This time of year is always good for smacking me around. Even on a sunny day like today, when the quince and camellia are blooming and you swear it can’t be January it’s so warm, winter is in my bones.

And my mom’s too.  Right around this time in 1995, while I was doing my student teaching, she fell in her kitchen and broke her leg so bad it popped through the skin. At the time, my father was on his always-dreamed-about trip to New Zealand. Travel was not an anomaly for him; he’s done plenty for business and plenty for pleasure, including a trip to Thailand after he fell in love with the cuisine. I’m told he went bird-watching in Arizona (I think) shortly after I (his fifth child) was born. To say that my mother does not share his love for travel is a grand understatement.

When I signed up to read the novel The Art of Hearing Heartbeats for the From Left to Write book club, I hoped I would be able to reward myself with the novel read after finishing a volunteer project I was working on. But then I got more work tutoring in the last week of the semester at the boarding school where I help a few kids. And my children here at home kept needing a mommy. And their mommy needed more sleep. So she didn’t finish the book, but its tale of travel in search of a lost father is certainly intriguing.

Last week, I was on a high after the successful fundraiser, and I was pleased with how well I was feeling. And yet, I’ve also been reflecting lately on just when it is that my health gave me clues that I would have a challenging road. My mom has been wondering the same for years. Maybe that leg break was as bad as it was because she was (like me) celiac and didn’t know it, or because of some other health condition that weakens bones. The skin issues and digestive issues I’m having now are not new; they’ve been cycling through my body in various permutations for years. And even my mom has admitted that her body was not the ideal place to start a life, belonging to a stressed out (and a smoking) mother of four (ages 8-12 and up when I came along).

I bet she and I share more health issues than we are aware, though I hope that my discovering things at and earlier age and the newer research around these days will contribute to an easier road for me eventually. But right now, it’s a little challenging. The heaviness I feel around the time of a drop in my thyroid is knocking at the door like a canvasser who won’t disappear. And, even if this mild winter continues, it’s always tough to go into the month of February, recalling the death of my brother in 1987.

The year before he took his life, my parents and I went to the Bahamas for my seventh grade mid-winter break, a week that Michigan schools take off so that everyone can keep a little sanity. Finding green helps. The year before that, sixth grade, we went to Hawaii. My mom probably hated every minute of both trips. I loved them but wanted to do more activities and wished I had siblings closer to my age to join. When Pat died, I was on a vacation with a friend and her family on a small island near Barbados where we went on the most spectacular hike to a waterfall. A few days later — a week shy of my fourteenth birthday — I had to fly back home alone to the dreary Midwest.

Today, I still have my father’s zeal for adventure and his propensity to get and stay busy, but my body isn’t exactly keeping up. I’d like to join my sister-in-law’s yoga retreat in Costa Rica in March, but seeing as my thyroid really crashed just after meeting her family in Vermont for the Anusara Grand Circle and Wanderlust last June, and seeing as I have to cook all my food from scratch or face a lot discomfort, travel will have to wait.

I’m not even sure how I’m going to make it to Baltimore for even one day of the three-day Fourfold Path to Healing Conference this weekend. Although I fantasize about staying overnight by myself without having to wake to nurse my 18-month-old back to sleep, my not coming home Saturday night wouldn’t magically disappear all my issues. I’d still need to bring a bunch of food with me, and I’d probably want to pump. In order to reap the benefits of something that would be therapeutic, I have to make some sacrifices that might otherwise jeopardize my health (not to mention that of my daughter, son and husband, who I’m guessing wouldn’t have the greatest night of sleep since we haven’t done a dry run on the night weaning).

And what would they do all day Sunday if I stayed at the conference until it ends at 5:30, or would I leave at noon? How would my daughter react once I got home, and then had to go out after dinner to tutor? How would my body react?

Tonight, when my husband was trying to use playful parenting to get my son out of whining mode during dinner, he took on the voice of a train conductor. E didn’t understand the “sh-clunk” sound of the pretend hole punch. We realized our little boy, almost six, has never been on a train other than the Metro. Maybe my husband could take the kids up to Baltimore on a train partway through Saturday, and we could all drive back home that night, I suggested. “With both of them?” my husband asked, his eyes practically reflecting the shine of headlights. After a few minutes, he said he’d look into it.

Maybe the promise of adventure can somehow give me the space to pursue some healing without a whole lot of guilt. But probably just for one day.

—

How do you balance physical and emotional needs?

What did you inherit from your parents?

What pushes and pulls?

