Megan McConnell Of Inner Abundance Counseling: What I Did to Heal Emotionally and Physically After a Challenging Childbirth
An Interview With Lucinda Koza
An outlet for yourself. It was profoundly meaningful for me to have outlets in my daily life that were solely for the purpose of nurturing myself and staying connected to who I was before motherhood. For me, the outlets were yoga and daily walks by myself. These practices helped ground me, gave me time to check-in with myself and notice what I needed, and overall offered me a sense of normalcy that allowed for hope that things could get better.
Childbirth can be a beautiful yet challenging experience that impacts women both emotionally and physically. The journey to recovery is often filled with unique hurdles and personal growth. We would like to feature and interview individuals who have navigated this journey to share their stories and insights on the steps they took to heal emotionally and physically after a challenging childbirth. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Megan McConnell.
Megan McConnell is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over eight years of clinical experience. She owns and runs a private practice called Inner Abundance Counseling where she specializes in helping adult clients heal from past traumas so they can live full, joyful, and meaningful lives in the present. Megan is an EMDR certified therapist, and she excels at balancing strong relationships with clients rooted in trust, empathy, and authenticity with evidence-based treatment methods that ensure clients achieve the transformation and healing they desire.
Outside the office, Megan is an avid nature lover, hiker, yogi, bookworm, and connoisseur of vegetarian cooking. She is mom to a rambunctious bernedoodle and an almost one year old daughter.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you tell us a bit about you and your backstory?
Absolutely! I am a therapist based in Denver, CO. I own and run a private practice called Inner Abundance Counseling. What lights me up is helping my clients tap into the wisdom, resourcefulness, and capacity for joy and connection they have always had but are struggling to access due to past trauma, anxiety, self-doubt, or other obstacles that life tends to impose. I came to this work through my endless curiosity about human nature and my own journey to figuring out how to be my genuine self in the world.
I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Spanish from the University of Virginia in 2014 and my Master’s degree in Social Work from Columbia University in 2016. I have worked in outpatient mental health and private practice settings for the past eight years serving clients experiencing traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, grief, life transitions, identity questions, relationship difficulties, and more. I have been a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the state of Colorado since 2018. I am an EMDR Certified Therapist, and a member of the Colorado Society for Clinical Social Work and the National Association of Social Workers.
Can you share your childbirth experience and what made it particularly challenging for you, both emotionally and physically?
The challenges for me started well before childbirth. About seven months into my pregnancy, my baby was diagnosed with Intraruterine Growth Restriction or IUGR. This meant that she was smaller than expected given how far along I was in my pregnancy. There are a number of risks associated with an IUGR diagnosis, including increased likelihood of premature birth, complications at birth requiring time in the NICU, and stillbirth.
As a first-time mom-to-be, this was terrifying for me. The diagnosis also triggered greatly increased monitoring of my pregnancy. I was having weekly ultrasounds and frequent nonstress tests to ensure that my baby was not distressed in utero. The threat of an emergency delivery loomed over me as I sat through each of these tests. Further, the importance of monitoring fetal movements was repeatedly emphasized, which became a source of extreme stress for me. I felt like her safety and wellbeing were fully in my hands because, if I failed to notice any sign that something was off, she could die and it would be my fault.
Weeks went by with me obsessively counting kicks, spending hours a week at my OB’s office, and being sent to the hospital twice due to concerns about premature labor. I braced myself for the worst, and any excitement I had previously was overshadowed by my anxiety related to my baby’s safety and my guilt that my body had somehow failed her. I was scheduled for induction at 39 weeks as it was deemed that, at that point, she would be safer out than in.
I ended up going into labor on my own at 38 weeks. Labor is overwhelming in itself the first time you go through it, and I had extra factors to consider. I was warned that any intervention during labor, like getting an epidural, could lead to fetal distress and increase the likelihood for emergency measures being needed. It was incredibly difficult to try to balance what I needed with some unknown amount of risk that attending to my needs could carry, and nobody could make these decisions but me. Again, I feared deciding wrong and harming my child in the process.
