Update on the Life:

Super ramble:

I got pregnant during my RYT with Buti Yoga....it was crazy, and I totally freaked out the last weekend. I did awesome on my demos, but failed the musculature system portion of the test. At the time, I was also living at a CAMPSITE in Massachusetts with my 3 year old, 1 year old, a few months after moving from Hawaii to Maine, and then Maine to Masschusetts!! Damn, I guess something had to give. I didn't do any more Buti after that, what with the morning sickness and basically preoccupied with traveling and moving. I was even in Texas for a month and a half! I think we're in our more permanent home now, though, in western Washington. Anyway, I miss Buti Yoga - at first I was missing the movements, and the surrender, but now I am missing the fucking badass female empowerment that I felt. I feel like pregnancy has a tendency to take me down a few pegs and challenge my self-image to the extreme - I become vulnerable. But in that vulnerability, I see strength too...the strength to get through. The strength to let go. In my reflections, I find myself thinking A LOT about the Ring of Fire that you go through with birth...you literally have to go through it, as though into it, whole-heartedly, so that your baby can come out. That moment is so extreme. All of life strains to deliver life. I haven't forgotten how extreme it felt...that Ring of Fire, that opening, that yearning to push a human life into the world. The wild frantic pain of it...crazy crazy crazy pain. Everything stops as the Ring approaches. You can't avoid it anymore. You have to go through the pain, into the fire...into the churning heat of a primordial soup. The lava of human existence, gushing through your veins, drowning you in agony, in search of release, the burning, burning, burning. You're dissolved in the desperate fire of a raging portal to the Life Beyond, and you know you probably won't ever come back the same. .

I remember giving birth, and I think about it...and it helps prepare me. I am entering the stage of pregnancy where you start to feel a bit more isolated. I'm turning to a spiritual practice of ritual to help me through. There is strength in being vulnerable, in releasing yourself, to keep focusing on that release...in daily behavior and practice. I can keep evolving and keep changing to honor the needs of my soul. It's been a wild year. In fact the past 2 years, starting with Seraphina's birth, have been a series of RAPID changes in our lives. But I think we have flowed with it all pretty well, all things considered. And we've learned A LOT along the way...

Finding my CORE again.

Well, this is exciting.

I've been doing yoga lately.  It's been excruciating because I'm so out of practice.  I seriously have to psych myself into doing it hours before it actually happens.  Everything has to be perfect.  My mat must be freshly clean and I must have a spacious quiet area to do it in.  Seraphina must be recently fed and content and Caspian sleeping soundly. 

So I've been getting back into practicing for just over two weeks now.  Off and on...I'd do it one night and then skip like 4 days, then do it again.  Always short sessions...no longer then 25 minutes, except for the one time I did it for an hour at a studio.  Today is my 3rd day in a row on my own to do yoga...and I'm thrilled to say that it's starting to feel GOOD now, and exciting, instead of just plain tiring.  I did about 60 minutes of yoga tonight and it was effective. 

Yoga is another one of those things that I do at night when the kids are sleeping.  I hurt my foot last week so running (though I did push through the pain a few times, just because I'm dumb like that) is out of the question.  But YOGA...wow.  YOGA is becoming more awesome by the day.  I'm starting to FEEL my body in a way I haven't truly felt it, in a long long time.  Tonight especially was the first time in ages I actually made METAPHYSICAL CONNECTION with my CORE.

After a recent baby, this is great news and very exciting.  It reminds me of how thrilling it is to feel capable, balanced and poised in a muscular and graceful yoga body. 

I love having something to work towards in a physical sense.  Your body is your most important fashion accessory.  I can wear pretty clothes and makeup, but if my body isn't being actively worked on, I just don't think I look good.  However, even a short workout or yoga session every day is enough to lift my spirits and make me feel at peace with how I look as a 31 year old mom of 2.

CONFESSION:  I feel like during Seraphina's pregnancy, I REALLY dropped the ball.  I was doing pretty good with exercise and diet until I had a bout of unexplained spotting (blood) at 21 weeks pregnant.  It brought back memories of miscarriage experiences in 2013.   Needless to say I became terrified and extremely anxiety ridden.  I started feeling really sick again and nauseous.  I was afraid to work out, really, and I had people telling me that I should just sit around and gestate and eat what I want, due to the spotting.

I REGRET TAKING THAT ADVICE EVERYDAY, in the post partum period.

YES, I was pushing my exercise too hard while pregnant.  100's of squats and lunges, plus weight lifting and biking, a day.  But just giving into fear and stopping all exercise completely (for the most part) was really really not a good idea.  I regret listening to all those people who also made me feel even more anxious.  I went from being reasonably fit to completely sedentary, pretty much overnight, thanks to the fear of the unknown spotting.  The reason for the spotting was never discovered.  It was a very hard time during my pregnancy.  Hindsight is: I should have at least kept up walking and yoga.  And for GODS SAKE I should have kept my standards for food really really high.  I really slacked off, especially in the third trimester.

