magic note

I have been wanting to get this story out for awhile, and acutely since December 11th. But I suppose it is fitting that it is only now that I am finding the chance to get the words all out as it is just a few days before Maple’s 14th birthday and this story is in many ways hers. Or more accurately: mine of her. She is the muse here for sure. And as much as I love to share these stories, this one is in many ways for me, so that I do not forget as the memory transforms and degrades within it’s home inside my mind.

There are many stories that are magic, potent for us to keep. This is one of those stories. It both begins and ends on December 11th 2018, when my almost teenage daughter brought my attention to the irregularity in my menstrual cycle. We were in Madison, it was 5pm and deep dark out. I think that we were killing some time before her swim practice and after Eider’s violin practice. He had had a play-in that day so it ended early and Chris and I exchanged kids so that I could make it to a 26&2 while Maple was at the pool. The boys headed home but it wasn’t quite time to drop her off yet so we did what we usually did when we were bopping around Madison in between activities, we headed to Barriques. We made a pit stop on the way at Walgreens so that I could soothe some of my mom guilt at being so unprepared for the coming holiday and see if I could at least snag some gingerbread houses for the kids to make. I had just wrapped up the launch weekend of Practice Wellness Community with Sam and Rachel, followed shortly by my 41st birthday weekend- which as perhaps many mamas know is often more about my kids than myself, and my elfish self was a tad bit MIA.

Anyhow, we were just about to Walgreens when Maple mentioned that I hadn’t gotten my period. She knew of course because we had been synced up for the last year or so- and after years of tracking I had recently thrown in the towel and was willing myself to not pay attention to my monthly feeling of defeat. At any rate, she was right, I was late, so I grabbed a pregnancy test for the millionth time and swore at myself for the wasted $14. Once at Barriques and after placing our order I headed to the bathroom to pee on a stick cuz really, why wait? Just get it over with and take the pregnancy test at the cafe so that you can get over the hope that is just beginning to spark again and move on with your life again and already. And sure enough.

We grabbed our tea and headed back to the car to get Maple to swimming. She pressed a little before we got in the car but I put her off a bit until we were on the road and then handed her the stick. So in that way, Maple was the very first to know that I was finally, finally, pregnant again and we could tentatively begin to hope that this baby was finally on the way.

It was super fitting that Maple was the first to know. And there is a great deal of back story to that. Some of which I will get to in a moment here. But just in case this is all too long for you to read, suffice it to say that it was Maple that always made me know with such immense clarity that there was another coming. It wouldn’t necessarily be anything that she would do or say, but it would inhabit a certain look she would give me or a story that she would tell. I could feel the knowing dissipate when she and I were away from one another and then sure enough build again with our proximity. (It is important to say that that feeling was not quite the same but indeed quite similar to one I would feel with Chris- which makes sense as he is my co-creator. Even in the depths of our own interpersonal difficulties over the years the baby I so longed for was his, and if, hypothetically it was not with him, the desire would fade. And that is edging into a much longer tale for another day.)

There are all sorts of examples of this connection that I shared with Maple. It moved through quite a bit of time and space but I think may best be summed up in 2 very clear messages that I was delivered along the way. The first was the March after my miscarriage, when Maple was freshly 10 and we were out in Colorado visiting Chris and some friends. I was in a dark, dark place. Chris had been living out there since the end of November in hopes that we were all moving out there. But I wasn’t so sure cuz I just really couldn’t figure out what the hell life would look like for me out there. So I was dragging my feet and moping and at the same time, building my career with more gusto than I ever had before back in Madison. It is safe to say I was profoundly conflicted and really suffering it. So I did what I always do when I can’t get straight with myself- I got my cards read. (Now you could insert any metaphysical modality in here: Jyotish, Evolutionary Astrologer, Psychic. Many major life decisions have flowed forth from some moment of clarity gained per this sort of guidance, but also some real shit has been thrown in my face too using this approach. Because the practitioner is never perfect folks and it can be hard sometimes to navigate through their shit in order to get to yours. Again, probably another post for another day.)

This was my first experience with someone else reading the Tarot for me. I’d explored the cards plenty on my own but this was something else for sure. And on further reflection after the fact, this woman was doing a good bit more than simply reading my cards as my metaphysical friend Susanne Clores pointed out to me a few months later. And it’s true. The card reader in question, a mama friend of my longtime friend Sarah, was completely unassuming and incredible, you’d never really know from her dingy Southwestern rambler complete with a cross-stitched “Bless This Mess” sign hanging on the wall above the mountain of laundry that I had to quite literally step over to get into the bathroom, that she was indeed working with some much bigger energies than simply the cards.

