Hi, I’m Kim
I believe that to truly know who I am ~ as a woman, a mother, and a postpartum doula
~ you need to hear my story.
My four matrescence journeys have shaped me, igniting a fire within to serve and change the way we mother the new mother.
My first matrescence journey
At 27, I found myself pregnant to a guy I'd just started dating. Though I knew he was my forever person, I was still a nervous, scared young maiden, feeling completely alone. And he was battling his own crisis, leaving me convinced I would be raising this baby on my own.
When my daughter, Taya, was born, I was surrounded by women—my mother, my aunt, my grandmothers, and my best friend, who had all come together from overseas or interstate. Yet, despite their love, I felt unsupported and lost. It wasn’t their fault; they simply didn’t know how to support me. It was a first for all of us. I was the first of my generation in our family to have a baby.
I remember asking my aunt for advice on my unsettled baby, and she asked if I was burping her properly. “I’m supposed to burp my baby? No one told me that!” I was shocked at how much wisdom had been lost between generations. Another moment seared into my memory was my mother arriving one morning, empty-handed, to check in on me. I was rattled, exhausted, running on empty, my newborn crying on my shoulder. I snapped, “New rule—every time you visit, you bring baked goods.” I was desperate for warm, nourishing food, yet completely clueless about how to nourish and heal myself postpartum. I survived on sliced-up veggie sticks and tubs of hummus— foods I could quickly grab and eat one handed. I didn't realise that what my body actually needed was warm, easy-to-digest meals to help me heal. No one had told me that postpartum recovery wasn’t just about getting through the sleepless nights; it was about rebuilding myself from the inside out.
Lesson: I was surrounded by women who loved me, but they didn’t know how to support me. Our culture has forgotten the rites of passage that once guided women through this transition.
My second matrescence journey
By the time I was pregnant with my second child, my daughter was two, and I felt more prepared. We lived in an apartment where our back door practically connected to our neighbours’. They were a young family with kids the same age, and I thought I had found my village.
But even with my mother, mother-in-law, and supportive neighbours, I was drowning in postnatal depression and anxiety. My son had silent reflux and cried relentlessly, his voice often hoarse from crying so much. I reached out for help. First I tried a community nurse, who look me dead in the eye and said she was worried about me, but offered no solutions. Then I tried a helpline, that instead of sharing support and advice, shamed me for how I was feeling and what I was doing to survive.
Eventually, I clawed my way out of that dark hole, but it took six months. And six months of groundhog days with a toddler and a baby feels like a lifetime. I tried many things to help myself, but one of the biggest helps was hiring a mother’s helper. I paid a woman to come twice a week, cook me lunch, do my laundry, hold my baby so I could shower. Simple things, yet they transformed my days. And planted a seed for how more women like me could thrive during. And planted a seed for how more women like me could thrive during not just postpartum, but the first year or two of motherhood.
Lesson: Postnatal depression and anxiety aren’t just due to hormonal shifts or personal shortcomings; they are the cracks formed when a mother is left unseen, unheard, and utterly depleted. The weight she carries isn’t hers alone—it’s the burden of a culture that has forgotten how to hold her.
She is not the problem. The problem is that we have abandoned her when she needed us most.
AND
Mothers need support well beyond the fourth trimester. They need support for the entire first year, if not more. And this is being overlooked by so many, leaving a new mum feeling alone, lost and unsupported.
None of my babies were planned. My now husband and I always wondered if we would have a third. I had a feeling it would happen once Taya started Kindy, and he thought it would happen when we moved out of Bondi to a slower life in Byron Bay.
Two weeks after Taya started school in Mullumbimby, I found out I was pregnant. It felt like life was flowing just as we had imagined. But at eight weeks, I lost my baby girl.
I say girl because I knew who she was. I had felt her soul around me for years, waiting for the stars to align. She had a name. She still does.