Well, I'm about 2 months post partum and in SHOCK at what just a few months of not sticking to my exercise and diet standards while pregnant has done to my body.  I seriously wonder WTF happened.   Transparency: I started pregnancy at 130 pounds exactly, fit as a fiddle with a tight bod, and I'm 163 right now and pretty flabby.  I'm working HARD to get my body back...as hard as I can at 2 months post partum recovering from a sedentary time of life.

Anyway I've learned A LOT from that pregnancy experience. Notes for next time:  NEVER listen to ANYONE who tells you not to work out and instead says you should sit on your ass while pregnant.  You can at least walk and do some yoga.  NEVER listen to ANYONE who tells you to eat whatever you want while pregnant.   It is 5x harder to take the weight off later then it is to put it on...keep your food standards HIGH, even if you don't feel like it. 

The thing about my body is that I have European bloodlines.  I'm Scottish and Welsh and my body WANTS to be round, especially with the hormones of pregnancy and breastfeeding.  I'm not a woman who shrinks and loses lots of weight due to breastfeeding.   I'm breastfeeding two kids right now, and it hasn't done crap for weightloss.  What HAS seemed to help is regular consistent and intense periods of exercise and a super duper clean and careful diet.  My entire adult life has been like this, even pre-pregnancy.  I'm not a girl who can eat whatever and be thin.  Nope.  If I want to be slim and fit, I have to WORK AT IT.  It takes a lot of discipline. I have to make clean and healthy eating and consistent exercise a daily priority, in order to achieve the results that I want.

I think it's like that for most people.  A great muscular and fit body won't just fall out of the sky.  You have to make time in your life for it. 

Anyway...YOGA has been nice to add into my workout routine.  I can feel my core activating, my hips loosening, and my entire body being restored to a sense of balance...

And because babies are still sleeping and I still have some time to myself tonight before I need to tidy up the house, I'm going to do some weight training.  :-D  Right now. 

"I won't stop when I'm tired, I'll stop when I'm DONE." 

The More the Merrier.

I'll just come out and say it:  I want a big family.  I was the oldest of five, and it feels natural to want the same.  My mom and dad parented in a much different way then I do, and we had some rough times as I was growing up (I really started clashing with my family when I was a teenager) but overall, now that I'm an adult and a parent myself I really think it's cool I have so many siblings and I appreciate the fact that my mom gave me so many.  I love how in a big family there is ALWAYS something going on!  There is NEVER a dull moment and that's what I love about it.  There is always loads of energy and excitement in a larger family.   I sort of miss that.  And god forbid, when my parents pass on, it will be great to have my brothers around still. 

I absolutely love my two children and feel SO blessed.  But I can't help but feel like there are "people missing" or something...when we're all chilling out in the living room together it doesn't feel "crazy enough," like there are important energetic components missing, like there are supposed to be more people.  And sometimes I "sense" the energy of these unborn beings circulating around and I feel that more babies want to be born into our family.

Sometimes I don't know if it will be a good idea to keep having kids...Seraphina's pregnancy was HARD.  But now that she's here, I understand that I don't have to love or enjoy pregnancy to go through it and make a beautiful child...the part that I LOVE, is the labor part, and the baby part, and the raising the child part.  I feel this strong strong urge to keep having children, keep making babies, as long as I can, as fast as I can.  It could be instinct, it could be biology.  But I know I'm a good mom and I feel like I would love to be blessed with more children.  As long as I feel like I could adequately provide for their needs and care for them the way they deserve.

I asked Caspian if he wanted me to have more babies and he looked at me with bright wide eyes and said an enthusiastic, "YEAH!"  He just loves them.   He adores his sister more then I ever thought he would and is such a great older brother.  His astrology is Pisces sun, Aries moon and Cancer rising...I feel like he is formulated well by the stars to enjoy being the oldest of a big family. 

Sure sometimes there are hard days as a mom.  But you know what I figured out?  You  have hard days as a mom whether you have one child, or two children, or five children!  Being a mom in general, regardless of family size, is just HARD sometimes.  But that's definitely not deterring me from considering several more children.  The joy and the satisfaction outweigh all of that.  I would love to have six kids total...I think that would be just perfect. (Eros says four is his max...we'll see...haha)  Obviously I got a late start compared to a lot of women.  I had my first child at 29, second child at 31.    I originally thought I didn't want to have any more babies beyond age 35, but I think I'd like to spend my 30's having kids.  It feels like now is the time for that sort of thing.