—

When Julia travels to Burma to search for her missing lawyer father, she discovers much more than she expected. Join From Left to Write on February 1 as we discuss The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

The instant I read the words, I regretted picking up my BlackBerry that one last time before going to bed. A well-meaning relative of mine had read my recent post about my health and my leaky gut problem and told me: “This is not the time to volunteer for things.” She intended to point out that there would be plenty of time later in life for me to pursue my interests when I didn’t have as many health challenges to face and when I wasn’t in such a busy time of motherhood with a kindergartener and opinionated non-verbal toddler.

I get her point. Really, I do. The problem is that her note assumes that volunteering is something that detracts from my well-being. Sure, it might have seemed that way in the post she read. I’d rushed to finish it and get it up rather than wait until who knows when I’d get a free moment to sit down again. I did, I realize, sound a little overwhelmed. And yes, balance is something I’m working on.

But I don’t regret my choices, and I don’t want them restricted. That wouldn’t help. If I weren’t busy with something that felt meaningful, that contributed to my priorities, that gave me joy, or that fueled me with passion, I would be, simply put, depressed. Staying busy and engaged in something bigger than myself is a necessity for me to stay mentally healthy without medication.

And staying off medication is something I feel is a physical necessity as well; I simply don’t think my body can handle being on anti-depressants. They made an amazing difference for two years, and then again for a year while I sought treatment for hyperthyroidism (Graves’ Disease).

But they are drugs. Even if I weren’t a true believer in the healing power of nutrition and energy work, my system has shown me it simply cannot handle anything artificial. As much as SSRIs helped, I’m also pretty convinced that they contributed to the mess I’m in now — a much smaller role than 30 years of eating gluten, probably, but a role nonetheless.

No amount of saying no to volunteer work is going to undo all the damage that was caused by decades of eating food my body couldn’t handle, to say nothing of mild but young substance abuse. What will help me heal is continuing to eat real food, pursuing what makes me happy, and cultivating a mindfulness practice. It takes a lot more time and energy than popping a pill, but I really don’t see that I have a choice if I have my long-term health in mind.

Until I got this late-night email, I was, I admit, stewing a little about the lack of time to do everything I cared about. But rather than push me to step aside, as was its intention, the note inspired me to remember why I have chosen what I’ve chosen to do and to be grateful that I have the opportunity to do it.

The fundraiser I was working on was a great success, both in money raised and in positive momentum and a spirit of community, which was probably even more valuable to this project about which I care deeply. Even as I wished for more hours in the day to proofread the program and organize the volunteer schedule, I remembered that I proposed this event because I believe in the cause and that I offered to head it up because it’s something I knew I could do well. I knew it could be a great thing, and I wanted to create that.

So I carried that purpose with me into the event and sincerely enjoyed it. I lapped up the kudos with nary a self-critical remark or “if only we could have” lament. It was just good, plain and simple. We can debrief and learn from it, sure, but the thing I am most proud of is just enjoying it.

And then, when I came home after being gone at the school 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and launched right back into domestic goddess mode, I took on that role without resentment. Sure, there was a smidge of “really?” in my brain when my husband said he was super tired, but rather than go to a place of bitterness, I just chalked it up to a confirmation that the job I usually do of managing house and home is, indeed, a tiring one!

I wanted the laundry and dishes dealt with, so I did them.

I wanted celery and other veggies for the next day and to not cook that night or ask my tired husband to rally, so I went out to the grocery store after picking up take-out.

I wanted to do yoga before eating in peace and quiet, so I waited until after the family meal and bedtime to get on my mat and then eat my own safe food.

Somehow, that email sparked — or stoked — a fire. What started as angry turned cozy and glowing. The email inspired me, in part, to take the Mother’s Self-Renewal workshop to explore issues of balance and honoring our many selves. That first session then gave me the sense that I am both not alone in my dilemmas about time and also that my process is one to honor. It is part of my mothering to model not perfection but an embracing of personal growth and inquiry.

So thank you, dear relative, even if noting you wish you’d gotten advice from your elders still doesn’t convince me that you weren’t being more judgmental than supportive. Regardless of their intent, your words helped me see through the messiness of internal conflict and to look toward something varied and beautiful.

It was a day when every hour looked like 5 p.m.

Grey. Rain. Then rainier, and windy.

My boys, on their way home through the hurricane. (Alternate title: A visual representation of the fog I've been feeling in my body and mind for weeks.)

So why am I feeling better than I’ve felt since, like, June?

One guess is the yoga. I did about 20 minutes alone upstairs in my bedroom this morning, after 5 minutes using the chi machine. Post-juice, pre-breakfast. And pre-arrival of babysitter who was to spend four glorious hours keeping the kids entertained. The wash of ooh-ah-um after even a short bridge pose is amazing. The high is so obvious when you don’t do it for a while.