There were quite a few insights that I gained from our hour together. I got clear on what was up for me and Chris. I could see how best to navigate the path ahead without compromising myself or loosing my man. But what was most striking was when she said that there was a third kid, a little boy, that she could see coming to us. But she couldn’t quite tell if it was my child or perhaps my grand and Maple’s son as he seemed to be so deeply entwined with her. There are some things that you hear sometimes and it can be quite a stretch to feel into it. And then there are others that land immediately because they are truth and well, pay attention to those things people. When you know, you know. As much as you may try to talk yourself out of it after the fact. Trust your gut, K? K. I heard her and I knew she was right. There was a little one somewhere out there coming for us. Both Maple and I.

The other big piece regarding Maple’s connection to this whole epic journey bears mentioning here as well. Those of you that know her, know that she is magic- sometimes more than others, but I think that we can agree that there is something a little other worldly special about her. And don’t get me wrong, she is a teenage girl navigating the complicated dynamics of that particular time of life inside of a culture that is complicated and flawed and not quite yet ready to grow up itself. But tell you what, sometimes this girl drops some wisdom that is so strong and so true that I have to do a double take to make sure that it is still Maple standing there. It’s like she is channeling something y’all. She can drop into deep awareness. And then just as easily pop out and go back to being irritated with me about her clothes or the fridge or something equally as inane. She’s got a connection though. And she knows it. I have another tale to tell that dovetails a bit off of this one that I may never get to regarding Maple and her psychic proclivities. But for now, suffice it to say that for a stretch of time she was using a pendulum to talk to spirits and oh boy did they want to talk to her. I have never seen a pendulum respond the way it has for that girl. So huge in fact that it -with reason!- freaked me out and I had to put the kibosh on it until we could figure out how to craft her a shield, energetic or otherwise. But not before she showed me the response that she would get when she asked if a baby was coming to her mother. Unreal. And so deeply affirmative that in hindsight it seems like such a sign whereas in the moment I could shake it off as just another piece of false hope because hello it was probably never going to happen. And what the hell spirits are so eager to communicate with my kid anyhow? Buzz off.

So she has always been a part of the story. A big one. She ushered me through the entirety of my pregnancy with her attentive and often over-protective care. In fact it was a little much at times the way that she would hover over me and boss me around, but now I’m just grateful for it and can see the way in which she had shaped herself into an energetic shield for both the baby and I. She was our guardian and protector. The superstitious keeper of the faith. And it wore her out. So much so that she has mostly disappeared since his birth. But she got us there for sure. And now she is on to something else with as much focus and gusto as she gave the multi-year project of getting her littlest brother to arrive.

As we enter the season of her 14th birthday I am still in awe of my first born. In so many ways she has been and continues to be one of my biggest teachers and an endless source of inspiration in my life. She reminds me every day that I can do big things. That it is possible to both occupy the magical while standing strongly in the center of reality. She was the very first to open my mind and my heart to the grace of the infinite and good grief she made me a mama which has become, by far, the greatest gift of my lifetime. HBD Maple Louise. I can’t believe you’re 14. Cuz I’m still only 28.

sleep(parenting) evolution

When I turned 30, and just before Maple turned 2, our little family of 3 took a trip down to San Marcos Texas for a yoga weekend. While we were there I had our star charts read by a Vedic Astrologer. There were lots of amazing insights that came out of those readings, but the piece of information that has stuck with me the longest- as it has subsequently proven itself again and again- was when Maple’s stars told us that she was not going to be one to ever take our word for anything and instead was going to have to learn her lessons in life for herself. And, as one might suppose, this is both wonderful and terrible. But it is her personality and we have all grown familiar with both the ups and the downs of that particular feature.