Also we are a family who is obsessed with living sustainably and in harmony with the Earth.  So we have wondered if having more kids would be a drain on the environment.  But I don't think it will be as long as we keep focusing on a sustainable lifestyle...the house we are planning to build will be on solar power, well water, and we will do our best on growing and procuring our own food.  Our dream is to have a farm with fruit trees, vegetable gardens, root cellars, goats and chickens.   We feel the allure of living a simple lifestyle living off the land and our own resources, using natural materials in building and recycling everything we can to spare the planet.  I feel like this sort of lifestyle accommodates a large family well. 

In my 20's, pre-motherhood, when I was enjoying the perks of being self-serving, free and partying, taking LSD and other psychedelics on a regular basis and smoking loads of weed, I never in my WILDEST dreams thought I would one day desire to have a large family.  I thought for SURE I would never have kids.  I didn't want them, had no drive for any kids at all.  I never wanted to be a mom in the slightest.  Until I came to Hawaii and I met a lot of beautiful, goddess-like mothers who nonetheless were still themselves.  It was inspiring to me.  Moms who were exotic dancers, moms who were spiritualists engaging in ceremony, moms who hula hooped with rings of fire.  I realized that life didn't stop when you became a mom.  I started to recognize that for a lot of women, that's when life actually began...

Understanding that I didn't have to be a "conventional mother" to be a good mom, was a world-moving realization for me.  I could still be my weird, quirky, and often wild self, and ALSO be a good mom.  I didn't have to "lose myself" to be a mom...I instead could FIND myself as a mother. 

The Big Island of Hawaii worked its magic upon me and my partner...we suddenly felt like we would try to have a baby.  It felt like it was "time."  I spoke my intentions at a Goddess Women's Circle one night at Cinderland ecovillage.  In witness of my spiritual sisters, I articulated that I had found a heart-desire to be a mom.  The next month I was pregnant! 

When Caspian was born, it was like lightning struck me.  It was like ALL MY LIFE I'd been searching for this experience, but not knowing it's what I wanted and needed to feel complete.  Once my son arrived, I just loved motherhood, I loved the sense of purpose it gave me, and I loved how I always had something to do.   I loved loving my son, more love then I ever dreamed of.  And I started to want more children when he was around 9 months old.  Due o some health issues, it took more then a year to conceive our next baby...our darling Seraphina.  She was so worth the wait for me to get healthy first.  I am just in awe with love and gratitude for her. 

My health issues are resolved and I am probably healthier now, nutritionally speaking, then I've been in years.   After Seraphina was born and I held her in my arms, that's when I knew, in my bones, in my uterus, in my cells:  "I want way way more of these."   This time around I started feeling broody almost immediately after the baby left my body.  I don't know why, but it is a physical yearning to keep building my family.  I want Caspian and Seraphina to be close in age with their unborn siblings.  With my health being so good now and with me feeling so on top of everything, I really don't want to wait long to start trying again for #3. 

I want to give my children the lifelong connections and wild excitement of a big family, like I had.  

So we'll see what happens.  I would be pregnant again already if I had my way, but Seraphina needs to grow more first.  She's so new still!  I know people might think I'm crazy to desire pregnancy again with a newborn!   But it is what it is and I am who I am, and I feel like I am suited to having little ones close in age.   I feel like I understand sacrifice, and the temporary nature of these precious early years.  I feel like I have developed enough patience and tolerance to enjoy having more little ones running around.    But I know I can't get pregnant again just yet.  Pregnancy hormones can take your milk supply away and I don't want to do that to my little baby.   But as soon as I feel like she's ready (probably when she starts eating solid food) I think we'll revisit the idea of #3...

In the meantime I'll keep giving endless thanks and gratitude for these precious blessings.  <3 

Changing me, from the outside in, inside out.

It's metamorphosis time.  

I need to feel like I can change.

This is a time of wild transformation.  I'm just going with it.  

So much is different, and I'm getting my bearings.  

I know SO MUCH needs to change.  My appearance is changing by the day...not only due to the pregnancy, but there have also been cosmetic changes as well.  I feel more and more drawn to body modification, in the form of dreadlocks, gauged ears and new piercings.  I'm letting myself go in a way I never have before.  I just want to do what I want.  Seeing changes to my physical appearance (other then the big belly) appeals to me greatly.  I'm drawn to creating myself as I need to be.  It doesn't feel entirely conscious.  A lot of these cosmetic decisions are intuitive, instinctive.  I just want to adorn myself the way I want, and screw all convention.  Changing my look is what's helping me continue to feel attractive, despite starting to get heavily pregnant.  

I can't tell you how much more beautiful I feel in pregnancy, when I dread a piece of hair, or gauge my ears more, or put on some lipstick and a pretty outfit.  Life is 10x better in pregnancy, when I shift my appearance somehow.  I have experienced being completely sick, rundown and depressed, and a simple change in clothes like a slinky sundress, a super comfy and gorgeously colored harem outfit, and tie-dye yoga pants can revolutionize my energy and make me feel so activated and confident.  With this pregnancy, I have to keep mixing stuff up.  In fact that's been the theme of the entire experience so far.  Gotta keep shifting around.  