Yes, yoga probably helped. But what else?

Last night and this morning I used some Bach flower essences. Olive for exhaustion. Scleranthus for indecision. Elm and something else for responsibility/burden and blaming self. Or maybe I chose the one on forgiveness.

Speaking of forgiveness, last night I brought up an unresolved hurt from last weekend with my husband. I wouldn’t say I have zero fear of the same kind of thing happening again that I initially got upset about, but I did feel reasonably heard. So that probably helped. As did some Tivo’d Saturday Night Live we watched after clearing the air. (Thanks, Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph for the opening monologue/duet on the Mother’s Day episode).

Reading about letting go and being mindful in Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children and Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life has probably helped my mood (and my willingness to drop last weekend’s scuffle once I’d had the chance to shout about it).

Though I find myself often slightly annoyed at the authors of these books — with a crabby, “Yes, I already know that’s how I should be. But how? Map it out for me in my actual life!” –  I also notice that just the act of reading about Zen makes me breathe more slowly and deliberately. Chew more. Pause. All important things. All possibly due some credit when it comes to my improved mood and energy.

On a more physical level, some changes might finally be taking effect. It’s Saturday night, four days since I saw a chiropractor/healer who adjusted me, muscle-tested me, gave me two doses of homeopathic remedies and loaded me up with supplements. I had so much going on, I sucked up my daughter’s appointment too, taking almost two full hours of this doctor’s time!

My thyroid is low, and my cholesterol super high. My adrenals are a wreck. I’ve felt not just depressed but fatigued beyond my years since early July.  Some bodywork a few weeks ago might have helped, but I was banking on a visit to this healer to get me on the road to recovery. Some Standard Process supplements and others should help with my fat metabolism problem, which is probably the cause of my high cholesterol and thanks to  my thyroid disorder, which is probably exacerbated by my adrenal fatigue, which probably also messes with my digestion and means I’m not absorbing nutrients. I’ve got supplements for all those issues, at least for a short time until I round a corner. Maybe the new pills I’m popping — or the extra food-based B vitamin with dinner — are starting to take effect.

Just before the earthquake started, the doctor was muscle-testing me about sleep, coming up with the prescription for 8-10 hours and a bedtime as close to 9:00 as possible. The rumble of the ground, I believe, was the universe hearing the doctor’s pronouncement and pounding exclamation marks over and over like a teenage girl’s note about a crush.

Okay, I get it. I need to sleep.

One of the tidbits of wisdom in the Buddhism for Mothers book was a quote from someone else to the effect of: it’s not at the gas pump that you actually use gas. Right. Store up the good to use later, or pay for it if you run on empty. I believe I’m now — one year postpartum — feeling the effects of doing too much after A’s birth, not napping with her at all (like I did daily with my son back in the day), and having even more interrupted nights very early on postpartum (thanks to my champion newborn night pooper!).

No wonder my digestion got so wonky. No wonder my skin is scaly and red. No wonder I bruise if you breathe on me.

And now the hair shedding has begun. And my belly has the look of an ad with the headline “Is your thyroid making you fat?” And since July, it’s been all I can do to walk around the block by myself, or up the stairs carrying the baby. Whose body is this?

Today, it feels a little more like mine.

Maybe the fact that my house is finally getting back in order after a kitchen remodel has helped. I can see the floor of my office again. Drywall dust has been wiped off the dining room table. The kitchen is usable enough to go from clean to messy to clean again several times a day, just like normal (except with more room, and prettier!) I got to inhabit my home all alone for a short time today, and it’s so much prettier and happier. Me too.

As Hurricane Irene pounds the coast and darkens our skies, there was nowhere to go this afternoon. Nothing to do, so we moved the couch and did yoga together. It was one of the rare times I’ve looked around and though simply, without any qualifiers, “This is my life.” And I smiled.

After my husband checked the gutters, we all went for a walk in the pouring rain, happy in hats and summer heat. Soaked enough to peel off everything upon our return. I washed my hair for possibly the first time this week.

Power may be lost soon, but for now we all have bellies full of delicious roasted chicken. Pathways have opened in my home.

Thanks be to my babysitter, who took kids outside before the rains came and to a rec center after they descended.

Thanks also to my husband for earning the money to build a kitchen I can love.  And to my doctor and everyone whose skill and hands have helped my weary bones.

Thanks to wise mama writers and wise-cracking mom actors for reminding me to smile.

And thanks to the threat of natural disasters for helping me see clearer priorities, for shining light on this darkest of summer days.