I think in part that we set a precedent early on for her to call the shots. I let her lead almost exclusively from the very beginning. So many of my choices as a parent were informed by 2 things: attachment parenting, and the inherent fear that I would fuck her up in ways I believed myself to be fucked up which obviously must be the fault of my own parents and their parenting choices. Sound familiar? One of my clearest memories from Maple’s early days was at our one week postpartum home visit when our Midwife was holding Maple, and Maple had found her thumb and was fiercely sucking at it- as a newborn will do. She looked at me and said: Do you want her to self sooth or wouldn’t you rather it be you that soothes her? And in that moment, amid the doubt and insecurity and postpartum hormones, I made a choice to be the one that soothed my baby. It wasn’t a bad choice and I can see why I made it- especially as a first time mama. I wanted her to feel loved and safe and secure and I couldn’t understand how someone who had just lived inside of my body was going to be capable of any of that outside of my arms. And so we went. I parented her that way for better or worse for years. Through immense tenderness as well as unbelievable tension and difficulty. I wouldn’t change it. But I would be amiss to have not learned anything from it.

What I know now, with big kids as well as an infant in my care, is that we cannot spare our children the discomfort of growing. Everything that comes at us in life is at first new and the new never arrives with a sense of familiarity and ease but rather in the arms of uncertainty and a degree of discomfort. We cannot spare them that. Not if we ever want them to be capable and self-reliant individuals one day. But, is it hard to have that perspective with a newborn? Um, yeah. 100%. Which is why it is a good thing that we have the opportunity to begin small, with baby steps as it were.

early days in the swaddle. snug.

For example, we choose to swaddle Wilfred and as soon as he got the hang of it, I was like: ugh, this would have been so good for Maple! (side note: Maple and Wilfred have very similar temperaments around sleep. Eider was pretty much an easy peasy sleeper from the get go so didn’t need as much. Interestingly, the support that we have been providing Wilfred around sleep has caused him to seem more similar to Eider in his calm security and ease.) However, did Wilfred like the swaddle the first time we put him in it? No! He cried. But he cried because it was new and with Chris and I there to comfort him through the discomfort of the new, it became something that he accepted with joy. It has been the same with everything that we have introduced to him. Tub time. Baby wearing. His black out sleep tent. At first there are some tears. But as our sleep consultant so brilliantly continues to remind me: the tears are there because that is what our baby has to communicate his feelings with. He is communicating so many different emotions with a very limited resource but if we listen it really doesn’t take long to understand the differences in his cries. What ones are simply his discomfort and what ones are urgent. But here is the deal, we are responding either way so he is not being left alone to “cry it out”. It just might be that we are not comforting him in the way that would more often than not be his first preference. I mean, if you had the option to snuggle a big fluffy breast every time you were uncomfortable, wouldn’t you take it?

OK. I know that I am in touchy territory here. I come from an attachment parenting background as I said earlier and in many ways, I adhere to that. I really do tend toward being baby/child led. I am responsive and present with my kids. But there were a few things this time around that I knew that I didn’t want to do and one of those things was to nurse all night long for 2+ years. So for us that looks like not bed sharing. And listen, Maple and Eider didn’t even have their own beds until they were almost 4. So. I’ve done it. And I get it. And I LOVE snuggling with my babies all night long. It is a sacrifice that I am consciously making in favor of better sleep habits and dare I say, some autonomy that allows for me to share sleep time with my husband and not just my babe.

In his Zipadee. Or bat suit as we refer to it.

So, how about some details regarding sleep training? If you’ve made it this far, you’ve really earned it. And let me begin by stating that I hate the word training in this context. I also am not very fond of referring to it as conditioning. And yet, both of those terms fit the bill. Perhaps we will all be a bit less triggered if I use the term support? Because that is at the heart of what I aim to do. I want to support Wilfred in building healthy sleep habits as well as in cultivating the confidence in knowing how to find comfort and security in rest. I am going to begin by sharing with you the tools that have made sleep more supported and easier for him. They have been game changers for us and none of them have been very difficult to introduce.

First, a sound machine. Good lord this is everything. It’s loud in the womb yo. At first I thought that the purpose of a sound machine was to block out distracting or disruptive noises that could startle him or wake him up. And while it is that, it is primarily to keep some continuity with the sounds that he grew accustomed to in my belly. I think it is something like 80 decibels of sound in there so really not quiet. We have a sound machine in our room by his bassinet and a portable one that I take in the car or have even tucked into my carrier when wearing him. It is basically like a miracle and such an easy hack that I cannot believe that I didn’t have one with our first 2. Seriously. Worth its weight in gold.

In arms. Heart.

Next, the swaddle. Snug and secure and comfy. We used a bunch of different ones for the first few months but the easiest was by far the Ollie Swaddle. At right around 10 weeks I transitioned him to a Zippadee which still provides some containment and reassurance when he startles but is roomy enough for him to roll in so that it is not a safety issue. He really likes his Zip. I think at some point I may transition him into a sleep sack but for now this works great. He loves it. Like, a lot.

