A Conversation with Amanda Laskowski of Cincy Postpartum
Written by Rita DiBello.
Photography by Lauren Neal.
I met with Amanda Laskowski on a rainy spring day at Vessel Collective in Bellevue, Kentucky. Although the weather was dreary, the space where we sat was bright and welcoming: two words that also spring to mind to describe Amanda and the energy she brings to Cincy Postpartum and her work with new moms all over the region.
In introducing herself, Amanda told me she is a mom (to two girls, ages 2 and 5), a partner, an entrepreneur, and a Cincinnati transplant. Up until two years ago, she worked in higher ed student affairs. But as she tells it, in her journey of becoming a mother, something shifted.
“Everything gets shaken up when you bring a child into the world,” she says.
Amanda recognized the feeling that your whole life is flipped upside down when you become a mother wasn’t unique to her. But when she looked around Cincinnati, she didn’t see a space where new moms could come together to process that shift, to build a sense of community and camaraderie in an uncertain time. Out of this gap, Cincy Postpartum was born.
Cincy Postpartum isn’t easy to fit into any single, clear category, and this is by design. Part class, part mom group, part peer support group, the signature program is the five-week Fourth Trimester Circle, a cohort-based, weekly series for moms and their babies under 12 weeks. In Amanda’s words:
Cincy Postpartum is a community and movement, a business and an organization. I've struggled with like, it is a business because I am trying to make sure it's financially sustainable but it feels like so much more than that. It feels like something much bigger than me . . . really what I wanted as I looked around what was offered for moms and families in Cincinnati, I wanted something that went deeper. I wanted something that was multi -week, that wasn't a class where you're just receiving information, but a place to process what you were actually going through and practice getting out of the house with baby because it's terrifying when you're new at it . . . I wanted something that went deeper, that felt really inclusive to whatever your journey was.
Fourth Trimester Circles facilitate and offer some loose structure and weekly themes to spur conversation, but they are also a place where the moms in-circle can share organically and safely about what feels important to them in the moment. Some of the expected topics like baby feeding and sleeping do come up, but so do conversations about a new mom’s identity, her relationships with her partner, her friends, and her baby—really all the ways her world has changed.
Since piloting the first round of circles in the summer of 2022, Amanda has seen nearly 500 people come through Cincy Postpartum. Most are first-time moms, but she estimates 20%-30% already have one or more kids. A lot of participants are—like Amanda herself—transplants to the region and are looking for a supportive community at this tumultuous moment in their lives. Some moms in-circle are parenting solo or alongside a partner who is also a mom. Amanda tries to be very conscious and protective of these experiences, as she knows how challenging it is to be the “only” in a space with a dominant narrative. And birth experiences run the gamut too: from those who had an elective c-section, to those who had a natural or unmedicated birth, to those who didn’t get to choose. Amanda acknowledges that we often box ourselves in with labels like crunchy mom or silky mom or somewhere in between. Breaking down those walls and helping moms find commonality and support for their unique journeys is important to her and what she wants the Cincy Postpartum experience to be.
Something Amanda recognizes about her chosen home of Greater Cincinnati is how it holds so many distinct communities within it. A goal of Cincy Postpartum, then, is to be as hyper-local as possible. She rents spaces to host circles in five different locations—Clifton, Walnut Hills, Northern Kentucky, Mariemont, and Blue Ash—and is hoping to add more as demand grows. This decision has been a practical one, as Amanda knows all too well that for new parents who are learning how to move through the world with a whole new person in their life, logistics and accessibility can be everything.
Eventually, our conversation shifted to some of the shared experiences and recurring themes that Amanda hears often from moms in circles and beyond.
Childcare—or rather a lack thereof—is a big one. She points out that while many circle moms are returning to full-time professional work (some by choice, some by necessity), there are always a handful in each cohort who are not. In some cases this is because they want to stay home at least for a while, in others it is because they simply can’t find childcare that works for their families. Another common theme is how moms process and recall their birth experiences, and how feelings and opinions about your own experience can change and evolve as time passes. Amanda acknowledges this as “a really tender and delicate thing . . . that I approach really cautiously.”
Perhaps the most resonant theme that emerges is this sense of changing identity and the concept of matrescence. “I think people really resonate with the matrescence language, and I can see kind of an exhale when they hear that word. You know, language gives us power and meaning, and so that’s really helpful,” Amanda says. Matrescence is an anthropological term that emerged in the 1970s and has been slowly making its way into popular culture. You may even have come across a piece about it in The New Yorker or on NPR recently.