We were incredibly fortunate. Labor went smoothly and I ultimately had an uncomplicated delivery. My baby was completely healthy and did not require any interventions after birth. I was and am so grateful that this was our experience.
At the same time, I was exhausted and angry. I spent the last two months of my pregnancy in a hyper-aware state trying to intuit with my non-expert brain if my baby was okay. I arrived at the beginning of motherhood feeling like I had little to give to my baby because just getting her into the world safely had completely depleted me.
Moreover, I felt like I had been put through the wringer for no real reason. I was told later that most IUGR babies are completely fine after delivery, and that all of the extra monitoring is really just a precaution. I can appreciate the benefits of being cautious, but I felt like in my case they were largely outweighed by the consequences to my mental health of being led to believe that my baby might not survive birth. I felt unseen and let down by my doctors who, rather than acknowledge the agony I went through my last trimester, were quick to offer cheerful platitudes about how great it was that my baby was healthy.
What were the first steps you took to begin the healing process after childbirth, and how did they help you cope with the initial emotional and physical aftermath?
It’s hard to pinpoint when the healing process began. I came home with a baby and my life as I knew it was upended. I was simply trying to get through the day, and I was not intentionally thinking about how I could be working to heal. I was struggling and overwhelmed, but it was difficult to discern in those early days how much of that struggle was due to the trauma I had experienced and how much of it was simply a result of navigating the chaotic transition to parenthood.
In hindsight, I can see a few things I did early on that started me down the right path. I did not try to hide from anyone how much I was struggling. I spoke openly and often with many people in my life about how unlike myself I felt and how scared I was. I think simply naming my struggle for what it was gave me perspective, helping me to see that it was something I was going through, not who I was.
I also listened to myself and maintained firm boundaries where I needed them. For example, I went to a breastfeeding support group exactly one time. I don’t want to downplay how helpful these support groups are to some mothers, but for me the experience was a massive trigger. The group discussion led me to adopt some of the anxieties I heard from other women as my own, question whether I was doing anything right, and feel like I didn’t love my baby enough because it seemed like I wasn’t trying as hard at breastfeeding as others were. I never went back because I knew that I had plenty of anxiety all on my own and that I didn’t need to unnecessarily open myself up to additional sources of it.
Did you seek support from healthcare professionals, family, or community groups during your recovery? If so, how did their involvement contribute to your healing journey?
Very much so. In fact, I don’t think I have ever allowed myself to rely on outside support as much as I did during the postpartum period. My husband and parents were huge helps, making sure that I was fed, had time for myself, and had uninterrupted time to try to sleep.
I also worked with a therapist and a psychiatrist who specialize in maternal mental health as well as an acupuncturist. They were essential in the early days at helping me calm my overactivated nervous system enough to be able to sleep, and over the longer-term in helping me process the trauma I experienced, regulate my anxiety, and truly be able to accept that my baby was safe.
Were there any specific practices, such as mindfulness, therapy, or physical exercises, that played a significant role in your emotional and physical recovery?
Therapy, for sure. As a therapist myself, it was humbling to admit that I definitely did not have a handle on things my first couple of months postpartum. Luckily, I had the foresight to connect with a new therapist and have a few sessions to build our relationship while I was still pregnant. I highly recommend this to parents-to-be. It was a gift to not have to go through what can be a long and arduous process to find a therapist when I was at my lowest point. My therapist offered support in so many ways, but ultimately what was most meaningful to me was that she believed I could heal and get back to feeling like myself during a time when I felt profoundly alienated from my body and who I had been pre-pregnancy.
Yoga was my other saving grace during this time. I have practiced yoga for over a decade and have always found my mat to be a place of peace. It was very difficult not being able to do much physical movement during the early postpartum days when I had so much anxious energy and seemingly nowhere to put it. I ultimately asked my OB if I could resume exercise before the standard six-week mark, and they told me it was fine as long as I went slow and listened to my body. With this blessing, I started doing yoga again at three weeks postpartum. It was so comforting to me to return to a practice that I know and love when so much in my life at that time felt new, unknown, and out of my control.