OK. Darkness is next. And this is a pain in the ass and potentially expensive when you are room sharing which we are for the foreseeable future. So instead of dealing with the windows we are using a Slumber Pod black out tent that fits well over his bassinet but will be prohibitive over a full size crib. We are looking at mini cribs as a way to keep the same functionality. And like I said, he really did not like the tent at first. He cried. I comforted. It took maybe 3 tries max before he accepted it and now it is simply a part of his routine. Right now we just use it for naps but I think we will use it for night as well sooner or later and certainly when the days are longer and there isn’t an easy 12 hours of darkness anymore.

I think those are the big props. A rocking chair is nice too for obvious reasons but not so necessary beyond the first couple of months.

So let’s talk behaviors. Or sleep practices if you will. Often called sleep hygiene. These are a little bit more difficult for the obvious reasons. It is hard to adjust our behaviors. We are creatures of habit, especially when our habits are easy and serve to avoid discomfort as most are ought to do. The biggest thing is wake windows. They obviously grow as you go. Wilfred’s were so short in the beginning. At just over 4 months we are now anywhere from 90-135 minutes. Right around 2 hours seems to be just right. Sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less. But let me pause right here to say that this is not a fix that once you’ve done it then it is set. It is on-going like all of parenting. It requires consistency and appropriate tweaks from time to time. There are so many variables. And as simple as it seems, consistency can often be difficult in the midst of dynamic daily living. Life happens. But I am trying to watch the clock and that helps. If I just watch my baby I am more often than not up shit creek because by the time he looks tired he is generally over-tired and falling asleep will be difficult and whatever tears I had been hoping to avoid will be guaranteed.

I lie my baby down awake. This one can be a challenge, especially in the sleepy newborn days, but the more that I can do it the longer the sleep has a chance of being because he knows where he is when he transitions through a sleep cycle as it is the same place that he fell asleep. Not someplace that he surprised to find himself in. (this is also where the black out tent comes in immensely handy. Especially during and after the 4 month sleep regression when they are moving from newborn to adult- believe it or not- sleep cycles, and are needing to learn how to link the 30 minute cycles that are natural to all of our sleep. Darkness helps.) I know if I have stretched a wake window a little too long because he cries a bit. And as much as I would love to say this never happens, it does. About 50% of the time. It is a moving target and I am hoping to improve here. But they are tears of discomfort and not of need and I am there for him through it. Even if I am not giving him his first choice in comfort which would be a warm breast. And the crying never lasts more than 5 minutes. Usually less than a minute. If it goes on I will hold him and often nurse him and try to get the rhythm better next time. I’m not going to force anything. I want that to be clear. It is like Wilfred and I are doing a dance here. Picking up on each others cues and following each others lead and seeing if we can grow our own abilities. It is a moving target, like I said, but one that I believe is helping him to build a skill that will last him his whole life and will also help him in understanding that it is ok to be uncomfortable when you are in the process of learning something new. That there is often discomfort in the growth process and to bypass that is only a temporary fix to an inevitable necessity. I could go on here and it is a bit of a tangent but it bears mentioning that my kids, especially Maple, has had to navigate that discomfort in bigger and more painful ways later on and I do wonder if she would have been more equipped to navigate it if I hadn’t taught her that the only comfort that she had was me- which is of course sometimes effective and often frustrating.

Ugh. OK. Perhaps the hardest and most important piece in getting this dance right has been to move Wilfred’s feedings to the earlier end of his wake windows. In other words, not nursing him in the half hour before I put him to bed. Or disrupting his feed to sleep association. Especially for the night. It is becoming super predictable in a way that makes me kick myself when I fuck it up. Last night for instance. I knew that he was distracted when I nursed him before his tub. And I also knew that if I didn’t offer him milk again before lying him down that he would cry. So to protect primarily myself from his tears I nursed him again and sure enough he was up and crying before midnight and again at a little after 3. Now that is not so bad, but if I keep on doing it before long he will be up 4 times a night wanting to nurse. Where as if I stick to nursing him no less than 30 minutes before I lie him down for the night he will wake only once in about a 12 hour period and nurse for generally under 10 minutes before being ready to fall back asleep. And like I said before, if I get the timing right and I lie him down before he is overtired, those initial tears can be most likely be avoided as well.

