By Chaya Laine-Samuels

Nine days after my daughter was born, I was booked for a newborn photo shoot. Wig, makeup, a dress, a smile, running on maybe two hours of broken sleep and a body that still didn’t feel like mine. That week a steady stream of visitors came through to see the baby, and to every one of them I said, “BH, we’re doing fine.” Nobody knew how far “fine” felt from the truth. I didn’t tell them. I don’t think I had the words yet.

I had done everything you’re “supposed” to do. Birth plan in place, hospital bag packed, halachos of childbirth and niddah reviewed. By every measure I knew of, I was ready for birth.

Nobody had prepared me for what came after it.

Our community does the first two weeks better than almost anyone. The meal train ran like clockwork, the freezer filled faster than I could empty it. I don’t know how I would have survived those weeks without it. But once they passed and the visitors went back to their lives, I was standing in the kitchen at 2am holding a baby who would not stop crying, wondering why I felt like a stranger in my own body and my own home. Everyone else seemed to be back to normal. I loved my baby completely. I also felt like I was drowning, and ashamed that I felt that way, because wasn’t this supposed to be the happiest time of my life?

It took years, a second baby, and studying for a psychology degree, to name what I didn’t understand yet: the fourth trimester isn’t an afterthought to birth, it’s its own season, with its own recovery, its own hormonal free fall, its own nervous system trying to recalibrate. We treat birth like the finish line, the same way we treat a wedding like the finish line of a shidduch, when really it’s the starting line for the marriage that follows. What comes after is the part nobody hands you a checklist for.

This isn’t unique to us. Ask a mother anywhere and you’ll hear some version of the same story. Everyone shows up for the birth, almost nobody helps you plan for after it. Not because anyone is failing anyone, but because we’ve built enormous preparation around the day of the birth and almost none around the months that follow, and every mother inherits that gap. She needs someone to tell her what’s normal. Help protect her marriage while she and her husband are both running on fumes. Permission to reach for support once the Bris ends without calling it a failure. Humans are built to need each other, Hashem made us that way, and what is the point of community, if not that?

So why didn’t I ask for help, when I clearly needed it? Part pride, nobody wants to be the one who “can’t handle it” when everyone else in that stage looks like she’s managing fine (key word here: looks). Part gratitude turned inside out, you davened for this baby, maybe for years, and admitting the thing you prayed for is also breaking you a little feels almost ungrateful. And part of it is that nobody tells you what asking for help is even supposed to sound like. It doesn’t look like an emergency. It looks like tears you can’t explain, an uncharacteristically short fuse, a heaviness that doesn’t lift even when the baby finally sleeps, none of it dramatic enough to justify calling someone. So you say “BH, we’re doing ok,” and mean it, while also drowning.

I found the language for this later, finishing my psychology degree, sitting with expecting and postpartum mothers instead of just being one of them. I heard my own 2am kitchen story back to me more times than I can count, from women with full freezers and no plan, because nobody had ever helped them build one, the way a Kallah teacher helps build a plan for before and after a wedding.

I kept thinking about the version of me at that kitchen counter, too proud and too grateful to ask anyone for help. Not another “let me know if you need anything,” which never quite becomes an actual phone call. She needed the plan built before the exhaustion hit, while she could still think in full sentences. That’s the idea behind what I built.

I got to test it sooner than expected. I found out I was pregnant with my second when my first was fifteen months old, and this time I built the plan while I was pregnant and could still think clearly, and handpicked my village instead of accepting whoever showed up. The difference was significant, physically and emotionally. I wasn’t recovering from the recovery on top of learning how to care for a newborn and a toddler.

The Gentle Postpartum Program.

It’s built for expecting mothers in their third trimester, roughly 27 to 33 weeks along when the program begins, so if you’re reading this around 22 to 30 weeks, this is your time. It’s not therapy, and it doesn’t replace your OB, your doula, or your rabbi. It’s a structured way to sit down while you’re still pregnant and build your own plan across what matters most: physical recovery, real support, nourishment, mental health, marriage, community. Groups stay small and matched by due date, and I lead every one of the live calls myself, before you give birth, with support continuing once the baby’s here, past the point where everyone assumes you’re fine.

Wanting more than what falls into your lap by default doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It means you deserve a real plan, not just for the birth, but for everything after it.

Our October cohort is open for enrollment. Waitlist at https://stan.store/inmymotheraura, message me on WhatsApp 718-640-6111, or find me on Instagram at @inmymotheraura.

I prepared for birth. I wish someone prepared me for what happened next. I’m here to be that for you.

—Chaya Laine-Samuels is a postpartum educator and founder of In My Mother Aura and IMMA Foundation, where she helps expecting mothers build a plan for recovery, support, and mental health before the fourth trimester begins.

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Two more things I’m building through IMMA Foundation, if you want to be part of them:

Be the Village, a volunteer initiative matching new mothers with women who want to help hands-on: holding the baby while she showers, taking the older kids to the park, the dishes, the laundry, whatever’s actually useful at the moment. 

One hour, when you’re available. No long term commitment required. 

Volunteers: Apply to volunteer at https://stan.store/inmymotheraura  

New and Expecting moms: Reach out for support on WhatsApp at 718-640-6111, and write “I need a Village.”

IMMA House, a physical space for pregnant and postpartum women to rest, connect, and find support in person, still in early research. If this is something you’d use, I’d be grateful if you took a few minutes to fill out this survey. 

https://forms.gle/thLXXHAHEDX8EhAs5 

To join our email list to stay in touch and receive updates, click here. https://stan.store/inmymotheraura