The Last Night of 2012

It is the last evening of 2012. The world is still here.  Some parts are incredibly sad but some are so beautiful too. Just like everything in existence there must be the opposite of all things to create balance. The yin and yang to life.  I have experienced much of the opposites in my own life.
This must be balance in a different way than I've ever felt before.
I am spending this New Years at my parents home in Utah. I put my sweet baby to sleep at 830 after a nice warm bath with her. We gazed at each other, nursed in the tub, smiled and laughed then she passed out. I made sorbet and ate some nuts in my pajamas. My sister who is also a new mother was with me and we talked as our babies slept.  Such joy I feel to have this wonderful child and get to call her my daughter. How thankful I am to be sharing this experience with my only sister.  How lovely it is to be with my mother and father and brothers. They are celebrating with friends tonight but i have been around them so much during the holidays and its been wonderful.
The beautiful part of my life in 2012.

On the other side I am away from my new husband and the New Year will pass with this distance between us and no man to press my lips against during this celebration of time.  I feel a gap in my core with him away.  He is in Tennessee at our home, the home I am trying so hard to find peace and acceptance with. I long to be in Utah with family but must accept where life takes me.  JJ got a great job in Nashville and it will bring our family more opportunity in our future.  However, we are in Nashville for at least another year.
This is the hard part of my life in 2012.

My mind is filled with many thoughts as I think about life and the changes it brings. What I would usually be doing on this night is dress up and meet up with friends and laugh the night away or go out listen to live music and dance til my feet ache, drink champagne and sip on coctails.  I've even spent two New Year's Eves in the backcountry of southern Utah with nature. What I've never done is tuck my baby in to bed, and write on a blog the night of a New Year.

Where I am in life is right in the middle of this balance of life. It's a bitter sweet place.  I am so in love with Amazing Grace and am proud to spent my last day of 2012 by her side in my pajamas while she sleeps soundly to the sound of distance fireworks and my breath.  This is a blessing and I will not take this moment for granted.

I miss my Mr. Peek and am glad he is in my life to miss. This next year will be so wonderful to go through the daily changes of Amazing and I don't want to miss one day! My family has grown and so has my spirit. I feel this shift in me and I surrender to its force. I am filled with emotions of both highs and lows and laugh at the crazy bliss motherhood brings me.

May the New Year be filled with peace, love and lots and lots of joy.
Happiest of New Years we all made it this far!!!

Its Christmas 2012

I have been so fortunate to spend the holidays in Utah with my family. Thanksgiving was emotional and well spent with Mom, Dad, Brothers, Sister and my little Amazing Grace. The next week my sister went into labor and I coached her through a beautiful natural birth of little Miloh Sunshine.

 As Christmas approaches...tomorrow, I ponder the meaning of Christmas and what it means to me. The gathering of family and friends the closeness of relationships that are so dear to me.  This has always been my favorite part of the season but now that I have a child of my own the nativity scene places a strong imprint on my mind. I'm not a church goer but I really appreciate and respect the beauty that comes from the gatherings.  This year my mother asked me if I would help her at her church to share my experience about birth for a representation of the mother Mary. As I thought about the birth of Christ and my own birth my emotions grew. All the things that were going on in my mind during the birth of Amazing Grace. My heart was so full it was almost bursting with love the day my Mazi was born. I had thoughts of wonder, contentment, and so much gratitude for the celebration of the moment. I was filled with anticipation for what lay ahead for both Amazing and JJ and I.  This is the greatest blessing of my life yet such a heavy burden to be responsible for such a magnificent child of God. I am sure that Mary was also filled with such thoughts and feelings. The season has now changed its meaning completely for me. I will forever think about the birth of my own child during the lights, food, and holiday festivities.

I thought that this year was going to be spent without my Lover, my Husband, my Mr Peek but I was surprised with a visit from him at my parents home yesterday day. Looks like this Christmas will be one to remember as it will be the first spent together as a family with our very own child of God. I woke this morning in JJ's arms while holding Amazing in mine and I felt the spirit of Love surrounding us. I am so grateful for this life I have and the chance to be a mother to such a wonderful girl with such a wonderful man.

Merry Christmas may this year be as memorable to all of you as it is to me.

TIME

I have officially lost all concept of time...

It has been 10 weeks since the birth of my child and my life is utterly consumed with taking care of her.   I never seem to know what day it is or what time of the day it is.  I sleep when she sleeps or at least try to catch a cat nap as I lay by her and nurse her to sleep. I eat or I should say snack while on the move, the rocking move, this little girl likes movement movement movement. She even sleeps better on a walk, which we take about three daily. She is becoming so alert and has been sticking her tongue out like a snake sensing the world around her. Oh how I can just stare at her all day...so much so that I rarely get the opportunity to sit at a computer and catch up with words.