May the world look familiar tomorrow.

The sunflower that wasn't eaten by deer. Just appeared this week. Maybe I should give it some credit for the sun in my heart.

I knew when I went in for my c-section in 2006 that the effects would be lasting, but I only recently realized to what extent. I tend to hold on to emotion through my body, and since the need for a surgical delivery was profoundly disappointing to me, I expected that it would take my body and heart a while to get over the method of my son’s entry into the world.

Last spring, before I conceived, my doctor’s muscle-testing and her colleague’s computer scan of my energy meridians showed my body sort of “divided” at the midline. After that, I began using a laser after acupuncture treatments at their office to help the scar heal. Before bed, I would massage sesame oil into my scar at night to help it loosen. I also felt called to use the essential oil SARA from Young Living Oils, a blend that markets itself as being for sexual trauma.  After I got pregnant on the first try, I essentially gave up thinking about my scar and turned my energy toward worrying about whether or not I could manage to have a successful natural birth.

Now I’m 12 weeks postpartum after a homebirth VBAC, or HBAC. So you’d think I’d have gotten over the c-section, but apparently not! I noticed that my first attempts to jog around eight weeks after my daughter’s birth — just a mile and a half or two! and slowly! — had me later feeling like my pelvis was aching. This was not the case with my son. With him, I didn’t try any exercise — or much of anything else — until ten weeks and then went out for four miles and felt great.

I figured the discomfort was product of the different method of birth and also the fact that, instead of staying home, napping, and healing like I did in 2006, this time I’m running around with a preschooler, volunteering for his school, running a mom’s group, and trying to have something like a freelance writing and editing career. Not much time for rest, and so many things I want to do!

I mentioned all this to Dr. Jennifer Mercier, who was selling her new book Women’s Optimal Pelvic Health with Mercier Therapy just behind our Holistic Moms table at the Freedom for Family Wellness Summit last weekend. She offered to work on me.

Dr. Jennifer Mercier discussing pelvic health

It hadn’t occurred to me that any of my discomfort was related to my c-section scar. I thought it had to do with my pelvis spreading internally. The word that came to mind after I ran or spent a lot of time on my feet was “crushed.” That sounds dramatic, but I felt like my pelvis had been sort of crushed in a car accident years ago and that what I felt was the residual dull ache.

But then she started palpating my scar. It hurt. It was hot, like a muscle with a lot of tension. She noted that my scar was very close to my pubic bone. She worked on it for a few minutes, rubbing it like you would a knot you’re trying to knead out. Then she had me do some resistance exercises. I was on my back with my knees bent, and I tried to pull them together while she tried to push them apart, three times for 10 seconds.

After she was done, she pressed on the scar again and asked how I felt. It didn’t hurt. “If you’re seriously putting the same amount of pressure as you were before, then that is am amazing difference,” I told her. She said she was. And she showed me how to work on my scar myself, by applying pressure and then pulling up and down off the pubic bone.

The next day, we took a long family walk, and I jogged a little bit of it. Zero ache the next day. Seriously. I was pretty impressed.

Dr. Mercier told me she developed her method through the study of osteopathy. I happened to have an appointment a few days later with my osteopath, Dr. D. I told her about my experience a few days earlier. Dr. D. was pulled into my pelvis and told me to put my hands on my scar and imagine pulling up, just energetically, but the same motion Dr. Mercier had recommended.

Through my work with Dr. D, I felt some major releases, and, at one point, like my whole body went light — illuminated — from my scar down and from my scar up — like a bright light moving in both directions from my middle. It was pretty intense, and pretty amazing. I left feeling much less emotional and testy and much more in a place of acceptance than when I walked in (even though I didn’t think any of my crabby mood had anything to do with my surgery four and a half years ago).

I have started reading Dr. Mercier’s book and am going to recommend it to anyone I know who is (or knows someone who is) dealing with infertility or cycle issues.

I promised myself I would not stay up late since I have to get up before sunrise to make it back to Reston for the birth panel at the Freedom for Family Wellness summit. But I also will focus better if I can at least share some pearls of wisdom from Mothering magazine editor Peggy O’Mara’s speech, which was something of a call for patience with oneself on one’s holistic journey. This was a good thing to hear for someone who recently wrote about it taking a while to get to a place of something approximating balance.

“Give yourself time,” she encouraged, adding that it takes courage to even consider change. It surprises me that I’d never thought about the word “encourage” as what it so obviously is — to give or impart courage. Somehow hearing Peggy talk about courage — especially since she won the Courage in Journalism award last year at the NVIC conference — makes you feel like you are doing something great just be sitting in her presence, by having come to a place to gain insight.

