Get to know me

I'm Stepha, a Motherhood Transition Coach.

I help moms navigate the space between who they were and who they’re still becoming Moms who create their own narrative of what it means to thrive.

Over the last five years I’ve worked with moms navigating matrescence--the transition into motherhood. They are doulas, social workers, attorneys, healers, and entrepreneurs at the threshold and feeling completely unprepared for what they were experiencing but knowing deeply that a shift needed to be made.

This shit wasn't made for us 

Then I'd talk to moms, and those who were willing to be honest were experiencing the same thing. Yet back then no one in the self-help/personal-development spaces I was in seemed to be centering the stories of mothers. 

Then in 2016, I had my son and within weeks lost my grandmother. I was shattered. Mothering certainly helped keep me centered, but I found myself also deeply wanting to be mothered through the transitions that had happened that year. Once I came out of the fog, my vision for my coaching work became clearer. I had to fully center moms and their experiences, especially through the early years.

The more I dedicated myself to this work, talked to people, and dove into Black Feminist Theory, the more it became clear motherhood itself wasn't the problem. The same oppressive systems that had always sought to undermine women, especially Black women, were at play, motherhood only amplified this.

Remember growing up in the mid-’90s, the "anything you can do I do better" commercials, the “girls rule!” and all the “empowerment” that was poured into us, bright-eyed ambitious girls. It really seemed so simple, do all the "right" things--go to school, get the job, get married, have the babies. Because this was a new version of the fairy tale, the woman would seemingly have choices, mainly whether to stay at home or be a working mom and naturally she'd choose the latter, because that is after all the epitome of having it all.

I honestly don't know what I expected of motherhood, but I can tell you it wasn't this shit. I had great pregnancies, which I consciously prepped for and was deeply supported through. Yet, I found myself struggling with early motherhood. The uneasiness and self-doubt were like nothing I experienced before. Feeling like I was either failing at work or failing as a mom because something had to give. Looking into the mirror and barely recognizing the person staring back at me.