As Amanda describes it, matrescence mirrors the language of adolescence in many ways:
“We normalize that teenage years are a time when your body is changing, your hormones are shifting a lot, your relationships to the world and to other people in your life are totally shifting and like you're a little bit lost at sea. And that can show up in a lot of ways, confusing ways emotionally and physically. And the same thing happens after you have a baby or as you're having a baby. Your hormones are shifting, your body has changed. ‘I have three wardrobes right now, my pre -pregnancy, my pregnancy, my postpartum wardrobe’ . . . ‘I'm excited to go back to work but I also don't want to leave my baby.’ All of these transitions in our identity and our body and just normalizing that there's a lot happening there and we should talk about it. We should talk about it with each other, and we should talk about it with our partner.”
For many circle participants (this new-ish mom included), Cincy Postpartum is the first time they learn about this word and concept that really helps to articulate what so many of us experience in the days, months, and years after we “become” mothers. Cincy Postpartum simultaneously gives these new moms a space and a safe community where they can process and talk about this experience.
Even the word “circle” is one that Amanda chose very intentionally. Circles are facilitated and do have a loose plan each week, but ultimately, everyone shares ownership of that space. Everyone has a stake in it, everyone is going to share their experiences, and everyone is going to listen to each other. That is what makes it work, and it’s a major part of what sets Cincy Postpartum apart.
“You’re not just signing up to talk about your own experience,” Amanda says. “You’re signing up to be witness to other people’s experience too. And that’s really important to creating a space of safety and trust.”
Like matrescence, the term “fourth trimester” can also be a powerful addition to our vocabulary for many new moms. Amanda notes that many people are familiar with the three trimesters of pregnancy itself, but the fourth trimester happens after baby enters the world, and for parents, it’s largely about helping baby adjust to this big world.
“I think that's what I like to emphasize to the moms. Like this fourth trimester is just an extension of that for baby, that just happens overnight for them. And for you. But you knew what the world was like before, and this is their first entry into it. So I hope it helps kind of take their perspective on it and feel a little more gentle about it.”
Of course, Amanda comments, “It's not like this magical thing at 13 weeks they're ready for the world either.” Motherhood, “new” motherhood, parenthood, postpartum – these terms and experiences are full of nuance and complexity, which is something she wants to help normalize and bring out into the open through Cincy Postpartum.
Amanda knows well that what it means to mother and to be a mother can look different for different people and at different moments in our lives. It’s something she highlights when identifying the women who have most influenced her. She calls herself lucky to have three mom-figures in her life: her own mother who birthed her and raised her, her stepmother who entered her life when she was 5 and had a powerful role in raising her, and her mother-in-law who offers a quiet and supportive presence for Amanda’s family. She describes each as uniquely important to her life and how she shows up as a mother herself today.
“I think I just look at mothers so differently now that I am a mom myself, and I think it’s the first thing I notice about someone now, which is really cool,” Amanda says. “Whether their kids are 70 or their kids are tiny, fresh babies.”
In addition to Fourth Trimester Circles, Cincy Postpartum offers two virtual circles each month that are free and available to any mom: an expecting mom circle and a lactation circle guest-facilitated by local certified lactation consultants. Not long after this interview, Amanda joined forces with a small team of women to start a Cincinnati Chapter of Chamber of Mothers, a nonpartisan 501(c)3 dedicated to uniting mothers as advocates to change policy and culture in order to create a country where mothers, families, and communities can thrive.
Two years on from those first couple of circles in the summer of 2022, Amanda likes to dream about the future of Cincy Postpartum. What do new dads need and (how) could they fit into Cincy Postpartum too? Is there a need for more one-on-one mentorship opportunities? Could Cincy Postpartum expand to other regions and other cities?
For now, she’s keeping the focus on Fourth Trimester Circles, but Amanda knows that Cincy Postpartum’s future will ultimately be guided by the needs of the community of Greater Cincinnati moms at its core.
You can connect with Amanda and Cincy Postpartum at cincinnatipostpartum.com and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/cincypostpartum.
You can find the Cincinnati Chapter of Chamber of Mothers here: linktr.ee/cincychamberofmothers.
Vessel Collective is a newly opened program and event space in Bellevue, Kentucky, designed for women and moms to connect. Vessel is the site of northern Kentucky Fourth Trimester Circles with Cincy Postpartum: instagram.com/vesselcollectivecincy.
Women of Cincy is a certified 501(c)3. This belongs to you. Consider supporting future stories with a donation.