This period of dramatic change is indicated in my decision to amplify the storyline to my novel, turn it inside out, and make the premise galactic in scale.  I finally came to an understanding of what I need to do, in order to keep the story flowing.  It has felt like it hasn't been getting enough oxygen or something.  I needed to change a crucial piece of the world design, and completely change a perspective from a very important vantage point.  It's become paramount now that I go along with these changes, even though they are grand.  It can't be all about the biosphere.  It just can't be.  It's also about multi-galactic civilizations.  It's about the connection to Old Humanity, and where the future of our species is heading.  Most of all...it has to be a good story.  Which requires me to open up, let go, and literally think outside the box.  It's a big deal.  It means things are going to start happening again, pretty fast...my first book has just gotten a jolt of revitalizing energy.  

Pregnancy-wise...I am getting bigger and bigger.   I forgot how impressive a preggo belly can get in the last trimester.  My baby is a pretty fierce mover lately.  It literally feels like he/she is trying to break out of my belly at times.  The baby is breech, so hopefully it will turn soon.  My midwife said that the baby so active is a sign that he/she is trying to move head down.  Having a breech baby (head in stomach) has meant a return of sickness and upset tummy.  Hunger is periodic...I am starting to feel starving...but unable to fit much in my belly with a big head smashed into it and constant nausea.  Roxanne (midwife) says that when the baby turns, I'll have more space and less pressure for my stomach again.  But I'll probably get kicks in my ribs as the trade off. She's sure the baby will move head down soon.  I hope so.

In the meantime, I will just keep growing and changing.  Embracing the wild metamorphosis.  

28 weeks pregnant: powering UP

Time is starting to fly by, and I am feeling increasingly confident.  Confident in my upcoming labor and birth experience, and confident in my ability to mother two children.

I am starting to feel like a real badass.  I have embraced my pregnant body and I feel great about my appearance.   I feel beautiful and strong.  This time around, I am really enjoying this belly of mine.  It's so round!

Sure it gives me back pain.  Sure I get achy and sore.  But overall...I am liking this belly of mine a lot lately.  It's huge!

I honestly think the 3rd trimester is my favorite part of pregnancy.  The bump is obvious, pregnancy is in full swing, yet the end of the whole experience is in sight.  That makes it more fun.  This encourages me to enjoy every moment more.  I never got swollen feet with my son so I don't know if I will this time.  But overall it's a precious time.  The baby is so big now I can feel every movement.  Some of them are very uncomfortable, but overall...it lets me know that my baby is healthy and active so I like it.  I'm still having days where I feel sick too, but it's sort of become the norm...so I just continue on.

I'm just starting to feel so empowered...I have so much energy flowing through me some days...like I can move any mountain.

I never felt like this towards the end of Caspian's pregnancy.  I wasn't as empowered or focused.  I just got through it.  This time though...I feel like I am making the best of it.  I feel so amazing.  My whole psychic body feels like I have a host of exotic warrior women inside of me or something.

Trust

I'm gonna have a baby I'm gonna have a baby I'm gonna have a baby
I know it know it know it!!

I just FEEL IT.... I am COMPLETELY trusting my intuition this time that everything is okay.  It's an experiment, that's for sure!  I don't know what the final outcome will be.  But I just FEEL that all is well!  I feel so relaxed and at peace.  There are moments I feel more calm then I have in years.

It continues.

I'm 11 weeks and still feeling nauseous, especially after eating!  

I'm feeling pretty good right now because Eros arranged for me to have 25 hours to myself at a spa.  :)  So lovely.  

Tailspin.

I'm over 10 weeks pregnant and feeling so depressed.  I wanted this baby so so bad but feeling drained and ill from hormones in conjunction with caring for my 2 year old and seeing Eros through university is almost too much.  I don't feel supported or loved by existence at all.   I don't know who I am anymore.  I'm anti-social but also super needy.  I don't want to live in Hawaii anymore but don't know where to go because I feel like nobody loves me and that there is no place for me in the world.  

I need to reframe and rally and redirect myself somehow but nobody can give me any advice on this because most people just don't care and even if they did care they do not understand my situation.  What a cold cruel world we live in and at this point I'm wondering if I even want to be a part of it anymore.

Going Inside. Staying Calm.

Now is a time to go inside.

I feel disconnected from everything, and everyone, except what's going on inside of me.  This inner body awareness feels sharper and more "activated" then its ever been.  We'll see how it goes in the long-run, I guess.