Do I, she wondered, have the courage to believe in a benign universe? “Expect things to work out,” she suggested. In some respects, I do have faith that things will evenentually (maybe even years later) come together, but with a lot of other things, I anticipate stress and challenge, which likely creates both.

As someone who keeps beating herself up for the way she’s not living, I appreciate — and reel from — Peggy’s comment that it’s “how you talk to yourself about the lapses” that counts, not the actual lapses themselves. She gave us questions to consider that would do me well to write about in a journal and would serve my parenting partnership well to discuss with my husband.  What do you believe about children? Do you believe there’s a legitimate reason for their behavior even if I don’t know what it is? What does “authentic life” mean to me? To us?

Early in her talk, Peggy referenced a 2000 Mothering article, “Finding Your Tribe”, and near her closing, she stated that community finds us; we attract it.  I have already been thinking about that lately in terms of what I wanted my chapter of Holistic Moms to be when I began it — a resource for the broader community — and what I’d like it to become now — a community. It will not become something on its own without the intention there.

I kept having to jiggle the baby, so I didn’t get everything down, but I’ll close with the final nugget on my notepad: “Vitality is about the unfolding of your own uniqueness.”

Reporting here on this exciting event I’m attending tonight and this weekend!

Wellness Summit to Address “Vitalism” and “Conscious Choice”

Parents are up against a lot of choices these days. Whether the question is about vaccinations or breastfeeding, co-sleeping or where and how to give birth, today’s buzzword is “informed choice.” As International Chiropractic Pediatric Association Executive Coordinator Jeanne Ohm, DC, laments, those decisions are often made in isolation rather than within a framework that would inform offer all perspectives and information.

“When we first found out about chiropractic 30 years ago,” Ohm explains, “we came to understand its underlying philosophy, and incidental choices became clear.” Once Ohm learned to appreciate the intelligence inherent within our bodies and the interconnectedness of all life, decisions turned from being solitary choices into easy connections, as in “Well of course we’re going to …” have a natural birth, for example. She and her husband weren’t caught debating small issues because their foundation was solid and clear. The larger paradigm that Ohm came to appreciate — and is now hoping to share with some 1000 practitioners and parents at the upcoming Freedom for Family Wellness Summit at the Reston Hyatt – is called “vitalism.”

Of the many speakers who will attend the conference, which opens Thursday evening and runs through Sunday afternoon, all are concerned, Ohm explains, with connecting to the individual’s vital force and allowing for its expression in all aspects of our lives. Dismissing the idea that our bodies are just a sum of their parts, Ohm explains, “There is some intelligence, some sort of organization or healing regeneration moving through us at all times.”  Chiropractors connect to that vital force through the nervous system; their language for connecting with the vitalistic paradigm is “above, down, inside, out.” All practitioners working from a vitalistic paradigm believe in each person’s innate potential and want to “do everything we can to let it express itself on all levels.”

Ohm is confident that we are collectively “approaching a shift in consciousness” in which people are becoming aware that all the choices they make are relevant to one another. Be those choices regarding lifestyle, politics, community, health, education, religion, or spirituality, Ohm says it’s the consciousness of our choices that counts.  No haphazard throwing medicines at symptoms for this crowd.

As a chiropractor, Ohm is particularly passionate about holistic health: “People are realizing there is not one stagnant system of healthcare but that there are multiple avenues for healing, for wellbeing, for education.” Not only are we not stuck in a box where we have to accept what we’re handed, but, Ohm emphasizes, it’s our right to have choice.

A main goal of the conference is to bring together like-minded practitioners, parents and organizations to form a critical mass. Having been asked to speak at numerous conferences around the country on specific topics, such as pregnancy, birth, and holistic family care, Ohm is both excited by the possibilities of connection and motivated to spread the word when she meets people who didn’t know such connections were possible.

When Ohm spoke recently at a conference of the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH), members of the organization were surprised to learn that chiropractors hold this philosophy about enabling the full expression of human potential. Ohm wants like-minded groups to talk to one another to collaborate and to get the word out to parents who, she hopes, will come to understand their options and to gain insight on how to keep their families healthy and well. “Parents understand this connectivity,” she says, and she wants them to see how operating from an appreciation of connectivity can inform – even simplify – their choices.

In an article on vaccines in the summer 2009 issue of Pathways to Family Wellness, Ohm, editor of the magazine, explains that fear is not a place from which to make sound decisions. Decisions based on a fearful, skewed perspective are “unproductive and unstable.” She advises parents to gather information about the decision at hand and then set it aside to “recognize the core of your own beliefs. Once you’ve identified these life principles, weigh your choices from this place of knowing.”

