Finally I Saw Therapist

Finally I got some face to face help. Two sessions today after calling around yesterday to see if I could talk to someone. I felt the dark wave of grief and despair rolling over me yesterday. I know this feeling. I know it very well since having my child. It was a very traumatic experience for me and I haven’t felt confident to seek a qualified professional as I didn’t have Permanent Residency and didn’t want to jeopardise my chances of getting to stay with my family here in Australia. Now I do have PR and I am working through this now.

The first session was a woo woo style practitioner. She let me ramble and ramble, and that’s what I did. I cried a bit, told my story, described how I felt in creative ways, and at the end did some sand play where I just created what was circling in me and brought it to the surface. That was fun, I always enjoy these kinds of ways of bringing out creativity and to help gain insight. I described what I thought about each piece I chose to add from her shelves of figurines. I chose a mini pot of flowers to add beauty and symbolise the circular path that life seems to be. I chose a native woman carrying a child on her back and a golly wog doll which is an inherently racist black doll that is very kitsch Australian, and I chose these because I feel empathy for them, and in my own plight I understand theirs better. I chose Merlin with a unicorn to help represent how magic is all around, I just have to ask and see it. I chose a happy smiling buddha because I want more of that in my life, but am not sure how to fully detach to get to that stage these days. In the middle I drew out two big eyes, like that Grateful Dead song that goes “wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world” as it’s been running through my head for days now. All in all, it was a good session and I appreciated having that kind of very soft space to talk about things.

The second session was just a few doors down, also upstairs in this downtown charming historic town. When I walked into the stairwell it smelt like beauty parlour that specialises in waxing, and it took me by surprise. I guess that smell went with how I felt when I was in the session, very similar to when you are going in for a wax, you know you need to do it, you know you’ll love the results, but for christ sakes the process is painful, but some areas are strangely very satisfying and almost enjoyable in their pain. The psychologist was an older woman who I can only guess has hair that reaches all the way down her back, she had it piled up high on her head into a bun, she’s of retirement age, but so youthful and full of energy as soon as she opened her mouth with a bright sparkle in her eyes. She wore older woman nice clothes, you know the kind that were popular ages ago and they’re still in fine knick but not necessarily up to date. She also wore a beautiful broach that coordinated with her maroon pantsuit which gave me a sense of comfort thinking about how my grandmother used to wear broaches.

We got down to business after I sat in her narrow office. I had already filled out the paperwork, which thankfully my husband’s work pays for these sessions so we don’t have to pay out the $175 per visit as the contract had read. I get five sessions with her under his program and I will use them all. She asked me to give her a summary of why I am there and what I’ve been up to. So I backtracked to 2010 and mentioned that after a head on collision that happened just months after arriving in Australia, that I received counselling which was very helpful. I mentioned that due to a Medical Treatment visa I was able to stay here, and that’s in the timeframe that I met my husband. I mentioned about going back to University and finishing my bachelors. I mentioned that although my husband and I both had chosen in our earlier lives to not have children, that together we changed our direction and intentionally created our son who was conceived on our wedding day out of love, and that he is all love. I then talked about how that pregnancy went haywire, and I ended up in hospital for nearly three weeks until an emergency caesar where he was extracted from my body, and put into the NICU in a  plexiglass box and that a couple days later I was able to see him and all of it was very disorienting. I told her that before I was put under with the gas that I made peace with my life because I thought I was going to die, and how I had just left my husband’s hand in this stark white corridor on the way to the surgery area. I talked about how I had been so straight during my pregnancy with everything I was consuming and then all of a sudden I was taking major drugs to help me cope with the pain, and how that along with having to inject myself with a needle to help prevent dissolve the blood clot that had formed in my groin, was the worst kind of self harm I’ve ever known physically, and all of it took me so far from my natural clear headed state. I talked about the uncertainty when bringing home our child, and being all alone in Sydney with my husband working shifts of four days on and four days off, and not having any additional help and those first months were the darkest of my entire life. I shared how when I think of the newborn phase I think of the smell of Aquim hand sanitiser, chords, beeping, uncertainty, pain, hurt, and grief. I shared with her out loud things that I have never shared with anyone else that went on in my mind during that stage and I wept so loudly and it all came out. I completely lost it, and it may have only been in the first ten minutes of me walking in. Progress was being made.