I'm still pregnant, 3rd time in 2013 (first time in 2014).  I will be 8 weeks tomorrow.  I'm coming up on the time when my first baby of 2013 stopped growing and died.  I didn't find out until nearly 11 weeks, at an ultrasound.  And then I had to convince my body to miscarry the dead fetus, using herbs.

But this pregnancy is different.  I FEEL very pregnant.  I feel like something major is going on in my body right now.  The baby at this point is the size of a blueberry.  It's hardly a blip on an ultrasound.  But it has form. Its existence reorders the female body systems to accommodate it.  This can be a very overwhelming experience for women who are very sensitive to the hormones involved.

I've been feeling pretty yucky lately.   Like, seriously gross, and run down, like I have the flu or something.   Throwing up here and there.   Feeling tired a lot, just wiped out, no matter how much sleep I get.  Feeling my body begin to swell in strange but familiar ways.  It's a HUGE change now, compared to the life I had just a few weeks ago, being so active and ferocious.  Now I seriously don't recognize who I am right now.  It's an odd feeling, and it lets me know that my body is housing another soul other then my own.

I think this baby wants to be born.  I think this baby is a tough one, a fighter.  I just feel it.  It's gonna be a Leo, born in August.  The Lion.  And in Chinese astrology, it will be a fire horse.  I'm feeling it.  I'm feeling like this is going to happen.  I got tired of all the other souls who didn't want to be born.  I asked the universe for a tough cookie.  Someone who could handle this difficult world we live in.

Sometimes there's nothing much in the womb.  That's what my second miscarriage of 2013 was like.  I don't know why these things happened to me, why these pregnancies failed.  I think it could be a genetic issue...but I think lack of certain of vitamins can cause a less the perfect expression of the genetic configuration.  This is what I think happened.  It's just a theory.  I think changing my diet and making sure I'm hardcore regulated on taking all the right vitamins, probably made a difference. Particularly if I was low in something before, like Vitamin A.

Now I'm pregnant again.  It's felt different from the beginning.   I have faith everything is okay.  I've got to.   Well I just FEEL IT...I feel a life force inside of me.  It's very detectable at this point, let me tell you.  After you've been pregnant a few times, had one and lost one (or two), you know more about what you're looking for in what you feel.  Anyway, I've been doing a TON of inner work on myself this year due to the miscarriages, and really started focusing on the health of my body in a new way.  Eros too, has been supplementing, taking his vitamins and focused on being healthy in a balanced way.  I think the results have only been positive.  And I see this pregnancy as proof of that.

But we'll see.  I have an ultrasound on January 20th.  I don't feel afraid though.  I just feel calm and relaxed.

Pregnant for real.

Pregnant.  5 weeks, 4 days.  I'm optimistic about it tonight.  I FEEL IT a lot more this time.  I had a super strong pregnancy test, and could just tell from the beginning that this was a good one.   I'm doing everything I can to help the process along.  Taking my fermented cod liver oil, butter oil, prenatal vitamins, magnesium, omega 3's and b12.   I'm using my progesterone oil made from yams on my skin, 2x a day.  I'm continuing to take chaseberry (Vitex), to keep my hormones balancing throughout pregnancy.  (I've heard it can prevent miscarriage)   I'm being uber strict with my diet, not allowing myself any processed food or gluten for ANY REASON.  Yet I'm listening to my body.  If it's tired, I rest. If it says energy, I work out.    I am strictly regimented right now and I enjoy it.  I enjoy knowing I'm doing EVERYTHING POSSIBLE on my end, based on all my research.  Also I'm keeping my stress levels down low.  And daring to be optimistic, to BELIEVE that this is happening.

So like I said, I just FEEL IT a lot more.   I feel it in my body a lot more this time.  I feel like this was a strong egg.  I think it's gonna make it.  I knew only the strong survive.  I have to trust Nature.  I am trusting MOTHER NATURE here.  This is the most powerful experience I've ever engaged in.  Well...one of them, anyway.   It's going to be a Leo.  At least, I'm pretty sure it will be.  (August 16..and I feel likely to go early because Caspian was early)

I think this is #2.   Time will tell.  But I just...FEEL IT.

Pregnant again...3rd time is the charm?

I hope so.

When the Womb becomes a Tomb.

It's now been exactly one month since my last miscarriage.  

I'm not sure how to feel a lot of times.  Most times, I stay busy and focus on other things.  I excel at keeping myself busy lately, as I am a mother to a toddler, writing a book and spend a lot of time educating myself about health and fitness.  Yet there are times when the grief creeps up on me.  Like an emotional wave that crests and falls.  

This is my second miscarriage this year.  Only 2% of women go on to miscarry twice in a row.  I often ask myself...how did I get so "lucky?"  

...and should I talk about it?  