For Ohm and for the speakers at the upcoming summit, that place of knowing is the perspective of vitalism, “the confidence of an inherent intelligence that sustains our very existence.” Within this paradigm, everything is connected, and all choices flow from this core understanding.

Ohm is confident that the “shift to conscious choice,” as the summit tagline reads, is already in motion. “The momentum is there. It’s going to happen,” she asserts confidently. After this weekend’s conference, she hopes, participants will have their consciousness expanded, and their exposure to more modalities and approaches will round them out within this core vitalistic belief.

“Priorities” pops up as one of my most used tags because this blog is essentially about my trying to figure out what my priorities are and how to accommodate them when they seem to contradict one another. Or when one supposed priority gets bumped off its seat for something I don’t claim to care about but apparently do (or else I wouldn’t do it).

Where is my head these days?

Lately I’ve been thinking even more than usual about priorities. How my work to share information and make a difference in other people’s lives is really important to me, but that sometimes it takes precedence over my being very good at the relationships that are most immediate to me — to my husband, my children, and my friends and family. Those folks all kind of get the short end of the stick because I know they’ll take it. That’s not fair. That is not a choice made by someone who values her relationships and seriously wants them to be fabulous.

So I’m working on that.

I feel like this “think it through” message is coming at me from all perspectives. Last week, Diane MacEachern of the Big Green Purse spoke to my chapter of Holistic Moms Network and really got us thinking about what it means to be holistic and what we value as a means to shed light on what choices to make.

Last December, Carolyn Semedo and Suzanne Couming-Caldwell addressed our chapter and said essentially the same thing with respect not just to eco-friendly choices and budgeting priorities but to our family life, where so many of us feel out of balance. This might seem like a long time ago, but it’s been on my mind in part because I recently went to see Gloria Feldt with Carolyn (who is a work-life balance coach) and also because I have been thinking a lot about an introductory conversation I had with her almost two years ago about finding personal fulfillment and career success in one fell swoop.

The other day I had a conversation with chiropractor Jeanne Ohm about the ICPA Freedom for Family Wellness Summit that I’ll be going to later this week. (What a line-up of speakers!) She talked about making choices from a place of consciousness and a firm understanding of one’s goals and values. Once she understood the concept of vitalism — of the intelligence of the body and the desire to let it freely and fully express itself physically, emotionally, spiritually — it was clear to her that of course she’d want a homebirth, of course she’d want to attachment parent.

Today I met with a homeopath who was interested in not just my physical concerns or even acute mood issues but also with my overall approach to things and the ways I react and express my emotions. Nothing totally new came up; I just shared insights I’ve been working on for quite some time. But there is something about telling your story anew to someone that feels good and can get things working even before you’ve taken the remedy. (She needs to mail it to me for an LM dose of daily for six weeks, and she won’t tell me what it is until that time has passed so that I don’t go researching the heck out of it).

And then I talked to a good friend about all this thinking and, well, the meta layer keeps going and going as I type and Tweet.

Suffice it to say that, despite all the busy-ness of October and November and the ridiculousness of putting on a big birth options meeting when my daughter was six weeks old and other lapses in judgment (like staying up late right now), I feel like there is a personal shift coming. A shift toward acceptance, toward a paradigm that exalts beauty and love as much as it does the satisfaction of making a difference and the recognition for having done so.

This will not be a place without internet or busy days or self-questioning, but I do believe it will be a place of breath.

I remember the first time I got a message from the Bradley Method® of Natural Childbirth after my son’s c-section in 2006.

The subject heading — “The World Needs More Bradley® Instructors!” – didn’t exactly feel warm and fuzzy to my tender belly and the emotional guts beneath it.

But it was the contents of the message that just about ripped my heart in two:

“If The Bradley Method® helped you to have an unmedicated birth, perhaps you would like to become an Instructor? Space is limited! Sign-up now and become part of this exciting program to help more babies have a Happy Birth-Day!

The World Needs More Bradley® Instructors! What a Great way to help others and to help your family too!”

When you’re reeling from an unwanted c-section, a message like this is more than unwanted. It’s a slap in the face, a reminder of what you can’t do, what you can’t be.

Or that’s how I chose to see it, licking my wounds as I was.

I’ve gotten messages like this periodically for the last 4+ years. Now they start with “Thank you for contacting us in the past” or something that tells me I’ve made it onto the old mama list. Only just now did I feel like I could unsubscribe myself from the list, now that I have had a successful homebirth after cesarean (HBAC, or home VBAC).

