Gestation

Birthing a New World Part 1

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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

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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

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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

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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.

The Love Glow

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I appreciate my body, I appreciate the way that I look, I am super grateful that I have such a nice physical structure and appearance. It’s hard to say this to other people without feeling like I’m coming off as being stuck on myself, or conceited. This hasn’t necessarily been the easiest turn of events to get to this stage though. Through the head on collision, I was transformed as I had to build myself from what felt like the ground up. I had to rework my own sense of self, the perception of who I was, which definitely included how I looked from outside as well as inside.

Having to rebuild myself was likely the best blessing I’ve ever had in my life. It is one that has forever changed the course of my life because I now have well and truly fallen in love with who I am inside and outside. It hasn’t been an easy road, and I certainly would not recommend getting into a major car accident to achieve these results, but since I have I can clearly see the silver lining in it all.

Since I now I have a true love for my own self, I then attracted that in the outside world in the form of the most amazing, loving, supportive partner, who is now my husband. Since I now have that true love for myself, I allowed the possibility of us bringing a child into this world, something that I was not keen on earlier in life. Since I cultivated this deep sense of love for me, I have discovered how truly feminine I am and that I don’t have to necessarily shed off the protective masculine exterior way of being in the world that served me so well while working years climbing the corporate ladder. It’s like I get to take that fierceness, that ambition and now apply it to all of my life rather than focusing just on career. It’s brilliant. It’s working wonders for me as well.

After the car accident, which I’ll nicely refer to as the “divine intervention”, I had a series of different people helping me recover – facial doctors, general doctors, surgeons, physical therapists, acupuncturists, massage and bowen therapists, therapists, and of course a psychologist. The psychologist was very helpful for many reasons, but one of which is she reminded me of the importance of getting ready every day, even if there wasn’t anything scheduled. What a boost this is and has become a mainstay of my life. I enjoy the process of getting ready, of adorning my body with beautiful clothes that make me feel good, with doing my hair, moisturizing my skin, putting on makeup, it feels great.

Coupling the good feeling of getting ready and being prepared for whatever the day brings, along with this sense of true love for myself, and now the corresponding love from my husband, as well as the love that is being mutually exchanged with this baby growing inside of me and I have become an incredibly attractive woman. I look at myself quite objectively when I say this and also when I look in the mirror, because all of this is what it is in this moment and is destined to change. I just truly appreciate the amount of love that I have in all of these areas and how that love is made manifest by creating this beautiful glow of femininity. This is the stage where I wish everyone was able to cultivate this kind of overflowing love because being bright and shiny feels oh so good.

Tap Dancing on my G-Spot

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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!

Sex and Gender?

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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

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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.

Creating Family

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I was just overcome with the amount of excitement and joy that I have about creating my own family. I never thought that this was in my future and now that it is, it brings tears to my eyes. I didn’t expect that I would start to feel this way, that I would really want to have my own family, my own children, my own husband, creating our world.

To essentially create my own tribe with the people I love the very most even if they aren’t born yet. I get to create our own little dip in the world, our own version of life. I get to share the love that I have, I get to experience their love, I get to expand into this amazing gift of life. It feels like the only real thing that matters right now, creating a loving space for my husband, myself, and our soon-to-be child, and possibly children.

This would not be happening had I not found and seized the moment with my husband. He is the most amazing person and it is with his love and support that I feel like this can happen, and that it is happening. I knew it really early on that he was the person I would spend my life with. I even slipped up and wrote that I knew he would be THE Great Love of my life, not A Great Love as I had intended when I started creating the card. It was so early on in our relationship, nearly three years ago when I wrote it and it’s completely turned out to be true.

This excitement of being able to create my own world with my husband feels so good. It’s hard to describe as I type, but I’m actually tearing up as I write this, it’s the kind of excitement that is so unknown, so deep, and so expansive. I feel blessed. I know I am going to make the most amazing mother. I know my husband is going to make the most amazing father. I know we will create the most amazing and loving family, and this makes me weep with joy.

I just never expected to feel this way. I was so utterly against having children and getting married when I was younger. I am so glad that I have experienced life in such way, that it has changed my perspective on this completely. I wouldn’t change a single thing of the past, no matter how tumultuous, no matter how disorienting it was at times, because it’s from this journey that I have come to this revelatory place. My life is only getting better and better and I am so thankful.

Revolution, Evolution, Lessons

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I have a pattern of naively jumping into situations, hoping for the best, and just going for it. This has worked out really really well at many stages of my life. At other times it has gone drastically the other way. Nonetheless I learn an incredible amount of lessons about life, myself, other people, processes, and mostly, grow through the experiences which have helped me to evolve to the person I am now.

Jumping in is kinda like a revolution versus an evolution, but enough revolutions can also create an evolution, at least from my life stories, I find this to be a truth. Lots of sudden changes that create a lasting effect. This totally makes sense to me.

For instance, my latest Revolution has been becoming pregnant. Although my husband and I consciously went into this, as in we had conversations, said we wanted to create another life together, and we made divine love. This sounds like evolution, but the condensed time frame of me removing my contraceptive device and us expecting a child was so quick! I once heard that nothing in nature moves slow, and maybe this is the natural evolution of human life, my life, our life.

Now that I am pregnant and we are expecting our first child later this year, I feel like I am learning SO much about gestating and being healthy along the way in body, mind, and spirit. By the way this has been very important to me anyway, but now that there is literally someone who is completely and 100% affected by my actions, I am super aware of what I am doing and am making more responsible decisions as a whole.

I’m learning about different parenting methods and which ones jive the best. Prior to starting on this path we talked about having an Au Pair immediately to help with everything. Although that certainly isn’t ruled out, the more I learn about the importance of baby bonding the more the weight and responsibility of being a mother to a child comes in.

What I do and how I raise this child will have an impact upon myself, my husband, the child, our family and friends, the community, the world at large as the ripple effect of life happens. This thought, this HUGE thought is leading to a personal revolution within my mind, within my body, that I certainly did not see coming. Not only is it a constant thought on my mind, it is becoming more and more of a focus about how our lives will be.

With creating my own family, I literally have the ability to change the world by bringing and raising a whole human being. This feels like an incredible gift and opportunity for my own growth, the growth of my husband, the growth of our relationship, the growth of our child obviously as well. I’ve worked so hard to develop myself to be at this stage, and I feel so equipped to do my best to help create an environment where the child feels whole, safe, loved, cared for. I do this for myself, I do this for my husband, it’s what we have created, it’s what we consciously create.

It’s been by the crazy revolutions in my life that have lead to this stage of gestation with conscious love and all of a sudden I feel like I should be charging forth on a white stallion waving a flag of love, of honour, of connection. My promise, my duty as a parent bringing a child into this world, is that I will do my utmost to ensure that I am able to be there and provide for this dependent being so that it can then evolve and create it’s own revolutions.