On January 2nd, 2013, Eros and I discovered we were expecting our second child.  We were ecstatic, as we had wanted very much to add another child to our family, having had such a blissful and lovely experience with our son.  

I miscarried that pregnancy when I was almost in the second trimester.   After we'd already told a lot of our family and friends.  It was disgusting, the way it felt at the doctor's office, when I learned my baby had no heartbeat...and I had to walk through the lobby to another room, fighting tears with my bad news, wading through all the pregnant women who had been luckier then I was to keep their pregnancies.  

It was even more grotesque when I decided I had to wait for my body to miscarry naturally on its own.   For more then a week I existed in a surreal state of being.  I had a dead baby inside of me and yet I had to keep living.  It was so fucking weird and unnatural.   

When the miscarriage finally happened, it was like a labor.  I had contractions, gushing blood and finally, a little baby came out.  I could hold it in my hand.  

What was worse was telling everyone what happened and hearing all the terrible responses.  I heard horrible, horrible things in response to my pregnany loss...meaningless platitudes meant to console me, or guilt me out of my grief, or try to push me to a place of acceptance before I was ready.  I heard people say so many heartless, cruel things, in the guise of trying to "help" me.  It was then I realized nobody fucking understood what I was going through.  Nobody.  What hurt the most was people acting like my grief didn't count because I already had a beautiful, living child.  How fucking heartless and cruel can you get.  I love the child I have and was grieving the child I lost.   It still hurt just as bad.  I HAD JUST LOST A CHILD.   It still fucking pisses me off when I think about it.  

I've experienced a lot of death in my life, but nothing devestated me like that loss.  For weeks after it was like I lived a half-life.   I did get a lot of solace from my son.  He kept me busy.   But I was still grieving.  My pain was simply getting quieter, and buried deeper.  I didn't want to think of it anymore.  So I didn't.  Even though I felt so depressed.  

  I stayed busy, and got more work done on my novel then ever before.   I started thinking that if I couldn't have a baby belly, I wanted to have a six pack and be ridiculously fit.  I distracted myself over and over again.  And the grief slowly started to fade.  It only presented itself again when I encountered a pregnant woman.  I would eye her baby belly enviously, wondering why.  Why did this happen to me.  I reviewed every decision I'd ever made over the past decade.  I felt lost, but also determined.  I would try again.  

I had one chemical pregnancy, and then got pregnant again about 7 months later.  That pregnancy didn't last long either.  

Which is where I find myself now.  One month later.  

I am doing okay.  I really am.  I am simply riding the wave.    I am allowing myself to shoot off into the stratosphere.  I'm ferociously determined about everything and anything now.  I have so much power behind my life due to these miscarriages it's insane.  So maybe that's the mixed blessing of it all.  The grief has transmuted into a sense of willpower so profound that I know now that NOTHING and NOBODY will stop me from doing ANYTHING.   I have no fear anymore about anything.  I have been broken down into little pieces of shattered soul.    It's a private thing, for the most part.   So few people understand the depth of the losses that I think it's pointless to talk further about it.  It is what it is.   Yet I still feel the loss, vividly.  I STILL DO, and even if I seem to be doing amazing, my victorious incredible life is fueled by what happened when death visited my womb.  And I don't really want to talk about it, day to day.  I still feel pangs.  I still feel upset about it.  I still feel bitter, and angry.  But sometimes, I write about it.  Sometimes I just have to express the grief empowering me, even just a little bit.  

Don't worry about me.  I'm a fighter.  I'm going to keep going, keep pushing, keep thriving.  Keep searching for answers.  And I believe I've found some.  I believe I know why these miscarriages happened to me and I think I am correcting the problem.  I might write more on that at a later time.  

But it's still sad.  

The only thing I can do is use these experiences in a productive way and be stronger and engage life more intensely then I have before.   

Becoming a Warrior despite the sadness and loneliness inside.

It's hard to know what to say, as I already regret putting my "personal life" in this blog.  But it is what it is, and I swore when this blog began that I wouldn't delete anything.

I am feeling very different then a lot of people and like most folks don't understand me at all.  The experiences the past year have changed me irreversibly.  I am thankful for these changes, as I feel like I have become a better person inside.  At the same time, I HAVE changed, and it's truly like nobody gets me now.  I continue my life with solid determination, unwavering focus and drive, and a sadness inside.  The sadness never really goes away.  I guess it is just part of me now.  The important thing is that I stay determined and NEVER GIVE UP.  That is the most important thing I can do for myself in life.

I am a mother, but I am also a writer.  I am also someone deeply interested in health and how it relates to food consumption.  I am also into fitness and exercise, and wanting a powerful yet beautiful body.  Balancing it all is challenging for me.  Motherhood is the main game right now, but writing my novels is a close second.  And to make this engine work properly, it has to be given the appropriate fuel.  Sadly the fuel I was giving myself for years thinking I was doing the best thing for myself (a whole foods mostly raw vegan diet) ended up really screwing up my entire body.