I am loving motherhood, but I have totally and utterly lost myself.
I am rethinking again, who am I now? I feel so different and my life is completely different.
I don't have the time to move deeper into this new person I am becoming but so much of this role is natural, instinctual. I listen to Mazi Grace's calls and I react. I have been given advice form others to do different things with her cries but I ignore them because my instincts are the best for her, she came to me because of this.  We have bonded so deeply already and I believe Mazi knows the new me much more than I do and someday I will see who I have become.

For now,

I react. I will soon find time again and fill it with some things for me like yoga, meditation, making love, cooking, laughing, dancing, reading, and writing. I have become a mother and that is the new me, I look forward to being with myself and getting to know the new me.

I am madly in-Love with my Amazing Grace and I am madly in-Love with her father. This is where my time has led me and I am thankful for this opportunity to Love so deeply outside myself.

~t

6 Weeks Into This....

Mazi is 6 weeks old and already has changed sooo much. She is holding her head up longer and longer everyday and she can roll over if she is on her belly.  She is much more alert staring at all the new things around her. I can't seem to keep up. I have only practiced yoga twice since her birth, I shower about once every three days (if i'm lucky) I eat cereal dry and it takes me all day to cook dinner for JJ which he usually finishes after he gets home.
but...
I really do Love it because I Love Amazing Grace sooo much.

I have spent soo much time thinking, planning and preparing for my birth that I didn't really get to the part of what will happen after birth, I just assumed it would all fall into place.  Well, it has fallen into place alright, with Mazi in control. The birth was so much easier than I thought it could be, in 4 hours I was finished with the 9 months worth of planning and preparation. I felt like I was a great success and I was so proud of myself and my wonderful body, I felt great considering,
but...why doesn't everyone talk about the aftermath, the POSTPARTUM stuff?
This is the stuff that needs the preparation. The birth is the simple part and thats coming from someone who did it naturally, most women use drugs and numb the entire process.

What I am going to talk about is the Postpartum 6 weeks in...

First tip is capsulation of your placenta, I capsulated my placenta-dehydrating and making a powder then placing in capsules to ingest twice a day, I will do an entire post on under health and wellness. This simple process saved me for 4 weeks, keeping my hormones in check and giving me added nutrition and energy, I felt really good every time I took them...then I ran out.
 Instantly, my hormone fluctuation sent me from tears to extreme exhaustion to rage and not really understanding why.. I Love this little angel so much why do I feel this way.
It has nothing to do with not Loving her enough. My body is changing so fast and so much is going on inside yet, on the outside I am tired and hungry and I can't get anything finished because I am holding my child all day, out of choice, and she is trying to learn how her body works which makes her a bit fussy and she wants nothing more than to be bounced all day and taken for walks over and over again because she prefers outside to inside. I don't get too many chances for yoga and meditation (my release and balancing act) I am lonely because I am 2,000 miles away from my home and I miss my Mother and Sister and family and friends soooo dearly, plus its fall and winter is around the corner which means for wet Tennessee, staying indoors more....ahhhhhh!!...and my baby feels all this chaos too!





Then theres the part of concern, concern for everything! I was concerned for Mazi's system with gas and bloating, every cry created a new concern. I thought my milk supply wasn't enough, I thought I had a blood clot, I thought I thought I thought and that wasn't getting me anywhere. I was simply just overwhelmed with my new role as a mother, a caretaker, a person fully responsible for another. Everything was functioning and is functioning perfectly!

But why isn't this the talk of childbirth, why isn't this what people plan and prepare for? Even with a ton of help around, postpartum is something that can't be avoided, my body must change and quickly and my world must change because there is a new being thats to fit in it. I am not dealing with depression but boy do I feel the weight of things and until it becomes second nature this ride is bumpy. Plus, I don't even get to make Love to my man until today, well technically last night but still. This is my new reality and it is busy, it is challenging, it is stressful, it is tiring, it is lonely, it is crazy, but it is also beautiful, it is tender, it is warm, it is moment to moment engaging, it is mine! I am so thankful that I am here in life, I waited awhile for it but I am going to be real, this postpartum stuff needs more attention this is where life gets real and in your face, and its hard to deal with when in it. Although just like the birth if your somewhat prepared, as much as you can be, it might be easier to handle.

Thank God I have and incredibly understanding and sweet man to hold me through it all! Thanks JJ Peek, I Love you more than you'll ever know.

~t

My Job As A Milkmaid

Motherhood...I have been waiting for this time in my life ever since I met JJ and KNEW without a doubt in my mind that he would be the father of my children.
I always saw myself as a mother who is available to my children, especially in the early years. Because of this vision I prepared myself with an empty schedule.  Literally. All my time is now devoted to my baby.  Thanks to the wonderful man in my life, I am able to do this. His support is a dream come true.