She talked about the amygdala and how it stores all of our past experiences and how it’s like a volcano that has many layers and how when something gets triggered it then accesses every time I’ve ever had that feeling, and this made perfect sense to me. I had thought of it as wells of emotion within me, something I was holding, something I was internalising, something that was there always with me. She helped me to see that the release can happen by changing it to be a volcano versus a well, and to do whatever I need to in order to get the hell out of the fucking well. She didn’t say it quite like that but this was definitely how I heard it.

She talked about how this kind of trauma creates spikes in my cortisol levels and with that comes fight, flight or freeze. This was also an ah-ha moment to me. I know that my cortisol levels have been spiked from childhood due to having a very traumatic upbringing, and over the years it was clear to me what I was doing I was definitely fighting or fleeing the situation. This time around I have been full on in freeze mode. I hadn’t even considered that freeze was an option, and that’s exactly where I’ve been for the past three years. Adding on the waiting for Permanent Residency and that just created a stronger freeze feeling for me. So I’ve been on edge pretty much my whole life and in this last stretch, it has become freeze and now I get to fucking work it out so I can move forward. No more internalising. I see it, I understand, I have ways to move past this, and now that is what I am doing.

She talked about the importance of getting my levels checked to make sure all of my vitamins, thyroid and all other blood markers are normal in case that needed attention. Thankfully I’ve had those earlier this year due to the endometriosis. Oh speaking of endometriosis, she also said that by keeping all of this in my “well” rather that in a volcano, it would create disease in my body, and then I told her about the endometriosis, which completely makes sense. It came on strong and seemingly all of a sudden, and lasted about ten months. After using the Mirena IUD and getting PR, it’s amazing how it’s settled down, but not at all surprising as I’m not as on edge about everything.

She talked about the importance of deep breathing. 3 count in, hold for 3 and release for 5. She said that if I’m in freeze mode and I’m shallow breathing all of my cells think that they are also in survival mode. She gave an extra oomph to it by talking about Taming the Tiger, and with the breathing to clench my fists in the in breath, and release my hands completely in the out breath to signal to my body physically as well that it’s time for this to go. I loved this. I love that this is actionable and we did it in her office, and I could feel the difference. I will continue to do this.

Overall I feel completely drained from today. My eyes are so tired and dry from all of the crying I’ve done, by far more than I’ve cried anytime in the past couple years, probably not since my father died two years ago. Interesting that it’s also his birthday today, feels very auspicious. I don’t want to be that kind of parent and it almost feels like I’m honouring that by getting help now.

I see her next week and I really look forward to it. I am writing it out. I am moving past this. Thank fucking god. I’m so ready.

Birthing a New World Part 1

My son was conceived on a glorious day of love, a celebration of my marriage, which is also my birthday, specifically on our wedding day. We intentionally created him with love, had just weeks prior made a wish at a Shiva celebration asking for a healthy, fun, baby boy. We offered up our milk, ate some lovely Indian food, and made love each time with full intention and presence.

I started to get sick on the honeymoon, but didn’t think I was pregnant, just thought the circumstances of stress from the farm, getting over a flu, the exhale moment when the wedding is done and life moves along, and being out on an island in the Whitsundays taking trips out in the Great Barrier Reef.

By time we got back home, I knew I was pregnant. I still took a test to confirm at 4am with my first mornings urine which is supposed to have the best rate of truth, I wanted to be sure, and I was. I woke my husband up and told him excitedly, he smiled at me and then we went back to sleep. I was pregnant and it certainly didn’t take long, I had only taken my IUD out less than a month before hand. Everything was happening very quickly!

I had what seemed like a mini period after that, which caused concern, even though I was feeling nauseated. The GP suggested I go in to the radiologist to have a sonogram as soon as I could, so I booked the next appointment I could, and went in. As I laid on the table, I was scared, what if I had lost the baby? I was so new to all of this. My husband wasn’t available to come with me, so I was there alone, and I felt just that, all alone. Then all of a sudden there was a heartbeat, and I was both relieved that it was there and also sad that I couldn’t share this first heartbeat experience with my husband. I saw my insides on the monitor and baby looked like a little dot amongst it all, but alas baby was there. It turns out that was implantation bleeding, which can occur for some women when the egg plants itself into the lining of the uterus.