Miscarriage after miscarriage, hair falling out, horrible skin problems, tooth problems.  My health was failing and fast.  Thank god for my body protecting me by miscarrying my last baby, otherwise I never would have broken through to the realization that my diet wasn't working for me anymore.   It's sad to say but I am thankful that I lost that baby, because if I hadn't I would not have had the motivation to change my ways and my health would have just continued to decline.

I'm on a good healthy path now though, and am getting stronger each and every day.  I am eating a high-plant paleo diet...I eat animals now and feel 100% okay with this.  My health and the health of my family is the most important thing to me.  If something isn't working, I gotta change my path and I have.  So now it's just time to stay determined and focused on the goals I have in life and watch  my health grow.  So far I've been very pleased.  My energy has exploded with the dietary change and I've been working out nonstop, biking 10 miles a day among countless other exercises.   I'm really hoping to see some very big changes in the next few months but I know I gotta give myself time to adjust to this big shit in a new direction.

I still find myself harboring an inner sadness at times.  I don't know if it's because of the miscarriages I've suffered this year, the fact that my partner and friends are never emotionally available for me, the fact that I live on an island away from everyone.  The fact that I just seem to be "forgotten about" in this world...I'm "just a mom..." I'm "just a mom" who is striving with all my might to write this story that constantly wells within me.  I've done so much work on it the past few years and I feel like the end is near...I think I could finish it soon.  I gotta put in the time though and the only time I have available is at night, when I'm at my most tired.  So I quaff the caffeinated tea and hope for the best, just knowing that I have to keep hammering away, have to keep going, keep going, keep going, and NEVER give up, NEVER, until it is DONE.

I don't feel connected with people anymore.  I just end up feeling used.  People love to use my energy in various ways.  I have always just accepted this throughout the years, as I do enjoy feeling "useful..." but after awhile, at the end of a long day, a long YEAR, a long SEVERAL YEARS...you just sort of want to be appreciated and valued for who you ARE, now what you can energetically provide people.  :(   It's tough because I find myself being a "support center" for other people so often that I feel like that's all I'm good for...very few people are supportive for me when I need them.  And I'm not the type to ask, anymore.  I'm just not.  I've learned that in this world, I must stand alone.

It is not an easy thing.  But I am determined and resolute in my ambitions to be the best person I can and I have gotten VERY good at self-care over the past year.  I have learned how to nurture myself and nourish myself and pamper myself in as many ways as I can because the world sure as hell won't be doing that for me.  I have to carve out space for myself and I have to be strong-minded about doing so.  I have to be strong-minded about giving myself everything that I need in life, otherwise I will just wither away into nothing.  And I'm not like that, anymore.  I'm not going to just fade away, or yield to what other people want for me.  I am going to RISE UP and consciously create the existence that I WANT for MYSELF and my children..  I am going to keep building myself up, stronger and stronger and higher and higher, until I am shining so bright that I blind anyone who looks my direction.  

I am, at my heart, a WARRIOR.  I have a warrior's spirit.  HATERS BE DAMNED.

So I don't expect people to understand me.  I know I'm unusual.  And I do feel that inner sadness.  But you know what?  That bit of sadness inside me is fueling my fire and helping to sustain a growing intensity and drive.  NOPE I don't need support.  I have to stand on my own.  I also am not open to allowing anyone to drain me for energy anymore without an equal exchange.  I don't have the energy to spare for those types of one-sided pity games; I don't want one-sided friendships and I want to attract only resilient strong people in my life from this point onwards.

So that's what I have BECOME.  I am strong, determined and focused.  I will achieve my vision.  I will experience superior health and happiness.  I will live my dreams.

Gathering Rains

I am going through a very difficult time of my life.   2013 without a doubt has been very harsh on me.  Living out here in Hawaii with very few friends and almost no family, my husband gone or busy all the time working towards his degree, and a miscarriage at the start of the year.  7 months of hoping and hoping to get pregnant again, and then finally it happened, on the due date of my lost baby I found out I was expecting again.

But the shit storm just keeps coming.

I just found out that the pregnancy I have going on right now may be at the brink of miscarriage.  I am struggling to have faith at this point.  It would be my second miscarriage this year.  Only 2% of women miscarry twice in a row.  How on Earth did I get so "lucky?" so exclusive???    I've never "won" anything before.  :(

Of course I still have faith.  There is still a CHANCE that everything will be okay.  A very slim chance, but it's there.  Next Wednesday I will find out if this is a viable pregnancy or not.  I feel so strange inside.  So empty and not even really worried, just accepting.  But also like my light that I spent years maintaining and nourishing is close to oblivion.