Tent camping.

Other than these few tips the only other thing that I can say is that it is helpful to take a pause before responding. I give it a minute when I hear him in the night or even waking from a nap. This is difficult for me but he deserves a chance to settle himself before having me step in and do everything for him. I am shit at this. I can get myself to wait 4, maybe 5 minutes at best. But that’s all it takes. If he is going to settle himself that time is plenty. And if not, well then it’s my turn.

It has also been important for me to work directly with a sleep coach, and I feel fortunate to have found someone who is both compassionate and conscientiousness and a good fit for our family as we are right now. Before I wrap this exceptionally long, essentially stream of consciousness post up, I want to leave you with 2 things. The first being a really well stated quote from our consultant regarding tears and sleep and comfort and working through our own issues in regard to all of it. But instead of just copying and pasting her whole post here I am going to instead encourage you to go and check out @heavensentsleep on Instagram and her post entitled “Babies Cry”. She is amazing and supportive and non-judgmental in her approach to helping you and your little ones get the sleep you need. Check her out.

The second is this: Listen, I in no way want to come off as someone who is anti bed sharing. I’m not. I love it. And I think that it can be safe and healthy and affirming for everyone in your(my) family. And I also think, as much as hind sight is, ha ha ha, 20-20, I’m not sure that as a young first time mama I could have let Maple cry at all- even in the process of developing a new skill or self-soothing. I simply hadn’t worked through enough of my childhood shit at that point to be able to hold space for her through the tears and know that that is not how we damage our children. I think I still really hoped that I could protect her from all the pain of being alive. Shield her from the mess of humanity and all of our short-comings. But now, just a few weeks out from her 14th birthday, I just really know that that is not the case. So with this littlest brother of hers I am instead going to help him understand that with learning comes discomfort and I cannot protect him from that. And that does not mean that I abandon him through his growing pains. Or any of my children for that matter. I can be present even as I do not alleviate the difficulty. Or maybe the difficulty and discomfort are made more bearable through my presence. My compassion as I demonstrate or say: Hey, I know this is hard. And it would be great if we didn’t have to do it. But living is magnificent even as it is challenging and I know that you are up for it and I am here to hold your hand or rub your back when you need it, and even though I cannot take away what may sometimes hurt, I will not abandon you in it. Love you. I’m here. You can do this.

Joyful Boy.

bodies... and weight of bodies

Let’s keep talking about bodies for a moment, shall we? And something even a little more ephemeral than bodies, weight. Let me add my voice to the cry of: I have no intentions of getting any version of my body back. Like we have heard before, my body didn’t go anywhere. What it did do was carry three 8+ pound babies to term and then deliver them with minimal assistance. So, as far as I can tell, some loose abdominal skin is with me for the duration and I am pretty fine with that. I am aware how short and precious this season is and I love it so much that I don’t really mind the reminders of it once it has passed.

So, weight. It is something that I think about from time to time, but far less than I think about things like function. Function in fact, is something that I have a vested interest in getting back, to the best of my ability. We did once have a scale and I would weigh myself, but when the battery died and we never replaced it, I figured that we were all far better off without it. I occasionally miss it when I need to weigh a suitcase before travel, or when I am wondering what Eider weighs, but beyond that, not so much.

The last time that I was weighed when I was pregnant was at right around 32 weeks when I last saw the UW Midwives. I was 177lbs, but 3 pounds shy of what I weighed at the end of both of my previous pregnancies. With @8 weeks, or so I thought, left to go, I was under no illusion that there were only three pounds left to add. Thankfully, my Vermont Midwife had nothing even resembling a scale for adults anywhere in her vicinity so I was saved from ever having any idea how far the needle tipped. If had to warrant a guess, I would say: some.

Wilfred is right around 3 and a half months and I only just sort of weighed myself the other day. As we do not take regular trips to a doctor’s office, Wilfred hadn’t been weighed since 6 weeks and I have been curious about where he is at now. Everyone keeps on telling me that he is a chunk but to me he seems both immense and tiny all at once and I had really no idea. So, when we were at the pool last week we stepped on the scale together and weighed 175 in all of our long underwear, jeans, sweaters, and boots (ok, just me in boots). Then I handed him to Moo and stepped on again myself and was 159. So my best guess is that he is somewhere between 15 and 16 pounds minus his clothing and diaper. It it a rough estimate for sure.