For the rest of the first trimester, I experienced the most nausea I have ever had in my life. I took ginger, I went to acupuncture, I ate small bites of food regularly, and it never subsided. I really pride myself in the fact that I can avoid puking if I want, every so often I just cannot handle it and I have to vomit, but in this case, for weeks, months actually I was so sick but never actually vomiting. I was hot, like burning up hot most of the time. The acupuncturist would try to lower my heat from my upper body into my legs, and it did work a bit, it at least gave me peace of mind and I was able to cope a little better. During that first trimester I had to really take it easy, but I couldn’t, not really.

Also during the first trimester, the climax of a big dispute of the processing plant tenants at the farm came, it had been building as they had not been taking care of the animals and we even had to intervene and feed the starving animals ourselves on the eve of our wedding night. The whole time during our honeymoon, we, more so my husband, had to deal with the issue, and it was intense. When we got back my husband had to get to work in Sydney, so I was there at the farm with his parents and a few woofers trying to make a presence and not let anything happen. They were hostile and very volatile and we did not trust them at all to leave peacefully. I was on edge and I know that certainly did not help my pregnancy. Along with that, the farmhouse upstairs has this incredible way of syphoning all of the cooking smell from downstairs to the upstairs where the rooms are. So every day I would have nausea and have to smell cooking flesh on the stove, it was almost more than I could bear. I had to ask the woofers to wear deodorant, but only a non fragrant kind. Nausea and farm life really don’t go so well together, with animals being slaughtered, carcases decomposing, and all of the chicken poop and animal smells that come along with a farm.

It was so hard for me to be away from my husband, but I did not want to move to Sydney. I did not want to raise our son in the city, I did not want to move away from the group of friends I had made in country, but I missed him so much, that eventually in the 2nd trimester, I made the move down with him full time. As soon as I was in Sydney, in our new penthouse apartment, I hardly had nausea or morning sickness. By the way, whomever called it morning sickness may have been thinking globally at the time, because it is certainly not contained to one morning in one hemisphere, mine lasted all day and night every day at the farm.

During all of this, I had many different projects going on. I had hired on a coaching team to help me build my own business from scratch, which was becoming harder and harder to manage with my fluctuating levels of energy, feeling unwell, and a totally spacey head. I had a very candid conversation with one of the coaches, and she told me to stop doing it, if there was any advice she would give it would be to stop and not do it, being a soon to be new mother and trying to start a business at the same time was a disaster recipe, and that the most important thing was my child and to not make the same mistake she made by trying to do it all. She also suggested getting a really comfortable reclining chair to live in with the baby. I took her suggestions on board and she was right, although I will get back to it and finish what I started, when the time is right.

We also had the closing of the abattoir at the farm, which was a very big deal. There was also an internet business that my husband and I were getting into, which long story short, over a year of being dragged along, paying out our noses and still not getting to the point where we could sell the internet to others, Telstra finally got back to my husband with the contract. It’s such bologna that any independent resellers have to go through the one company which owns all the lines in Australia that were actually paid fro by the people before they fave it over to this private corporation, who more or less has a monopoly over all the lines across the country. Of course they don’t want competition, there is no reason for them to help someone compete with them, it’s a very flawed system. We didn’t think it was going to be such a big issue, but it was, had we have known we wouldn’t have been stuck into it as long as we did with our finances draining by the month.

Along with this I was still contemplating whether or not to take up the offer for Honours at University and to teach the Digital Marketing class part time. It would have to be all out of pocket as I didn’t have PR, and was considered an international student. The next question was whether or not I would be able to handle having a newborn, living in the Northern Rivers while my husband was in Sydney and trying to do it all. This had to wait as well.

I also started up a mini little network marketing business to help generate some income, which ended up me just spending a lot of money in the way of their products, which while the dollar was one to one, it wasn’t so bad. I sent out heaps of greeting cards and that felt really good, until the realisation that the only way you make money is not by having others buy your greeting cards, but they have to be distributors as well, it felt a bit strange, and I found that it didn’t work as well in Australia, especially as the US dollar increased in value, it became really expensive to keep this going. Eventually I stopped paying and my account has just enough to send a few more cards and then its done.