I am very thankful I did this because getting anything done is almost impossible. Some mothers are able to handle a baby with a job and three other children running around....
how is this done?

I have a baby... one baby and I am constantly at her service. Yes, this is going to change in time, but for now I am practicing attachment parenting, and I am the one who is getting attached. I have her in my arms or in a sling ALL day and night long, sparing an hour or two when her father gets home so that I can crash and take a nap.  He even cooks me dinner.

She eats at least every two hours and is gassy so needs to be burped for at least 15 to 20 minutes after she eats. She is one month old today and I have not left the house except to take her for daily walks in nature.  We haven't hit the city and avoid public places like the plague.
Am I too protective? Yes, but for now this just feels right. Because I became attached.
In yoga we practice non-attachment to things but how does this apply to our children? I am attached.

This will cause me pain, this will cause me stress, this will cause me grief but this is my choice and I want to be attached to this beautiful Amazing Grace that is now on this planet with JJ and I.

I am attached by the hip, by my breast, by my heart.

This child has taken all my time and I don't want to waste one minute looking at her and holding her for soon very soon she will crawl away, walk away, run away to live her life as an independent person on this planet.
When I feed her I stare at her and watch her suck from my body, my wise body creates just what she needs for her nutrition and growth. I watch her drink in new antibodies strengthening her immune system that will protect her for life, I watch her dimples move in and out as her cheeks work for my mothers milk, I hold her hand and watch,  I watch her.

Sometimes it hurts on the first latch but while I watch her I am filled with the hormones that take it all away and make me fall in-Love each time I feed her.  This happens every two or three hours of my day and my night, my new job as a milkmaid. I make her milk...this shocks me still. I am magnificent, at least in Amazing's eyes I am, she depends on me and I get to be here for her!

I even changed my eating habits, again, for her to provide the best nutrition and remove some gas from her little freshly working body. Bye-bye chocolate and dairy, broccoli, and beans my baby doesn't need you.

I get lonely and I get bored at times working at my new job, but being away from home from family from friends I will take this time to perfect my new job, as a milkmaid, and a mother!
~t

Learning Curves of Parenthood

Already JJ and I have been learning dramatic lessons about life in the week we have shared with Amazing Grace.

Little did I know that some decisions I made could have been very harmful even deadly to our little angel.
I did a lot of research on what I wanted for the birth of our child and I tried to do everything that could help her grow and get use to her new system. I knew that allowing the umbilical cord to stop pulsing gives the baby extra blood cells and in a full term child this is no problem, but what I didn't know was that in a preterm baby this can be very harmful.

A preterm baby is too small to have this flood of blood cells into their body. This causes them to have to breakdown the unused blood cells and with their little fragile livers this can be quite taxing of their bodies. Most babies can't do this and it causes their systems to build up bilirubin and causing jaundice in the baby. In most cases this is fine and the baby will get stronger and flush out their own systems but in my case I drained the blood into my infant from her cord and she couldn't flush it out herself.

We were sent to the hospital after her 5th day of life....

My worst nightmare, my baby was put in a plastic bed and was for the first time since birth, taken out of human arms. She was placed under UV lights and had to stay there for 24 hours to help her body rid the bilirubin.  I cried and cried to see my little child under these lights and out of arms.....horrible feeling, probably worse for me then her since she is a fighter.
JJ and I sat by her bed with our arms under the lights stroking her and touching her delicate skin. I breastfed her under the lights and for 24 hours this was our reality.
I ended up taking longer to heal myself because I was so stressed about my child that my uterus started to move back up  into my stomach and I began to bleed heavily again.

We got the free and clear and headed home. I have much to be thankful for! Amazing Grace is a fighter and she has proven to us that she is the one who is running this show now.

What I have learned is that for one, to let go of ANY expectations cause at any moment you expect something you will probably be let down. Go with the flow of life and Love every minute. Two, there must be balance in all things. As much as I avoid hospitals and doctors, they have such a place when holistic medicine isn't able to help. If we didn't have those lights, my Mazi Grace may have stayed really sick and had lingering issues. I will strive to seek the balance in more things and place my appreciation for this lesson.  Three, forgiveness. To forgive myself for anything that I could have done to create this situation. I held some guilt and it just about threw me over the edge. She is my baby and I am here to protect her but sometimes I may also do things that could harm her unknowingly and for this I must forgive myself.

All is well though and the journey has been wonderful. Now we sunbath together daily and eat lots and poop lots to keep her body healthy. She has returned to my arms and I have yet to put her down. I LOVE this baby so much and both JJ and I have so much to be grateful for.