But what does that mean about me? Honestly, who knows? I do know that a normal weight window for me is a pretty wide one, anywhere from 138-148 depending on my activity and appetite. I am not a dieter so the number is often more associated with mood that much else. Sad Meg usually means smaller numbers. So, what kind of association do you make there? I do thankfully have a roomy pair of jeans that I could slide into pretty quickly postpartum and that was a nice break from all the stretchy pants. The regular pants are still a little tight so I did the sane thing and bought a not so baggy pair in a bigger than usual size and then for the most part have forgotten about it. I don’t know what the numbers are, not really, but I do know how I feel. And that is what I want to be in relationship with. And I feel hungry. Every day I feel a little stronger and am a little more active and that in addition to breastfeeding a growing and increasingly more active baby makes for an expanding appetite to be sure.

In fact, I am beginning to feel like I really need to watch it. I want to have plenty of milk for my little one and as he is my last ever baby I am in no hurry to stop nursing any time remotely soon. I’d like to make it to 2 years at the very least and in order to get there I need to make supply a big part of the equation when we are talking about nutrition and calories, activity and weight.

So that is really a big part of where my postpartum body attention is right now. Restoring function and feeding my baby. Yet, I am aware that it may appear that I slim down quicker than some and in the interest of full transparency I am here to share where my focus really lies and what my goals actually are. We are all unique. Thank goodness. And there are infinite examples of what healthy is and it is never going to be in anyones best interest to make any assumptions or to gauge how you actually are based on an ephemeral number. You do you. I’ll do me. My hope is that we can each stay increasingly connected to a more wholistic version of wellness and prioritize how we are feeling and the care we are taking above all else.

musings: postpartum/LOP

Something that I am perpetually contemplating goes a lot like this: What does Life of Practice mean to me? What does it look like in my life, as it is, right now, today? How is it informing my choices, my thoughts, my actions, in the day to day? It has been especially interesting to be in consideration of- and relationship with- in these complicated and varied postpartum days. It is not an easy time, even in all of its grace and sweetness. It is exhausting, both physically and emotionally, and I often feel myself falling short in all domains. As a mama to my other babies, as a wife, as an educator, as a mentor, as my own woman. It is easy to take the bait of a whole lot of negative self talk and sink into the grief of my myriad short comings. I have to ask myself, minute to minute, to remember where my values sit and what practice really means to me. It is an on-going consideration, whether I am postpartum or not, and I should know myself well enough by now to see that I will always be looking to squeeze more out of life, as well as asking a little more of myself.

This is never ever to say that I am not also practicing perspective and forgiveness on the regular. Every breath in, every breath out. I am trying to remember. It is all part of what Life of Practice means to me. So in that vein, I am going to get real honest with my process, what life and healing look like for me right now. In my body, in my mind, in my mood.

While I was back in Wisconsin, I visited my mom’s PT and dry needler to get an in-depth PP assessment and to be pointed in the right direction for my own recovery. I walked away with a number of gems, most of which I had a hunch about, and a lot of clarity. I also weathered a super intense dry-needling treatment which simultaneously felt like the worst idea ever and exactly what I needed. I’ll be back there in the New Year for more if I can swing it. OK. So, you might want to skip this next bit if you aren’t a body nerd or are squeamish about talking about vaginas… Forewarned.

I do have a bit of a DR, but she said it was functional, so most likely from my pregnancies with Maple and Eider. I feel like I already knew that but it was nice to have a bit of a confirmation and also to affirm the Expecting and Empowered Guides that I began using mid-pregnancy and continue to use now (um, did I mention the PT I saw is one of the authors, ha!). I have a lot of crossbody imbalance that is super long-standing- again think Maple and Eider as little peanuts that I am lugging around with less bio-mechanical awareness than I have now. My chronic left-hip-right-shoulder weakness/tightness. Yep. That. She gave me some stuff to work on for that that feels right. And also diagnosed a tight/weak pelvic floor, especially on the left. Yeah that goes with the left hip. You will generally see that correlation. Sometimes our insides do match our outsides. I also think there may be some connection to when Wilfred got hung up on a little bit of my cervix during labor. Holy shit that was mind numbing pain and now is something that feels distinctly caught up in that left side feeling. I also have a slight bladder prolapse. Again, not surprising. I did have a hernia groin hernia for the second half of pregnancy- I can’t remember the exact words for it right now and don’t feel like looking it up. But, I think they go together in that way that a pelvic floor can be both tight and weak. In the words of the PT: Athletes generally have so much weakness in the front of the pelvic floor, combined with an overall tightness because they basically are just squeezing their buttholes all of the time and thinking that is the whole picture. Ha! She gave me some work. I’m doing it. She did recommend that I put a condom on a candlestick to help loosen up the left side of my vagina. I’m not doing that per se…