So there were all of these projects happening, lots of stress, and then a move, to a place I didn’t really want to live, but did because I wanted, err, needed, to be with my husband.

I started trying to figure out where to do antenatal classes that fit in with my husbands rotating schedule, I didn’t get into this alone and I didn’t want to do it alone. I found a birthing from within program in the Northern Rivers and it fit the dates in my 3rd trimester, and I felt better. I had luckily gotten in to the caseload midwife program at the local hospital near the farm where I could have a water birth and be assisted by lovely experienced women with the security of having the hospital as well just in case anything went awry.

There was still a lot of stress regarding the projects we had going on, but I was getting everything sorted one by one. Then at one of the ultrasound appointments, I was told that my placenta was low lying, and that if it didn’t move up, then I would have to have to have a cesarian. This was the opposite of the midwife assisted water birth I had planned to do without any kind of medication. I kept hoping it was wrong and was misdiagnosed due to me not drinking enough water so they could see inside properly with their machine. At the 20 week scan, we saw that my son was not shy at all and was showing his parts in full glory. I was going to have a boy. It was all pretty surreal and was happening.

After a quick trip back to the farm, I got back on the plane to Sydney and was required to show my letter stating I was okay to fly. I honestly didn’t feel very good at all. The day before I had spent a little time in the healing waters of Lake Ainsworth, a nearby tea tree oil infused lake, which happens to be my favourite lake in the world. I was told later that it was an aboriginal birthing lake, which maybe somehow my body knew that.

We landed in Sydney, I met up with a Uni friend and strolled the open gardens on a lovely spring day at Westmeade hospital, and I was tired, very very tired. I had only just finished my 2nd trimester, the baby wasn’t due for another almost three months, but I was so exhausted. That evening, I went to the toilet and found that I was bleeding, a lot of blood. Interestingly only a week or so before, as a precaution I booked into the local Nepean Hospital just in case I needed anything while I was in Sydney related to my pregnancy. We called and they said to come in, and this was the first of many experiences I had with the birthing suite. They wanted to monitor the baby’s heartbeat and to make sure everything was okay. Turns out everything was okay, and that bleeding was par for the course when it came to having a low lying placenta. After a couple of days they let me go home after it was clear that I wasn’t bleeding anymore. I was relieved and very tired.

Since we lived in penthouse apartment that was a walkup, that meant I had to somehow make it up 4 flights of stairs to my bedroom. It was horrendous. We had to move. We had to move for other reasons as well. We had these two older Sri Lankans who totally leached off of us for more months than I care to admit. My husband didn’t want to deal with it as he had his plate absolutely full, and they kept promising they would pay rent. We took on two additional housemates on top of them to help pay the rent, so there was a full house on top of it all. We started looking intently for another place to live that was clean, nice, and not too expensive. I had been looking when I would come to Sydney from the farm and just couldn’t find anything that would work, the one place that did was then pulled last minute and rented to a friend of the owner. By chance, we were directed by a real estate agent to a place we hadn’t even noticed online, and it was the right one, so we signed on, things were looking up. It was a ground level, stand alone two storied town house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms with a a cute backyard. Perfect for what we needed and it was brand new.

I had another bout of bleeding a week later and again, we rushed to hospital, this time there was more blood than I’ve ever seen rushing out of my body.

To be continued.

Incredibly Full

Full

Full of the son

Full of the light

If I were a cup I’d be at the brim

yet

I’m only at 26 weeks.

How much more can I inflate?

stretch?

I see him moving

regularly

protruding in my belly

cliffs are formed

waves are created

and then silence.

Incredibly Full

my body is

a house for another

for a new soul

for the emerging sun.

Incredibly full

until my cup

my body

filleth over.

14 more weeks

of feeling

of learning what I can take

of gestating this being

of using my body fully.