Can you please share “5 Things You Need to Heal Emotionally and Physically After a Challenging Childbirth”?
1 . Sleep. Sleep is essential for physical recovery and trauma processing. It is also difficult to come by in the early days of parenthood, especially if you are breastfeeding as I was. I also found it to be incredibly difficult to calm my body and mind enough to be able to fall asleep in those early weeks. Sleeping while the baby sleeps doesn’t work so well if you can’t actually fall asleep because you’re so anxious about when the baby will wake you up next.
I had to get creative with my support system to figure out an arrangement that would work for me. I needed a protected block of time for my sleep that I knew would not be interrupted. Having this time allowed me to settle my anxiety enough to be able to fall asleep. I had to contend with my own guilt and self-doubt around whether I was a “real” mother if I wasn’t up with my baby at all hours of the night. It was completely worth it though. I felt significantly better by three months postpartum, and I think an essential component of this was having daily, uninterrupted sleep.
2 . Support. You need support from others in handling the myriad tasks of the early postpartum days so that you have time and space to rest, process, and care for yourself. I made a habit of saying “yes” to anything and everything that was offered to me during that time. Can I cook a meal for you? Yes. Can I walk your dog? Absolutely.
As a person who, before motherhood, generally would have been quick to decline offers of help to not risk inconveniencing others, this was a foreign and at first uncomfortable practice. It was so powerful in the long run though. I was able to use my limited time and energies more intentionally and I gave other people in my life the opportunity to feel good by doing something genuinely kind and helpful for me.
3 . Permission to feel whatever you feel. Going into motherhood, I of course knew that postpartum depression and anxiety were possible. If I’m being deeply honest though, I didn’t really believe they could happen to me. So, when I found myself in the throes of the highest anxiety I have ever experienced my first month postpartum, I was, to put it lightly, surprised and unprepared. But it was what it was. I could fight it, shame myself for it, or to try to pretend it wasn’t there, or I could just try to accept that this was my experience (though I would have loved for it not to have been).
Giving myself permission to have whatever feelings I had, high or low, was freeing. It allowed me not to waste time and energy trying to make reality something other than it was, but rather to use that time and energy to care as effectively for myself and my baby as I could.
4 . An outlet for yourself. It was profoundly meaningful for me to have outlets in my daily life that were solely for the purpose of nurturing myself and staying connected to who I was before motherhood. For me, the outlets were yoga and daily walks by myself. These practices helped ground me, gave me time to check-in with myself and notice what I needed, and overall offered me a sense of normalcy that allowed for hope that things could get better.
5 . Practices/rituals that allow you to grieve. I had beautiful ideas about what my pregnancy and childbirth experiences would look like. I was devastated that, in actuality, my journey to motherhood started with stress, fear, and uncertainty. I needed to grieve what wasn’t to be able to fully embrace and appreciate what was: the radiant and awe-inspiring new life I was lucky enough to call my daughter. For me, grieving looked like a lot of tears, brainspotting work with my therapist, and journaling. For others grief might look different, but the spirit overall is to honor what we have experienced and what we have lost so we can move forward unburdened by the past.
In what ways has society supported you as a new mother recovering from a traumatic birthing experience?
Unfortunately, I don’t think that our society offers much in the way of support to new mothers. All of the help and resources that facilitated my healing were accessed through my own effort and expense. Our lack of paid family leave in this country in particular is a huge impediment to new parents’ ability to adjust and bond with their child. As a self-employed small business owner, I felt pressure to return to work as quickly as possible because the more time that I took off, the longer I went unpaid. New mothers should not have to choose between their family’s financial wellbeing and their own physical/emotional healing.
[Shout out to Colorado, my home state, for passing a paid family leave policy. It went into effect January 1, 2024.]