Before, it felt like tempting the fates. “Well, maybe someday I might want to do that,” I thought. If I deleted myself, it seemed like I’d be saying I didn’t believe I could give birth naturally.

But now I know I can. I did. I regret spending so much of my energy while pregnant doubting myself and my body. I know it was part of a journey I had to take, but I wish I could have just enjoyed the pregnancy. Inhabited it.

I put on this Mommy Goddess tank top for sleeping and had the baby the next morning!

Our new family of four

And while I think most everyone should take the Bradley Method before having their first baby, and while I got a lot out of attending a “Belly Talk” led by a Bradley teacher about 8 weeks before I gave birth, I know I needed more. And different.

I didn’t use much of the Hypnobirthing techniques in labor, but I needed to have refreshed the training and have relaxed to the CDS.

I needed to have done some Emotional Freedom Technique to let go of some of my fears and anxieties and do to work through my thoughts on birth, to imagine a visual representation of the birth I wanted and the birth I didn’t want.

And then I needed Birthing from Within to take those insights further and put them on the page, in art, and into discussion with my partner.

Making belly cast as part of Birthing from Within private class

Painted belly cast

Day of motherblessing after having my belly painted, having a birth necklace strung for me and having a yarn bracelet woven through my circle of friends

There was art and love with motherblessings (with belly henna and beads), and bellydancing, and yoga, and a Mommy Goddess tank top, and I could go on about other help and healing modalities, but the point is: It took a village to have a VBAC. I drew probably a lot more than I realize on what I learned in Bradley, but I am not a one-approach kind of gal. Not for birth prep, not for bodywork or healthcare, not for nuthin’.

So goodbye, Bradley list. I wish you well, and I will speak highly of your owners. But I’m on my own path.

Make that paths.

I have an essay called “The First Time Around” in an anthology that is coming out soon, From the Heart: A Collection of Stories and Poems from the Front Lines of Parenting. It compares my first year mothering to my first year teaching high school and explores the desire for a do-over, to fix all the mistakes you made the first time around.

So now I am a week and two days into parenting a second child and feel compelled to document this slice of now with a Venn diagram. Alas, I don’t know how to do that on Wordpress and have only so many (how many is never something I can predict) minutes until I will be called to nurse again, plus writing lying down is not the most comfortable thing. So I’m just going to make some lists. Please excuse the lack of parallel structure.

We’ll start with that thing about positions by giving a shout out to the few things that I look back on fondly from my first weeks after my son was born in 2006 via c-section (for a breech position and short cord that prevented him from dropping).

Positives about baby #1’s first weeks

• I could sit. Seriously. A c-section hurts a whole lot, but once you’re upright, you’re cool. I cannot wait to sit without pillows delicately arranged or frozen peas in my underwear.

• I had only one child. There was no monstrous four-year-old lurching around, slamming into his parents, kissing the baby ad nauseum, or needing to be taken to the park to preserve family sanity.

• My husband did everything. I don’t think I changed a diaper for two weeks. (See above that we didn’t have another child to take care of).
  

Similarities across both experiences

• I still have trouble sitting up from lying down and getting up to stand from sitting. It doesn’t hurt in my gut like it did when I was cut open, but the truth is I have no abdominal muscles now anyway, and it does hurt my bottom to switch positions.

• I love looking at my baby.

• Every day is a bad hair day.

Positives about baby #2’s first weeks

• At home! Sunshine instead of yucky florescent light, no strangers waking you up to poke at your progeny, no separation from the baby for hearing tests, no people bringing me (who is gluten-free and dairy-free) a cheeseburger the day after abdominal surgery and the next day, when I begged for something I could eat, telling me, “It’s hard to accommodate special diets.” In the hospital?

• No drug hangovers!

• Milk coming in right away! And like gangbusters! What a concept! After three years of nursing my son, I found out there was still a lot I didn’t know about breastfeeding! But apparently I do know how to get a baby to latch well in any position. No trips to the lactation consultant this time, at least not in the first week.

• A calm baby who seems comfortable in her own skin. Maybe just her temperament, but maybe from coming on her own terms or helped out by the flower essences I took during labor and gave her right after or the essential oils we used. I’m sure actually getting nourishment helps, too.

• Friends helping out — with food, with support, with childcare. And a whole lot of baby clothes.

• Having something of a clue as to what I’m doing and a lot less anxiety about what I’m doing wrong.

• Having a little boy who looks adoringly upon his mother and sister (with a head that seems a lot bigger than it did two weeks ago) and says sweetly, “It’s nice having a new baby.”

