Jan. 3, 2024, 4 a.m.
Welcome, welcome, welcome
why postpartum really does matter (even if - especially if - you’re not a new mum) plus big dreams and visions for 2024 on Substack
Postpartum Matters
This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.
You can also make a one off payment of support here.
I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.
Happy New Year!
I’m so excited for the blank page of a new year. 2023 felt like such a lot - a lot of good & magical stuff but also a lot of work & grief too. I’m heading into 2024 hoping for more peace and more space and I am sending wishes for the same for you.
This post is going to outline our beautiful offerings here on Substack in 2024, whilst also serving to welcome new folks and explain more about who I am and why this space is for all of you. If you’re here to find out what sessions we have at The Women’s Health Hub this month then you can click this link here, it is updated every month.
When we first published Postpartum Matters CIC here on Substack, back in May 2023, the plan for the publication was for it to be a community space, with multiple writers feeding into it and it really serving to publicise all of the wonderful work the non-profit is sending out into the world. Heading into 2024, I am now the only writer here - as the organisation of the CIC has shifted and my team has gotten slightly smaller - and so I want to head into the new year fully owning that. This is my newsletter, where I write about my non-profit and the work I do there (with the help of my wonderful team of volunteers).
Why Postpartum Matters & is this space for me?
The name ‘Postpartum Matters’ came to me back in September 2021, as I was still raw from my postpartum surgery and in desperate need of a place to put all of my pain and trauma and rage. I shared the name and the idea with the lovely who held my hand through the whole set up process and helped me create our logo - a warm cup of tea and a circle of love, kindness & connection.
As the organisation has grown, and as I have found more of myself, my autistic identity, my struggles and my triumphs as a woman, and as I have developed more and grown into myself as a creative person, the topics and the work I do here has gotten broader. I still support people postnatally (most often as my work as a doula), but I also run a women’s health hub, and support people with their mental well-being, and run creative workshops. I write poetry and have strong opinions of how women are treat and represented in the media. I have lots to say and not all of it is about the postpartum period.
The struggle then is, how do I fit my entire self & all of the things I am interested in and passionate about, into one neatly, well-branded box? How do I make it clear to you that this newsletter is for you, whether you are pregnant or a new mum or your kids are fully grown and left home or if you never even had kids?
I have thought hard about changing the name of the organisation to something that would better represent the breadth of content and support I offer here but something always stops me. Because I passionately believe, to my core, that postpartum matters and that we all need to be a part of this conversation, regardless of age or gender or family set up or life stage. I passionately believe that we need to be weaving this conversation in, always, amongst the lovely circles and the creative well-being stuff that’s to come. Always coming back to the truth that rarely gets spoken. To ensure everyone knows that new mums+ get a raw deal and that we need to be holding them and demanding better, all whilst doing the work to care for ourselves.
So, I hope you will join me here, if you enjoy my writing, if you enjoy hearing about the behind the scenes of running a non-profit, if you want to receive all of the beautiful offerings I’ll be outlining below. And I hope you will engage regularly in the conversation and help me to spread the word that Postpartum Matters.
You can currently get 20% off of an annual subscription until January 6th ❤️.
Big dreams & the vision for 2024
Alongside our bimonthly community connection circles, I am so delighted to say that I am bringing my Mindful Bookbinding course to Substack this year! I began the first iteration of this course in June 2023, as the summer solstice approached us here in the northern hemisphere and it has been such a beautiful process with some wonderful feedback.
“I’m really enjoying the course and I’m looking forward to experimenting with all the ideas as I get time (cyanotyping is really calling to me). My baby was a month old when I got started with Litha and it’s been a lovely way to find little moments for myself in the chaos of raising two small humans”
I’ll be posting more about the course and how it works in a separate post in the next few weeks, and we will get started with the first workbook and tutorial landing in time for Imbolc on February 1st. It’s not a polished, educational course on all things bookbinding but, instead, it is an invitation to connect to the seasons, to yourself and for us to connect with each other as I slowly guide you through how to hand-sew your very own 2024 journal. We will finish sewing our journals in time for a magical winter solstice celebration all the way in December. This isn’t a race, but a slow meandering, developing project - with each of our books growing at the perfect rate for us.
This offering will be behind the paywall, so make sure to update your subscription. If you’re on the fence, you can grab yourself a free month via the button below. And, if for any reason you cannot financially commit to a subscription, please do email me at zoe@postpartummatters.co.uk for a comp subscription, no questions asked.
Free subscribers will continue to receive weekly-ish posts where I share your postpartum stories, the goings on here at Postpartum CIC and my adventures as a doula as my first clients start having their babies! Your presence here is a wonderful gift to me as it shows me the value of my writing and helps us find new people & grow our community as you like, share and engage with my posts.
Where does your money go when you become a paid subscriber?
I plan to do a whole post on what a CIC is, the why behind our non-profit status and how the finances of all that work but, for now, I really just wanted to set out why I am building my paid membership here and why it is so important to me.
2023 saw the birth of our community space, known as The Women’s Health Hub. Set up in my home town of Hartlepool, in the North East of England, we offer free to access peer support sessions throughout the week, for girls as young as 5 through to women already enjoying elderhood. It is such a special space to me and a real labour of love. We’ve been open for just under 9 months and have already supported and connected with so many amazing local women+.
Whilst I was successful in securing some funding from both the National Lottery & The Ballinger Charitable Trust, money still feels difficult and I am only just in a position to begin paying myself £100 a month for all of the work I do here. To show sustainability, funders also like to see non-profits making a big chunk of their own money, so it’s really important we build our income streams, such as this newsletter.
All that to say that, your paid subscription here goes directly towards funding this free community space. Growing our paid subscribers here will give us another income stream to secure our future and, hopefully, further funding. Your £6 a month (or £60 for the year) goes directly towards the tea & coffee that goes along with the listening ear offered to someone having a hard time, the heating to provide a warm space for a new mum and her baby to receive breastfeeding support, the creative resources to guide people in developing a journaling practice that enables them to take charge of their own mental well-being. Your subscription affirms the importance of this work, and the circles and bookbinding sessions are your magical thank you.
I am so excited to continue to get to know you all this year and for the beautiful journals we will be making together. For now, I’d love to know - what are you most excited for in 2024? Perhaps you’ll share in the comments?
Sending gratitude to you and so many well wishes and sparkles for the year ahead,
