feel like podcasting is my way of being vulnerable and being able to process my grief as well. ⁓ I think it's easier for me to, you know, record these episodes and talk about it and let other people listen without me being around. Like I don't, I don't let my husband listen to them around me. I don't listen to him. I don't let anybody listen to me record. ⁓ I'm just very deeply uncomfortable there, but so a lot changed.

in the day Evelyn died, the days after, the months after, the years after. And what I've learned is that when you lose a baby, it's really easy to get stuck. ⁓

to stay in that fog, to center your whole life around what happened. And I did that for a while, like I said, and I wasn't the best version of me when I was there, but it's part of it. And eventually...

something shifted. And you know, I feel I don't remember the exact moment or the exact conversation, but I remember just being around people who are talking and they were talking about things that didn't even matter to them. It mattered. Okay, I'm not trying to invalidate what they were talking about or feeling. But in the grand scheme of life, these things would not even be important a week from now. And I

found myself being so ick and so God you guys don't even know how good you got it. You don't even realize how beautiful and precious this life is because you're focused on all the tiny little inconveniences or hurts and don't get me wrong. I've been there. I still go there sometimes like we're human but I did not want to waste my precious life drowning in my pain.

⁓ And Evelyn's death had already taken so much and I didn't want it to take my entire life too. And not that Evelyn would take it from me, but the death and the resentment and anger, the emotions, I did not want to take my entire life from me and my children and my husband. And so that became my catalyst for what I always talk about radical personal responsibility. ⁓

It wasn't about ignoring my grief. It was about asking myself, like, who do I want to be? Who do I want to be now? What do I want my kids to see when they look at me? What do I want my kids to feel when they're with me and around me? What would honoring Evelyn actually look like? How could I honor her? How could I continue my parenting journey with her even though she's not here?

And I realized for me, it looked like becoming someone I respected, somebody I was proud of, somebody who helped others. ⁓

That's when I started my journey of being a postpartum doula and bereavement doula. And I had started this journey before Evelyn died. I had taken my training to become a postpartum doula and I planned to work after she was here. so that is the work that I continue doing.

Another shift is, you know, going through pregnancy after loss.

It's one of the most complicated identity shifts you can experience because I mean, this is if you don't have infertility issues, know, but ⁓ on the outside, you know, if you're pregnant again, you you're glowing, you're expecting, you're wanting to prepare, you're wanting to hope for the best. But on the inside, you're terrified. You're you're anxious, you're scared.

There's so much fear there. There were days that I couldn't breathe. ⁓ I could not connect with my baby. There were days where I couldn't trust my body to go through another healthy pregnancy without a loss. ⁓ And yet I knew I had already been to the darkest place that a mother can go. And I was still here. I was still standing. I was pregnant with my rainbow baby.

soon after, five months after I loss Evelyn and.

So for me, pregnancy loss made me a better human in the ways that I became more intentional.

intentional about everything. The way I talked, my emotions, my stress levels, movement, I was more grounded.

I was more willing to pause and to breathe and trust what felt right for me. ⁓

learned to trust myself again through my pregnancy after loss journey. And I had two of them. had Emmett and Bodie.

It taught me, pregnancy after loss taught me, to mother without guarantees.

It taught me to live without guarantees.

And so.

something I want to say is really clearly is that I love the old me.

and I want you to love the old you as well.

She did the best she could with what she knew. She loved hard. She wanted big things. She wanted so much for her family. ⁓ She was necessary, right? Like I had to become her to become who I am today. And who I am today is someone I like. I am somebody that I trust. ⁓ I don't have to perform or prove. ⁓

or stay stuck where I am to feel safe. I allow fear to be my catalyst to try something new. ⁓ Growth comes from overcoming the fear. So I'm not who I was before and I'm okay with that and I'm more than okay with that. I'm so proud of it because I could have stayed in those really deep dark depths in the beginning and if you're there and if you've been there for a while, just know that I see you.

and it's going to be okay. You will come out of it. Just one small step every day is how you get out of it. And so if you're in the middle of one of these identity chefs, whether identity chefs shifts, whether it's new motherhood, loss, pregnancy after loss, rebuilding after trauma, I just want you to know something that you are allowed to change. You're also allowed to grieve who you were.

You're allowed to celebrate who you're becoming. You're allowed to love every single version of you along the way. Even if it was like, even if sometimes you're like, God, I was a bitch or God, I was just so unpleasant or my God, I was just so mean or whatever it is. There's no going back, right? But what's ahead is your future and it's yours. And just knowing that you're not doing this alone. ⁓

It was really easy to isolate and feel alone instead of letting people in. And I just want you to know.

It doesn't have to be that way or stay that way. Just remember that.

⁓ I know this episode may be a little heavy, may felt a little heavy, I can tell that I just want to yawn.

So thank you for spending time with me today. ⁓ I'll see you next week.