ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the various themes that emerged from the mothers’ interviews. Three temporal points in the transition: pre-transition (prenatal experiences), passing the transition (birth experiences) and post-transition (postnatal experiences), as well as two trans-temporal emerging themes: connections and change/transformation are employed in describing the maternal transition.

Prenatal experiences are divided by three emerging themes: desire, expectations and illusions. These themes are analysed by their spiritual meaning and the impact they have on women before becoming a mother.

The main theme discussed in the birth experiences is spiritual embodied knowing in which mothers related the different ways of maternal ‘knowings’ that birth enacts on them.

Postnatal experience themes related by the mothers were: instinctual knowledge; maternal bodily and intuitive knowing and identity; loss, change and discovery. Transpersonal and humanistic understanding of spirituality is linked with the diverse experiences that the mothers are voicing in ‘adapting’ to their new maternal role.

Two themes emerged throughout the maternal transition. The first trans-temporal theme is: connections (embodied, personal, relational, creative and the relationship with their own mothers). The second trans-temporal theme is: change and transformation. Mothers transform by spiritual practices (yoga, mindfulness and meditation), transformative knowledge and transformational and spiritual skills. Those spiritual skills such as kindness, forgiveness, patience, compassion and openness help mothers during all stages in the maternal transition.