wholesome

I try to live a wholesome life.  We strive to eat a healthy, balanced diet, to feed our daughter real foods.  We bake our own bread, make our own pasta sauce, mix our own hummus. We cloth diaper.  I've stopped using commercial products in my hair and now wash my hair (now dreaded!) with baking soda and apple cider vinegar.  Our daughter has only ever been washed in natural, organic soaps: we are big, big fans of Dr. Bronner's.  We avoid unnecessary medication and try to use herbal remedies when we can.  At nearly two-and-a-half years old, Glynis is still nursing.  We live downtown and avoid using a car or motorized transportation the vast majority of the time.

Before we conceived Glynis, I was a devoted pescatarian.  I ate a primarily lacto-ovo vegetarian diet, but with occasional fish, mostly sushi.  In the last few weeks before we conceived, I took a week-long trip to Russia in which I knew I would have very few food options.  I opted to eat chicken while there, when it was offered (usually the protein available was very grey-looking pork: ick!) knowing that otherwise I would likely be underfed the whole time I was there.  But I had every intention of returning to my veg/pescatarian diet upon my return.  I planned for a vegetarian pregnancy, researching it before conception, even buying a book dedicated to the benefits of a vegetarian diet during gestation, Your Vegetarian Pregnancy.  I found it to be a helpful book - though with its flaws, certainly - and felt very confident that our baby and I could be perfectly healthy despite abstaining from meat for the duration of the pregnancy.

Then we conceived.  And the cravings and food aversions started.

I wish I could tell you that I'm one of those crunchy moms who eats nothing but whole, healthy, organic foods while pregnant.  I wish - truly, I do! - that I could honestly say that I eat no fried or sugary or processed foods while pregnant.  I wish that I could honestly tell you that I didn't crave McChicken sandwiches nearly constantly while expecting Glynis, and that I didn't daydream about pork breakfast sausages from time to time during that pregnancy as well.  I wish that I could regale you with tales of cravings for salad and unprocessed yogurt and raw vegetables.  But I can't.

Because I'm sitting here, in front of my computer, with a small glass of Coke on my left, and a styrofoam container of chip wagon poutine on my right.  Yep.  Coke and poutine.  The Coke settles my constantly-nauseated stomach - it's one of the only things that does - and the poutine is one of the few foods I could think of today that didn't make me feel sick to my stomach at merely thinking of eating it.

I'm not happy with my diet.  It is deeply, deeply flawed.  But I'm pregnant, I'm still nursing a toddler and I'm losing weight.  And I didn't exactly have a lot of extra to begin with.  So I'm eating what I can.  I'm trying to avoid dropping any further below 120lb.  And I'm hopeful that when nearly all foods no longer make me feel violently ill, I'll be able to start eating better.

It's not a perfect solution, definitely, and I am by no means bragging or revelling in the flaws of my diet.  But I felt the need to be honest that, try as I might, this is the best I can do right now.  I know better, but sadly, I cannot, at this moment, do better.  Maybe next week.  Maybe next month.  But for right now, this poutine is making my day.

distractions

It's been quite some time since I last posted.  I've been meaning to do so, but I've been distracted.

I wear a number of hats.  Birth junkie.  Midwifery advocate.  Lactivist.  Intactivist.  And also mommy.  But the hat that brings with it a small paycheque is that of Youth Minister.  I've been focusing on that, on encouraging and nurturing young faith.  It is, after all, my job.

But as passionate as I am about that - and as much as my faith is very informing for my position on the normalcy of birth and the beautiful creation that is the human body - I've been a little distracted from that, too.

I'm wearing another hat.  A hat I've worn before, a hat I adored wearing, one I've been very hopeful to wear again.  It's that hat that led to me putting on those first five hats that I mentioned.

I'm birthing in May again.

I hope you'll be patient while I struggle to get my blogging mojo back, and encourage me while I struggle through some pretty debilitating nausea.  I hope you'll join me on this new journey.  I'm interested to see how my thoughts through this pregnancy differ from those during my pregnancy with our daughter.  I know so much more, now.  I have so much more confidence: my body has been tested and tried and came through with flying colours.  But I'm also more aware of how precarious these things are, of how unexpectedly things can turn out.  So it should be interesting to see how I reflect on this.  And also on this new addition.  Glynis and I have such a good thing going, from day to day: adding someone new will change almost everything.

I hope you'll keep checking in not only for my commentary on what's happening in birthing, but also as a companion on this road.

politics and birth

There is an increasing trend that really, really bothers me. I'm not sure if it indicates a problem within the birthing sphere or if it is evidence of a general misunderstanding of the political "spectrum" as we in the West conceive it (id est left wing = big government, right wing = small government), but it's there and it concerns me: repeated references to natural birthing, pro-midwifery, pro-informed choice advocates as obviously being "left-wing".