Total Transformation

It has occurred to me in such a magnanimous way today out of seemingly nowhere, that I am undergoing the most profound and ultimate transformation of my entire life. I am reminded of this truth when I look to my navel and see that it now protrudes substantially from my core, that my belly has stretched in ways it has never known before in order to house the growing love being inside of my body. The emotional and physical flares that arise in the way of stuffy noses, tiredness, sensitivity, extreme joy, blissfulness and heightened sexual energy, all of which comes in waves and reminds me that I am amidst change. My mind is morphing with the hormones and the additional heart that is growing inside of my body. My mind may be having some conflict, which is creating these physical and emotional reactions, but nonetheless, my mind, my body, my emotional landscape are all changing in every single moment.

It is surreal to think that as I type this, as sit here thinking about life in the current state of now, that I have within me, not just one heart, not just one brain, but two of each. My body and spirit are feeding and giving life to another human being in this very moment. It feels slightly superhuman and absolutely divine as there are no other words to identify with right now. It feels like the idea of unison has been achieved and is happening all now. It was the united love and intimacy that brought this about. It is the joint wishing for this amongst an altar to Shiva, Ganesh & Paravati. It is the manifestation of our love on our wedding day, which allowed for this divine act of creating new life, creating a third life out of two.

It is only now that I am ready and prepared for this. It is only now that I am able to completely give of myself this transformation, this life changing process. It is only now that I truly love myself, that I found true love in another, which has prepared me.

I am learning lessons in each moment. I am learning how to be more kind to myself, to be more generous and gentle with who I am. My energy comes in waves and, sometimes, I just need to take it easy. This self love and compassion is growing daily which I know I will need once I give birth and am responsible for another. The fierceness of love and loyalty I feel for my husband is growing stronger and stronger. There is nothing greater to me in this world right now that the two of us, and our child that is growing inside of me, it is my family that takes complete priority above all else. It is in the ability to convert my own research and knowledge of food and nutrition that I am now able to easily create healthy meals for us. This may sound trivial and if this were the younger version of me speaking, she would have been outraged that I would even consider this to be so huge, but it is. I am nourishing myself, my husband, our child, our life with prosperity and healthy in mind.

It’s Thursday. I’m 23 weeks pregnant. I will never again be who I am in this moment, and it has never felt more true than it does now.

The Name Game

What’s in a name? Is it the name that makes the person or is it the person who makes the name? Does the vibration of the name really matter? Does the numerology really play an important role in that vibration? Does giving a child an “older” name weigh heavily on them? Does having a name that starts with an “A” automatically make them first to be called up and hence more available for leadership?

When we thought we might have a girl, we had already decided on a name that we both liked and that we felt could be a part of our life easily. However, now that it’s certainly a boy, that task has become a paramount effort! We’ve sat with these names so far: Alister, Alec, Riley, Theodore/Teddy, Abraham/Abe, Apollo and are still looking. I love when the name has some kind of significance. Would naming our child after Abraham Lincoln who was one of the greatest American Presidents who abolished slavery and forever changed the history of my homeland too big of a name to step into? Or would it lead to inspiration because Abraham Lincoln was such a stand out character and led his life with such high integrity?

My hope is that we will raise this child in a way that he is confident in who he is, regardless of his name. That he will be creative, generous, kind, strong, and gentle. That he will be a mixture of both my husband’s characteristics, mine, and of his as he develops them himself. That he will carve out his own sense of self in this world and be uniquely who he is. Inspiration comes from all areas of life and can also come from the name that one is given at birth.

It’s amazing how different it is to think about boy’s names versus girl’s names. There is a sense of weight that seems to be involved that wasn’t with the girl names. Is it because I had a father who developed a very tough shell in part because his name was a typical girl’s name? Honouring that “boy named Sue” complex that Johnny Cash famously sang about. Perhaps there is a sense of importance based on a name given as to what they will do in the world and how they will impact it.

Hopefully this name will come along and become apparent that it is the name of this being growing inside of me.

Embracing the Feminine

For so much of my life I have been rather yang, strong, masculine, directed. Even when I haven’t been attached to a corporate job, I’ve taken on my life like it’s been a serious role. I have been incredibly direct, ambitious, hard headed, and overt. I had a challenging childhood which is actually classified as being traumatic, and I’ve come to peace with it. Thankfully I have been hard like this because I needed to be in order to do things differently from the life I had been born into.

Now that I am pregnant and expecting my first child later this year, the more feminine side of me, the yin, the softer, gentler, more subtle aspects of me are starting to emerge. Starting may be an understatement because there are days where it feels more like a crashing tide of change where the feminine is taking the space. I have never felt more beautiful, or more like a woman, or more like this incredibly powerful being as I do right now.