The Birth of Amazing Grace Peek

This story starts out with a plan. A birth plan.  As soon as I found out I was pregnant I started preparing my birth plan and what I really wanted to happen when my baby came into this world. I visualized it all perfectly, it was full of detail that both JJ and I practiced together. We worked on positions that might be helpful, we had the idea of lighted candlelight and burning essential oils filling the room, we planned for a water birth and had a tub pick out and even had a cabin in th woods picked out  with the perfect deck to fill the tub on so Amazing Grace could be born outside.  We had planned on my sister coming to Tennessee to film the birth, take pictures, and witness a natural birth for herself. We had a midwife we had been seeing and discussing all these things with who was ready to help us facilitate our desires and plans, we were even planning on coming to the farm a few days to a week early just to hang and be there waiting for labor too start.....

Needless to say, nothing went as planned....

I was put on bed rest for two weeks when at my prenatal appointment I was dilated (opening of cervix) to a 2 and 75% effaced (thinning of cervix).  I sat in bed doing nothing but reading and eating to try and build up more fat for the baby, this lasted 4 days. 

I woke up August 31st, three weeks earlier than expected (have no expectations, I say), at 5am with a pop and then a gush of warm liquid flowing between my legs all over the bed,  I shook JJ awake saying "hunny, something just happened," it was the night of the blue moon and he just knew it was going to be tonight. He got up and without any surprise he said, "your water broke huh? I just knew it would".  We both got up quickly knowing we had an hour and half drive ahead of us. JJ was frantically grabbing stuff to pack up, luckily I had everything prepared except for what I would need personally for the birth.  JJ loaded the car and I roamed around confused on what to do. I threw some random clothes into a bag and we started on our way about 45 min later. I didn't have any laboring rushes (better less painful word for contractions) til about 35 minutes into the drive.
My midwife was out of town til the 9th of September, which was no problem since my due datewas the 17-20th, but she set me up with another midwife just in case, this was just that case!

JJ timed my rushes and immediately they were 2 minutes apart. We called the midwife Stacie and let her know to prepare the guest house cause things were happening QUICK! We had to go to a guest house instead of the cabin we picked out because there was couple staying there already.  As the drive slowly lingered my rushes became more intense and I found myself clenching the door and middle console as I lifted my hips and swirled them in a circle during each rush to disperse the built up energy that was moving in my pelvis. During my 2 minute break I fully surrendered into the seat gathering all the possible energy I could stir up. I was soooo ready to get out of the car and move my body.

When we got to the guest cabin Stacie and her two assistants were there setting up the medical supplies and preparing what was needed. JJ helped me move into to the bathroom and I released all I could to get more room in my pelvic floor.  As I hung from JJ's neck during the rushes I felt so heavy and I wanted to be in the water, I asked if we could prepare the tub, Stacie checked me to see if there was any time and I was dilated to a 9, there was no time.
About 20 min later I felt the urge to crawl in the bed and get on my side, I watched an Amazonian woman give birth this way and it seemed to be the only other picture that was in my mind if I couldn't be in the water.

JJ was remarkable and literally supporting my every rush with all his strength.
The midwife left JJ and I alone the entire time I was laboring. She mentioned we were a good team and we knew what we where doing so she was going to just let us do our thing. I felt like it was only JJ and I and it was nice, I kissed him during several rushes and gazed into his eyes and that seemed to help me through some of the more intense ones during the stage right before transition.

I hit transition quite quickly and was instantly feeling the desire to push.  I didn't want to rush the pushing so I could slowly stretch and not tear so I took my time. My breath was now low and animalistic sounding. My inner animal was definitely taking over now. I visualized my body opening and I talked to the spirit of Amazing Grace to connect and encourage her through this difficult part. The midwife came to help and within 20 minutes of pushing the baby was crowning. It became incredibly intense now and I could feel by pelvis separating in all directions, I knew there was only moving forward from here. I began pushing into the rushes and this helped make them feel very relieving. If I pushed with them. The energy inside me was so strong and I felt it coming from the top of my head and moving all the way down into my pelvic area where it would rest if I didn't work to push it out. I was totally exhausted inbetween rushes and found myself flopping my head down just to catch my breath. JJ would offer me water and rub my body.

With encouragement from both Stacie and JJ, I was able to gather the energy and with three more pushes I pushed Amazing Grace into this world.
She was instantly placed onto my chest and I looked at her trying to believe this was real. JJ was full of tears and he wrapped his arms around us both. We stared at this baby for hours and hours. About one hour after birth she started to suck gently on my breast, I cried as I felt this euphoric sensation of Love and connection flow through my body.

She weighed in at 5lbs 10oz, and 18 inches long. She is our little perfect angel and we are both sooo in-Love already! We didn't get to record the birth and we have little photos too but what we do have are the memories we have stored in our minds, hopefully they'll last a lifetime.

Thanks Amazing Grace Peek for choosing JJ and I to be your parents, we are the luckiest people in the world....in my eyes, at least!!