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.