I can only imagine that this gets stronger as I get closer to giving birth, and even moreso after I actually am caring for this child that has been created out of love. Having experienced what it’s like to be very yang, and now embracing the yin and the feminine side of who I am, I know this will equip me to the best and whole person, mother, partner, citizen, being that I can possibly be. I recall that when I was younger my prayers always ended with “and please help me to be the best person I can possibly be”. Having that thought, coupled with the action I have taken in my life to accomplish this and it’s all happening. I am that.

The feminine energy is so lovely too. When my husband and I were first dating I told him very clearly (in a super yang way) that I needed him to hold the masculine space because I needed to hold the feminine space. I knew I needed it, and that was the first time where I actually voiced it so clearly. What a blessing that I was able to recognise that. By having my husband hold that yang space, it allowed me to develop my own yin, feminine space and because of this we have both benefited greatly by becoming our whole selves.

I am going to be an amazing mother. I am an amazing wife and partner. We will create such an amazing and creative family and I am thrilled to be on this journey. I embrace the feminine with who I am and allow it to help me grow in ways that I haven’t yet experienced, for the good of all.

Tap Dancing on my G-Spot

This feels wildly inappropriate for me to share outside of with my husband but I’m doing it anyway. The baby that is growing inside of me (at 21 weeks now) is sitting very very low. So low that it feels like he is constantly tap dancing on my bladder. This baby is definitely a mover and shaker and is constantly on the go, already, full of energy and activity.

Recently in the last few days, the tap dancing, has been the feeling that I get when my g-spot is being stimulated! I’ll be sitting having a conversation and all of a sudden get the feeling like I’ve just been flicked constantly in a spot that is typically all about pleasure! Today I was walking through the grocery store and it was wild! Let me be clear that it isn’t like concentrated, rhythmic rubbing of the special spot, but like flicks, which must be kicks or kung fu fighting moves being practiced inside here!

Since I am clearly aware that all things in life change and that is the nature of our existence, I am just trying to enjoy it while it is like this. My husband and I made the most of it today and all I can say is that maybe this little guy is like a wingman at the moment.

Yes, totally and completely inappropriate, but it’s what it is!

Surrendering to Death (and Life)

All things change. It is the nature of this existence, of impermanence. In the process of change, it is necessary for things to “die” so that new things can emerge. In the same vein that the phoenix rises from it’s ashes, from the fire, from death, to be this glorious and powerful being. Death is just a part of the life cycle.

Without change, with the passing of things, the passing of stages of life, the passing of who we were, it would not be possible to fully embrace who we are meant to be, who we are in this moment, who we will eventually evolve into. It’s really a beautiful process. I don’t necessarily believe in reincarnation, but I do believe that within this one physical life that I am in right now, I have had many different “lives” all of which had a death, so that I could emerge into my new “life”. It’s very poetic and creative to me. I can’t see past what I don’t know, what I haven’t experienced myself. I can read up, I can imagine, I can listen to others, but in the end, it is from my own personal journey that I learn about life, about existence, about myself, about others, about life, and about death.

Surrendering to death at this moment feels essential. The death of who I was is quickly approaching. I feel like it’s been happening, that old version of me has been dying a not-so-gradual death. From the moment that I got married I felt a surge of new life. From that moment in that extreme rush, it was made possible because I surrendered and let myself go to the next level, I let the old fearful version of who I was go, in favour of the divine love and growth that I am intended.

In that big day of surrender, of death, we actually created life. As in we conceived our child that is growing inside of my body right now as I type and think about this topic. All of which was so easy to do, all of which was so natural because we let go of the fear, I let go of the fear I had held onto for countless years of not being good enough, not being worthy, not feeling like I could be a good wife, or a good mother… it was all fear, and it was about time that I FINALLY LET IT GO!

What a blessing it was to give into that death. Sometimes death comes much more rapidly, instantly, like when I had the car accident, in a moment life changed. I absolutely prefer the gentle lessons approach of gradual and conscious change with full intention and full awareness of what is happening. It feels more natural, it feels real, it brings joy, and feels really good. Gradual death to breath in new life with the right nourishment and the right amount of space is unlike any other.