There are two main reasons why. First, good, informed, positive, empowered birth experiences do not belong to the left wing: they belong to everyone. They belong to every woman, every family, regardless of ideology, regardless of religion, regardless of the family structure. Everyone. And those of us who advocate for precisely these birth possibilities may belong to any ideology, any religion and any family structure. They are not inherently linked, nor are any of them necessarily mutually exclusive. Making blanket statements about how empowered women are automatically left-wing, or automatically not people of faith is not only patently untrue, but unfair.

The second reason is fairly simple. As an advocate for informed choice, I advocate for every woman, every family to make decisions for themselves. Give people the necessary information they need regarding prenatal care, birth choices, and infant and child care and then let them decide for themselves. What has shocked me - as someone who used to fairly happily proclaim herself to be stolidly left-wing - is that much of the left-wing as I have encountered it doesn't seem entirely in keeping with this personal ideology. There is a certain degree of "don't worry: we've done the research and we know what's best for you". And that doesn't fly with me, even if what is being prescribed is precisely what I would have chosen for myself and what I believe to be best. Because what I might choose may differ greatly from what others may choose, whether I like it or not.

With this post, I'm pretty obviously coming out of the closet as non-left-wing. I couldn't say what I am, precisely, or where I fall on the entirely inadequate left-right political spectrum, but I do know these two things with certainty: I am always in favour of choice, and I refuse to tie up birth advocacy with any political identity. To do so is exclusionary, and if we are advocating for all women we simply cannot start excluding people.

happy

Parenting, advocacy, reading about birth, various jobs: they all have their frustrations.  But focusing on simple things, simple accomplishments, is often the difference between a great day and a day of much antagonism.

Strangely, somedays, a basket full of colourful cloth diapers makes me happy.

Simple days.  Simple things.

thoughts on the new year

:: 2009

Last year we were still very much finding our feet.  Glynis was 7 months old at the beginning of the year, and we were still in the infant stage of her life, where it felt like our parenting choices were more about forming the foundation to who she is, rather than teaching her lessons or encouraging gentle discipline.  We were flying by the seat of our pants most of the time, though we tried to put forethought into our parenting choices.  My maternity leave - and the associated payments that came with it - ended in May.  This was shortly followed by a housefire that would plunge us into temporary homelessness and force us to move to a new neighbourhood.  Between the end of mat leave payments and the expense of the fire, our finances over the next several months were beyond dicey.  And while all that was happening, Glynis had crept into toddlerhood, changing the parenting landscape entirely.

Survival was a major theme last year.

I started to get some ideas.  Ideas about the direction in which my life was headed.  I started to envision a life where I didn't sit behind a desk, a life where I made a tangible difference in the world, or at least in a few other people's lives.  I had realised the previous fall that my utter fascination with all aspects of the birth experience might not be temporary, and might spell out a vocation of sorts.  But as Glynis grew older and continued to be exclusively nursed, I realised that my plans had to take a backseat to her needs.  As we struggled through several months of troubling finances after the fire, we also realised that some solution had to be found, that our family couldn't wait any longer for me to generate some sort of income and, with joy and trepidation, I took on a job as a regional youth minister with the Presbyterian Church.

Adaptation was a major theme last year.

I realised late in the year that I no longer wanted to keep "making do".  After years of moving from good - but short term - job to short term job, I wanted to have a plan.  A big picture sort of plan, one that had short and long term career, financial, parenting and life goals.  I came to the realisation that planning ahead was not only helpful in keeping me focused, it was comforting.  I stopped looking to get through the next week financially and the next few minutes parentally, and started looking further and further ahead.

2009 was a year of realisations and epiphanies.

:: 2010

I think this year will be very important.  I hope that, in years to come, I will be able to look back on this year and pinpoint the various ways in which I will have grown up this coming year.  We have started thinking about employment and career goals as a couple.  In the coming year, I will finish my doula training and start attending births.  I will also open an Etsy shop for my children's clothes, something people have been telling me to do for over a year.  I will also continue my work with the church, and I will - I promise - make that ministry a success, no matter how hard I have to fight to make it happen.  And while I'm doing all that, my husband will continue in his job while also seeking out opportunities to write and to educate in his field, to grow his expertise and his clout. 

In this year, we will also be better parents, not because we aren't good parents now, but because we are becoming more mindful, and are seeing a greater value in mindful parenting as time goes by.  And we will be more responsible parents, parents who will be thinking further ahead both personally and financially.  Instead of acting within the moment, we will strive to act within a trend, within an intended direction.

I'm very excited about this year, truth be told.  I feel like I'm finding my feet and figuring out this whole "adulthood" thing.  I think that this will be a good year to turn 30.

h/t to bluebirdmama for the post idea.  Check out her post on her reflections and projections for the new year!