In what ways have you felt unsupported, invalidated, or even re-traumatized?
A few things come to mind. People seem to feel entitled to commenting on pregnant and postpartum women’s bodies. Throughout my pregnancy, I was frequently told by clients, medical providers, friends, and strangers that I didn’t look pregnant or complimented for remaining “so small.” When out and about with my baby postpartum, I was often stopped by passerby who expressed shock and admiration at my appearance because I “didn’t look like I had had a baby.”
These comments became a source of resentment and pain for me and felt invalidating of my new identity as a mother. During my pregnancy, they triggered my anxiety about my baby’s wellbeing and my own feelings of failure for not having a “healthy” pregnancy. Postpartum, they were a reminder of the trauma that we went through. Comments about pregnant and postpartum bodies, even when intended to be complimentary, are generally unwanted and often upsetting. It is disturbing that our society is so fixated on the size of women’s bodies and that it is deemed praiseworthy when a woman’s body does not show signs of the life she brought into the world. I wish people had just not commented on my body, ever.
The other challenging thing I faced was surprise from others around me that I was struggling so much postpartum. I am known to my family and friends as a steady, grounded person. I think that when I was neither steady nor grounded postpartum some people in my life did not know how to react. I found that either my feelings were downplayed out of disbelief or that people were scared of them and didn’t know how to respond. These reactions compounded my stress. They made me question whether I was overreacting or blowing things out of proportion because I had a healthy baby after all right? Or they made me feel like I needed to hide the intensity of what I was feeling so that I didn’t overwhelm or disappoint others who thought that I would weather this transition better.
I hope my story drives home the point that absolutely anyone can struggle during the incredibly vulnerable postpartum period. I wish people had simply let me tell them what my experience was, validated it, and asked what I needed.
How did you navigate the balance between taking care of your newborn and prioritizing your own healing needs during the postpartum period?
With a lot of help. I think an unexpected gift of struggling so much in my early postpartum days is that I had no choice but to accept support from others. In so doing, I was largely able to avoid the trap of feeling like I had to do everything for my baby myself. I saw clearly that my husband and other adults around us were capable of caring for her too, and that everyone benefitted when we shared the load.
Wonderful. We are nearly done. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂?
I would love to sit down with Esther Perel! I have a big therapist crush on her. I have always been an individual therapist, and I have learned so much about relationship dynamics and how to help people cultivate relationships that are vibrant and life-affirming from reading her books and listening to her podcasts.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
There are so many ways I could answer this question and so many incredible movements already working toward building a better world. I would keep mine simple: be kind — to yourself and to others.
I see so often in my work how difficult it is to give to others something that we are not giving to ourselves, so kindness has to start within. Further, as a trauma therapist, I observe that life bruises us all and that things you might dislike, disagree with, or find offensive about others are frequently protective mechanisms that were developed to help a person survive their environment. By all means, challenge ideas, words, and actions that you find to be problematic or unjust. I think we would all benefit, however, from seeing if we can do so without vilifying or dehumanizing the people behind them.
How can our readers follow your work online?
You can find me and follow my work at innerabundancecounseling.com.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful questions and for giving me the opportunity to share my story.
About the Interviewer: After becoming her father’s sole caregiver at a young age, Lucinda Koza founded I-Ally, a community-based app that provides access to services and support for millennial family caregivers. Mrs. Koza has had essays published in Thought Catalog, Medium Women, Caregiving.com and Hackernoon.com. She was featured in ‘Founded by Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Female Founders’ by Sydney Horton. A filmmaker, Mrs. Koza premiered short film ‘Laura Point’ at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and recently co-directed ‘Caregivers: A Story About Them’ with Egyptian filmmaker Roshdy Ahmed. Her most notable achievement, however, has been becoming a mother to fraternal twins in 2023. Reach out to Lucinda via social media or directly by email: lucinda@i-ally.com.
Megan McConnell Of Inner Abundance Counseling: What I Did to Heal Emotionally and Physically After… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.