Welcome to Mother Love Letters
Intimate words on the messy and magical shared experiences of pregnancy and motherhood.
When I was a little girl, I didn’t have big feelings about getting married and having babies. I envisioned a life full of uninhibited adventure, surrounded by family, writing stories under twinkly midnight lights racing the sunrise. I didn’t yet know that having babies would be its own type of magical adventure.
I wanted a cup full of collected stars for a reading lamp. I wanted a map that led to secret time portals. I wanted to see everything. I wanted to feel everything. I wanted to be everything.
I believed that life should not be lived in a straight line. That time actually moves in circles. That I would run wildly, spinning around and around until I could outrun the Earth. I tried to outrun the Earth. But I soon realized I was tethered to another by a line impossible to break, tied together long before I unspooled my own.
On July 4, 2018, I collided with my now husband and the world exploded into glittery stardust. And on August 12, 2023, two parallel lines rearranged my being and I became a new person. Getting married and having babies became my cup full of stars. My secret time portal. My infinite circle of love. The greatest adventure. It now consumes my writing. But transformation is as violent as it is sublime. It is terrifying and isolating and all-consuming. And that is why I must share these experiences with you. So we can feel them all together — to connect and laugh and exhale, collectively.
The Essence of Mother Love Letters
Mother Love Letters is about matrescence and identity. About the highs and lows of pregnancy and motherhood. While the experiences I am writing about are my own, I hope they feel shared and that you can feel comforted and validated in your own transformations.
I write personal essays (including the occasional photoessay) and poetry — the bulk of what you’ll find here.
These posts are designed to be reminders that we’re all in it together. Those of us wanting to become pregnant. Those of us supporting our loved ones who are already pregnant. Those of us holding our best friends’ hands in the depths of postpartum. Those of us who have multiple children. Those of us who don’t want any children, or can’t have children.
There are so many nuances to our bodies and the lives they may or may not birth. I want to explore those nuances. And I will be there with you in the highest of highs and lowest of lows. The messy and the miraculous. Because I’m feeling them, too.
Introducing, My Wild and Wonderful Womb
I started Mother Love Letters as a way to process my own feelings about entering pregnancy and motherhood. After navigating a litany of health concerns, a miscarriage, and a tumultuous first half of my current pregnancy, I felt isolated and without adequate resources to make sense of the radical changes happening to me. I write to cope and process. I share what I write to connect so that we can try to make sense of it all.
With this email newsletter, I aim to be your word doula. I want you to feel less alone. I don’t want you to feel that your experiences are invalidated — by strangers, by medical providers, by acquaintances, or even by friends and family.
I want us to embrace each other wholly. I want us to honor our bodies and the beautifully complex stories we birth from living in them. If you’re a mother, dreaming of motherhood, healing in motherhood, or simply trying to figure out whatever shape motherhood takes, these words are for you.
Mother Love Letters In Queue
Topics that have been on my mind lately that you’ll find in my newsletter:
Managing others’ opinions when hormones are surging.
Despising the term “bounce back.”
The debilitating first trimester.
Pregnancy after pregnancy loss.
What’s the deal with the lack of paid leave?
Learning about life in the womb one day at a time.
Holding two hearts at once.
I am here to write about all of it and I am here to squash the fear of speaking frankly about the very thing that put us all here in the first place — birth.
I have big dreams for what this newsletter can become. I hold them close while I hold my round, pregnant belly that’s holding my daughter; my round, pregnant belly that’s holding her dreams.
I hope that this newsletter grows so big that it reaches every person who needs it.
My words are yours to become whatever you make of them. I’m so glad you’re here.
Xo,
Violet Carol
Thank you for reading! If this post resonated with you, please feel free to “like” it or leave a comment to connect.
If you’d like to collaborate on a future post, I’d love to learn more! Send me an email with your ideas and we can noodle on creating something together.
Mother Love Letters posts include personal essays, poems, and journaling prompts on matrescence and identity.
All payments received from paid subscriptions are directed to my daughter’s 529 plan to help support her own passions and future education.
Beautiful I’m crying now😍 grateful to be a part of the community you created
Ahhh I can’t wait! You are amazing 🤩