I continued life as normal—dropping my daughter at Kindy, taking Nash to playgroup—all while still bleeding, still losing my baby. There was no ceremony, no reverence for what I had just been through. I cried when I could, but mostly, I carried on. Because as a mum with young kids and no support in a new town, I had to. And this air of carrying on is something I witness all the time in mothers. Because how can we honour our grief and mother at the same time? And more, how do we grieve and honour big moments of transition when we live in a culture that has placed little importance on it?
Lesson: Without ritual and ceremony, a mother’s journey is filled with unspoken grief—not just the loss of a baby, but the continual grief of motherhood itself. The letting go, the transformations, the identity shifts—each one a death and rebirth that often goes unnoticed. Without acknowledgment, her confidence and spirit are fractured. We need rites of passage to honour these transitions, to hold space for the mother as she evolves, again and again.
My third matrescence journey
Immediately after losing my third baby, I became pregnant again. I hadn’t even had a period in between. This is a sentiment to my third babies energy, he’s all fire and earth, and barges his way into most things in life.
I knew this was my last child, and I knew this was my chance to rewrite my story around matrescence and thriving as a mother. But I had just moved to a new town. I barely knew anyone beyond school-run acquaintances. So I did something radical—I asked for help. I reached out to women I felt connected to but hadn’t yet deepened friendships with. I threw my own blessingway. I invited women I barely knew and asked a friend to set up a meal train for me.
And in that empowered state, I also made the decision to freebirth. I had been assigned a home birth midwife, but I didn’t like her energy. I felt belittled, as if she saw me as someone to manage rather than a sovereign, capable mother. I refused to let anyone diminish my power. So I dismissed her, just as she had dismissed me. I chose to birth on my own terms—at home, alone, with my husband—to solidify our healing journey as a couple. I needed to feel held by him, fully, in deep trust. And I needed to prove to myself that I could hold myself, that I could heal the little girl within me who had spent a lifetime pleasing others and placing authority figures on pedestals.
And I did. When the kids were in bed, I birthed my son in my rainforest home, to the sound of shamanic drums and my husband’s steady, encouraging words. His belief in me—alongside my own—held me through the intensity of birthing a 4.9-kilo babe. My daughter walked in moments later, wide-eyed and full of wonder. My son followed minutes after, climbing into bed with us. We all held each other, cocooned in love, in our family bed, soaking in the magic of those first sacred moments together.
In the weeks that followed, the support flooded in. Women brought warm nourishing meals, and there was no raw, cold, one handed snacks in sight. And yet, something was still missing. I had never felt more held by my community, and still, the deep ceremonial honouring of my transformation was absent.
My fourth matrescence journey
Lesson: Even the most supported mothers are still missing something. The red tent is missing. The sacred space where all the women in the village step in, not just to help with meals and housework, but to acknowledge, honour, and guide the mother through her transformation. It is time to bring this back. And I want to be part of the movement that does.
My why
I am here to mother the mother. To hold you in deep compassion, empathy, and wisdom. To help you rest, nourish, and heal. To guide you back to the ancient ways of being supported, honoured, and truly seen. This is my calling.
When I come into your home—whether as a postpartum doula or a mother’s helper—I bring both practical care and deep reverence. I will cook, clean, fold the laundry, massage your aching shoulders, and bind your womb. But I will also hold space for your transformation. I will remind you that you are god, that you created life, and that you deserve to be honoured in the bigness of that. I will witness you as you shed old stories, embrace your new identity, and learn to hold yourself with the same awe and devotion you hold your baby.
Because this is what’s missing. We have lost the red tent—the sacred space where women once gathered, not just to help, but to honour, guide, and revere the mother as she crosses this threshold. And I am here to help bring it back.
I share my story not because it is the hardest or the most extraordinary, but because I know that within it, some part of you may recognise yourself. My journey has shaped the way I show up for you. I have walked through the self-doubt, the ego deaths, the identity shifts, the partnership challenges, the unraveling and rebuilding of self. And because I have been there, I can hold you in it too.
I see you. I honour you. I get it, babe. And I am here for you.