One of the easiest things to do to stay – or get – healthy in the winter is to make your own chicken stock, or bone broth. Some people like to claim that healthy eating costs a lot of money, but broth is something you can make from the bones of a chicken you already ate, plus some apple cider vinegar and veggies (see recipe below).

The result is a protein-rich and mineral-rich healing liquid that can be drunk on its own as a tonic for upset tummies, as a base for soups, or as an addition to a stir-fry or any kind of cooking of veggies. If you make your own baby food, use stock instead of water to add fat, which will help your child absorb any vitamins & minerals in the veggies (and the stock adds nutrients and protein of its own).

Our house is gluten-free by necessity, but I also avoid processed rice pasta most of the time preferring to cook whole grains like brown rice and millet in broth. It’s so much tastier and healthful. And, often, cheaper!

I recently attended another great cooking class with whole food chef and holistic health educator Monica Corrado of Simply Being Well. If you’ve never made stock before, watching it done in person might be a good motivator to get on the homemade bandwagon. It’s instructive to see the process done in person, and learning in a community is fun and rewarding.

But if you’ve got a carcass just about picked clean and you’re ready to go, here is the simple recipe to get you started.

It’s best to have two chicken carcasses or one carcass and a bunch of wing bones (or other bones if you can get them from your farmer or butcher). If you have only one carcass, you might cut the recipe in half to avoid a weak broth. It’s fine to store one carcass in the freezer until you have a second ready.

Starting ingredients:

• 4 quarts (filtered) water
• 2 Tablespoons raw, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar (or another kind of vinegar if necessary, the milder the better. Try rice vinegar before grain vinegar. I don’t think balsamic works for this purpose).
• Chicken* bones (two carcasses if available)

* Use good quality chickens that have been bred on pasture. Organic or “pastured” from a farmer you trust is best. Be sure at a minimum that they are hormone & antibiotic-free. Organic chickens at the store might be pricey, but you can get them directly from farmers at markets or through co-ops for $3.00/lb.

Step 1:

Mix the above in a stock pot.

Step 2:

Let sit for 30-60 minutes at room temperature.

During this time, the vinegar is pulling out the calcium and other minerals from the bones. It might help if you’ve cut up or snapped some of the bones.

Step 3:

While the water/vinegar/bones sit, cut up one onion, three celery stalks and two carrots. Big pieces are fine.

Note: celery and carrots are both on the “dirty dozen” list, meaning they are among one of the foods it’s most important to eat organic.

Step 4:

Add the veggies to the pot and put on heat to a boil.

Step 5:

When the pot starts to boil, try to skim off anything that looks like scum – tiny particles and bubbles that are impurities. If you don’t do this, life will go on, but you’ll notice that your final product will look not so pure.

Step 6:

After skimming, lower the temp of the pot to a low simmer. The top of the stock-in-progress should be relatively still while there is rolling going on under the surface. Cover for the remainder of the cooking.

Step 7 (aka “Wait”)

Let this roll (covered) as long as possible – no fewer than 6 hours. The closer you can get to 24 hours, the better. The flavor will be rich, and it will be a wonderful healing food full of gelatin. You can turn it off if you go to work or to bed and leave it on the stove to bring back to a boil hours later. Skim the scum each time you bring it back up to a boil, and then turn the heat back down each time.

Step 8:

When you’re ready to call it quits, put a bunch of parsley in for last 10 minutes for an extra wallop of minerals (and flavor).

Step 9:

Now you’re ready to strain the stock into a big bowl (using a mesh strainer and going slowly so your bones and veggies don’t fall in).

Any remaining meat and the veggies have all been stripped of their nutritional value by now. Toss them out or feed the meat to the cat.

If you did a short run of this stock, you might save the bones for a second use.

Step 10:

Let the stock cool some before you ladle it into jars for storage. Whether you cool it in a bowl or in smaller containers, it’s nice to let the stock completely cool in the fridge before you use it so you can take off the top layer of fat if you wish and so that you can see how solidly the stock “set up” – how gelled it got.

Don’t put warm stock in the fridge; it will just warm up your fridge! Let it sit out and get to room temperature first.

Future use:

If you don’t plan to use the stock right away, you can store in Mason jars (be sure to leave at least an inch at the top so they don’t burst in the freezer) or freeze in cube trays for small uses here and there. Stock keeps in the fridge for a few days; use your nose, but I’d feel very comfortable with 3-4 days, and some folks would go up to a week. Bringing to a boil again is a good idea.

Enjoy this wonderful, delicious healing food that is far superior to anything you could get in a box or can!

For more on this and other traditional foods, see Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions and the Weston A. Price Foundation.