In this process of now being a wife, and soon being a mother, I feel that the old version of me is dying so quickly. I appreciate that I was that person, those people, over all of those different chapters and I can only look back with gratitude but only for a moment because the truth in life, the truth in the moment, the joy, the love, is in this moment. Who knows how many more deaths I will experience in this life, but I do hope that they continue to be infused with an abundance of health, happiness, joy, and love. Thus far I’ve been so lucky in my life and I can only expect that this pattern will continue, especially from now moving forward.

Soon we will be living in our new house, living in the life we are setting up for us to be parents, to grow ourselves and our family. This brings me so much joy that I can hardly contain it. It makes me feel really blessed that I have died enough to get to this stage. I’m also still gestating and working on a project that will launch later this year as well, a program to help women change their love patterns. I can feel that I am dying here too, letting go of the fear of if I’m not knowledgeable enough, or whatever perfectionist tendencies I have had with it. This will also take on that phoenix story arch and I will rise about and lead the way with my fire, my light, all born out of the ashes of my past. It’s all so beautiful.

So here’s to death! Here’s to moving forward! Here’s to embracing life in ways that the “old version” would not have been able to! Here’s to the Joy that growth and change can bring!

Sex and Gender?

Perhaps I’m still trying to decide or decipher between the difference between sex and gender. I mostly see past these terms and see people as just people, which is likely why I accept homosexuality in such an easy way. We love who we love, we are who we are, we are constantly changing, we are souls housed in human bodies and we get to live on this physical plane experiencing life day to day in a tangible way.

People are very quick to tell me why I shouldn’t find out the sex of the baby. My husband and I are keen to find out though. Not for the reason to choose blue or pink or other stereotypical things, but more because it will aid in the bonding process. Also, it’s nice to be able to plan. Sure, we can’t plan everything, but at least I can visualise and start to dream about it in a more solidified way. Granted that in next week’s ultrasound where we can find out the sex, there is a possibility that we won’t, and even so that they may be wrong about it.

The sex of this baby will not necessarily inform their gender, although it might. It may have an influence on how they grow up in society, but ultimately it is up to them to choose who they are and what they want to be. We are just the parents, the ones who are to look after them until they are ready to venture out on their own. We are the ones who will lead them to the knowledge that we’ve discovered, but allow them to find out and discover and make up their own minds about things, about everything. This is true whether this baby inside of me is a boy or a girl. It doesn’t really matter. We’ll be happy with either, we just have faith that it’ll be healthy and will naturally bring joy with it. I know that we’ll also experience joy and love in ways that neither my husband nor I could have imagined. I know that all of this extraordinary change will happen regardless of what kind of genitals they are born with.

 

There’s Something Inside of Me

It is the weirdest and simultaneously awesome experience to feel a little human being formed inside of my own body. I’m now at 19 weeks and the movement inside from this baby is constant! Especially when I am sitting down, I feel it tip tapping, stretching, moving, rolling, I’m not sure really what’s going on in there, but A LOT is obviously occurring. If this is any indication of what life will be like for this baby, my guess is that it will have heaps of energy! Naturally I have a lot of energy myself which has definitely declined in an outward way since being pregnant, so I must assume that the baby is getting all of it! It is good that I have an abundance and can freely share!

A few days ago I felt, what seemed like constant movement, for the first full day. Honestly, I was trying to get some stuff done and I found it distracting! Then I felt bad for finding it distracting, but now I just laugh about it. Maybe I’m getting used to it? Maybe now I feel it but realise it’s not something to be worried about and I can carry on with what I’m doing.

I do take time to spend with my belly and this baby inside. I also take time to spend with my husband and have him touch and even talk to the baby through my belly. I’d be stretching it if I didn’t say it was slightly awkward, but I think it’s good. It feels like a nice bonding for this process of rapid growth for all of us. I know soon enough my husband will be able to feel the movements in my belly too and I look forward to sharing it with him as best I can.

It is a constant reminder that I am taking part in the divine process of creation. I have a sign that I made earlier this year that reads “Create Daily” and suffice to say, I think that by the nature of what is happening whilst gestating, that I am fulfilling this goal.