Kim Feenstra (38): ‘In the crazy roller coaster of motherhood, I stumble and smile through the first years’

Intense past

“When I read in news reports that one in twelve Dutch children grows up in poverty and that about 1,260 classes of children go to school without breakfast every day, it affects me enormously. I come from a family that lived below the poverty line. A family in which there was not always money to send me and my sister to school with a sandwich in our bellies. Sometimes grandma brought something to eat, sometimes there was nothing for days. I had a tough childhood, in which there was also domestic violence and I, together with my mother and sister, lived in several shelters. There was so much unrest in those years, we moved at least twelve times, and I felt unseen.

My mother also had a turbulent childhood. She made certain choices in her life and started numbing herself with all kinds of substances. As a result, things went from bad to worse during our childhood and my sister and I had to miss a part of our childhood. Circumstances forced us to grow up far too quickly. These are things I think about more often than ever now that I am a mother myself. My son Brooklyn is three years old and I want to give him a childhood different from mine. Of course that is not easy, because I believe that a person is a sum of things, that you are shaped by everything you experience. My childhood gave me that inheritance and during my pregnancy I noticed that it had also caused blockages in me.

I find it difficult to give a concrete example. It’s the feeling like I got stuck in giving and receiving love. I believe that you can unconsciously pass on the trauma you have experienced to your child and I absolutely do not want my child to have to recover from my choices later. His life and what he grows up to be is partly in my hands and I want Brooklyn to be free. I am a loving mother, but I am not a natural mother. That’s why I chose coaching and therapy, to help me process and break the chain with the past. This way I can give Brooklyn a beautiful childhood. I try to do it based on feeling and especially to see which approach Brooklyn thrives on. He is a person with emotions and struggles, just like us. For example, if he ever has a tantrum, I hold him in my arms and give him hugs and kisses. We adults sometimes can’t even control ourselves. Why should I expect that from such a little one?”

Three trips to the emergency room

“Since I became a mother, I am more emotional by nature. For example, when my son slept in his big boy bed for the first time, I was very proud and also a little sad. Because time is precious and flies by so quickly. I can still remember that as a baby he always slept in our bedroom – that still happens often, I just love having him with me – and now suddenly there was that bigger bed in his room. Motherhood is the most intense love I know. Many lyrics in songs now sound logical: ‘I could hold you for a million years. To make you feel my love’, a song lyric by Adele. Whining of course.

In the crazy roller coaster of motherhood, I, like many mothers, stumble and smile through the first years. It’s a mix of heart-warming moments, the funny things he says, his arms wrapped sweetly around my neck as he showers me with kisses, choices that I hope are the right ones and moments when I don’t feel like doing it anymore. Nothing worse than Brooklyn being sick, for example. In the first year I spent enough time in the emergency room with him that I was so worried about him. Once there was a doctor who said: This is the third time in one month that you have been here. Yep, sorry, I’m just worried. When that doctor told me that all parents visit the ER more often in their baby’s first year than in all subsequent years, I felt less guilty. Apparently many parents struggle with these feelings of great concern and insecurities.

I am very open on social media about everything I experience, because I think it is very important to use the platform to shine the light on things that I find important. This may concern a private situation – such as vulnerability surrounding motherhood, even in an earlier phase, when I was open about how difficult it is for me and Stanley to have a child – and it may concern social issues that I consider important to address. to be addressed. If you have a big reach, you should do that. It would be rather superficial if you only used a social medium like Instagram to show where you are on holiday, who you are having your coffee with, which designer bag you have scored and what goodies you have received to promote. If you have a voice and you can and dare to use it, you should do so.”

Help everyone

“I share a lot about motherhood, about the journey of our IVF process and the arrival of our child and about my youth. That makes me vulnerable, maybe, but I really don’t care about that. Because I think it’s more important that people can recognize themselves in it. Two years ago, when I participated in the documentary Taken, children of the state, about abuses in youth care, I received dozens of messages in my DMs and via my website. For example, parents who asked me for advice because they no longer know what to do now that their child has been wrongly removed from home.

I would prefer to help everyone. That’s not possible, I realize. But where I can, I do it. There is a big difference between my online life and offline life: in front of the screens, on Instagram, I draw attention to my documentary, behind the scenes I am busy setting up a foundation where these people can go with their questions. I want to shine a light on problems that are nothing more than a big blind spot for many people, because I know that injustice can happen to anyone. Last year I used my social media to once again break open the taboo surrounding difficulty getting pregnant. I did that before, four years ago, by sharing that Stanley and I cannot conceive naturally. Now I posted about wanting to become pregnant again. About how I had to be brave, going to ‘the waiting bench’. Because again there was that pregnancy test with a negative result and again I felt a stab straight through my heart. One line in the test window, fucking negative.

What were we supposed to do? Pause, stop or continue? Gritting my teeth. Taking that shot again. Another pill. A hundred pills, I lost count. And then those hormones, those nasty hormones. ‘We’re doing it for a great cause,’ Stanley and I said to each other, but ‘we?’ I felt alone. Somehow it also felt like I should be happy already, because I am ‘already’ a mom and I am aware of my position. That is why there is also a feeling of guilt towards other prospective parents who may never have a child. But there is so much room in my heart, in my belly and in our house too, for another child.”

Be sexy

“I just really felt the need to share this. For all the people who experience the same thing and perhaps don’t dare to talk about it. I hope they feel empowered by me sharing my story. For me, writing feels like a processing of the intense process. The more I write about it, the more therapeutic it is. Post by post I lose a layer of heaviness. It was my dream to have a child.

With where I come from and the rough teenage past I’ve had, I’m grateful that Brooklyn is here. For the time being, I have given up the desire for a second child. I wish Brooklyn had a little brother or sister, but right now I’m okay. I want to give my full attention to that little one and enjoy life now and all the things that come my way. Such as the collaboration with Christine le Duc and the lingerie line that I was allowed to design. For the first time since the IVF process, I have completely rediscovered and I feel again what beautiful lingerie can do for your self-confidence, even under your clothes, when no one else sees it. I think it is important that we as women embrace ourselves more and motivate each other to get the best out of ourselves.

Feeling sexy and being sexy is all about the little things. Sometimes you lose a little bit of you goddess power and I would like to encourage women to find that strength again. Of course there are things I would never put on my socials. For example, I see mothers posting videos of their child having a tantrum, in the middle of the supermarket or something. If my child has an emotional outburst, I don’t open the camera on my phone but walk over to him to hold him, comfort him and give him kisses. I also don’t understand why parents proudly post videos of their newly potty-trained children using the potty, complete with a zoom-in moment on the pee or poop. Another thing: showing your bloody panties in the toilet to normalize menstruation. It’s good that others do it, but that’s where my limit lies.”

You can read the rest of this Real Life in Flair 14-2024. You can read more stories like this every week in Flair.