A dark cloud of depression has settled over me and I'm finding it hard to break out.  The lifestyle I have cultivated in Kapoho, Hawaii, living under a tarp in the jungle, now seems intolerable.  I long for seasonal changes, no mongoose, flies or fireants.  I long for dogs and a nice home up in the mountains on the mainland somewhere, somewhere in Oregon or Washington.

This isn't a very well thought out entry. I am just typing.  Typing out all my feelings.

I feel lost and confused and like my faith in a "higher power" is shaking to pieces.  I can try to hold it together but all I can do now is pray for a miracle.

please baby, please baby.  Please baby, grow.  Please baby.   I want you.  Everything is fine, all is well.  My baby is fine, all is well.   I hope.


Edited update: all was not well.  RIP little one, October 2013.

Pregnant Again.

I am indeed pregnant.  This is my 3rd pregnancy. 1st one was normal and resulted in my beautiful son. 2nd one was a missed miscarriage, in February of this year.

 Now that I'm pregnant again I'm feeling so many things. All I can do is cry and worry.  :(

 My major symptoms at around 5 weeks are exhaustion, nipple pain, and mood swings.  NO nausea yet but I usually don't get it until 6/7 weeks.  I am suffering so bad with depression and anxiety right now.  Thanks to the trauma of my miscarriage I feel like I am just constantly waiting for it to happen again, even though I do have a better intuitive feeling about this pregnancy.  I just feel so worried and sad and feel unable to shake these feelings, I am constantly either crying or upset about something.

 My beautiful son Caspian keeps me grounded and is obsessed with babies (he so wants to be a big brother) and I just hope all is well.  He constantly begs me to show him pictures of babies on my phone or the computer.  He looks at pictures of babies smiling and he starts giggling and says "babies, babies!" If I show him a picture of a baby crying, he looks at me with big eyes and starts crying.   He will go up to me and pat my belly and say, "babies babies!"    I think he really really wants to be a big brother.  I just feel so depressed and sad and anxious about it all.  I wish I could know now if everything is okay.  I just feel so...eh I don't even know.   I wish I could just sit here and cry all day.  But I can't.   Eros will be gone all day long and I'll have to...pull it together or something.  There is so much to do and so little energy to do it with.

I'm just feeling so alone out here on this rock in the ocean.   I miss my mom and my family too.     I just feel so scared all the time, wish I could just relax but I don't have a scan for a month and my doctor won't do bloods because "he doesn't think it is necessary."    I worry about symptoms I'm not having and symptoms I am having.  Despite my exhaustion I have been forcing myself to go on bike rides and work out when I can because it's the only time I am able to stop my overactive monkey brain from driving me crazy.  

Is that you, #2?

I am so emotional right now.  I don't even know how to feel.   I had "a feeling" that I might be pregnant, so two days before period was due, I took a pregnancy test.  Big fat negative.

But I couldn't shake that I was pregnant because I started "acting pregnant," as in having a lot of behavioral randomness with food and soul-desires that I remember from the other two times I've been pregnant.  And I've felt a little "off."    A bit nauseated and just not very hungry...usually around my period I'm ravenous.

So today, my period was due.   I was waiting for it expectantly.  But the behavioral randomness was continuing.  For example, I am usually content with Cinderland.  But every time I get pregnant, I suddenly want to leave and get my own little spot away from everyone.  So I kept finding myself thinking that I want to move from Cinderland, all day, and even preparing to do so.  

That's when the hunch hit me, maybe I should take another pregnancy test, I'm acting a little pregnant.  So I did, and I saw a faint positive line.

Now I don't know what to do.  All I can do is wait.  I am not getting excited.  But I want to be excited.  :(  But I can't be excited.  I don't want my hopes up.   I am not naive anymore.   But I have heard a positive is a positive, no matter how faint.  People are telling me that I might have just implanted and to take another test in a day or two to see if it gets darker.   What's crazy is that a few days ago I had a thought around implantation when I felt a little stabby pain down where my uterus is.  Just a few quick stabs.  And I had some "blood flecks" when I wiped.

I've been FEELING very "close to pregnancy" the past few weeks...like a subconscious awareness that I'm getting close to being pregnant again.  I thought it was just my biological and emotional want.   Though tonight that faint positive line...it's maddening.  I don't know how to feel.   Maybe my period is late.  Maybe I 'WILLED' the faint positive line into existence.  It's there though.  Eros confirmed it.

Now I just have to wait.   If it's legit, the line will get darker over the next 2-3 days.  So I'm forcing myself to wait and test again in a day or two.  I'm pretty much just trying to ignore the fact I ever saw that faint positive line.   Because I am already terrified about miscarriage again, if it IS legit.   Faint lines worry me.

Oh well.  Gotta stay positive.  I was hesitant to tell anyone anything.  But at least here on my blog, I can just let it out.