In Wisconsin I worked pretty much non-stop. Between teaching yoga and co-hosting a few Beautycounter events, the minutes were all full. And it was exhilarating. And it was a lot. And the morning that the boys and I were leaving to head home, I had the first full blown panic attack that I’ve had in 16 years. Also at my mom’s house, but I digress. Like I said: real talk. Why? I can speculate about a whole bunch of reasons why, being overextended and postpartum at the top of the list. But also, I think that my nervous system was more than a little triggered from the intensity of the dry needling the previous day. I also think that leaving the place where my work life is at it’s fullest currently, was provoking for me. What was I going back to? How am I doing my work at the level that I want to be when I am in Vermont? Am I a shitty mom for even wanting to be focusing on my work life so much right now? You see? It was a perfect storm of shit and all of my neurosis laid out in front of me.

Right about now you could be wondering how exactly this is a post in any way about mentoring, or even better, promoting upcoming mentoring opportunities with me? And honestly, I’m not 100% sure. I do know that it feels very important that as a mentor I stay honest and revealed. Even if my shade of authenticity is not exactly what I wish I were sharing. I want to hold space for myself and my process and my truth in the same way that I strive to for others. That is how I stay growth oriented. Even when it is hard. Especially when it is hard. I cry just about every day. I worry about not being enough every day. I worry that I am missing the mark in most aspects of my life. And yet I still am choosing to engage compassion and forgiveness for myself every day. I am endeavoring to give myself the same generosity of spirit that I find both inspiring, and significantly easier, to give to others.

Last month, one of my longtime students visited us here for a few days with his sister. I was reminded of how different Life of Practice can look at different chapters and seasons of life. This friend no longer even practices yoga. And what difference does that even make? The yoga was never the point. It was always just a tool. Engaging life long relationships of connectivity, honesty, accountability, integrity and unconditional support, are really at the heart of what interests me. I want to be a meaningful member of a community built around these qualities. I think that’s what we need. Lord knows it is what I need.

So, there you have it. A long ramble that maybe tries to address too many things at once. And yes, I still love yoga. Like, a lot. I love practicing it, I love teaching it, I love studying it. It has held my interest for 22 years and I do not see that changing any time soon. Not in this lifetime anyway. And I am still practicing. Almost daily. It looks a lot like a variation of an inversion practice that I have been doing for the better part of the last decade. And tell you what. It feels GOOD. It makes me feel like me. More than I do most of the rest of the day. So in those 20-40 minutes, I am sustained. I remember myself in a way that brings me back. Into the heart of who I want to be, how I want to live, the gratitude for all of this love and grace in my life. Even in the daily swings of postpartum. Even in the diversity of feelings.

me and my practice buddy.

A Year

It is just a little over a year ago that Chris and I travelled to Maine to say goodbye to a friend. And it was a little under a year ago that we travelled to Vermont to see if it could be our place. I can tell it has been a year because it is just past Peak and becoming what New Englanders call Stick Season. It is the season that comes just after the colors begin to fall to the ground and just before the snow flies. We missed the snow by a narrow window last year when we were here. Vermont got snow on November 11th and it stayed through the end of March. I can remember the date because it was the first day of my last period. I won’t forget it.

I have been doing so much reflecting lately and I think in part it is because of the significance of the season and how it was just a year ago that everything, everything, changed on a dime. In big and small ways, in painful and beautiful ways, and maybe more than anything else in ways that formed us all into something new, something so completely different from what we were before, and something that I have longed for us to become for years.

I know it sounds sappy. It is sappy. I’m a sap. A year ago I was still looking at babies and small children every single day wondering if I would ever get over the longing. I was still feeling guilty to my family of 4 that I could feel so grateful for each of them and yet oddly and so pressingly, incomplete. I think, in some parallel way, Chris felt the same odd guilt about his grief for living so far away from the mountains. And from where I sit now, all this change, all of this shift, all of this growth, is so striking that it bears noting. In ways that I hope to remember.

There were layers to the life that we were living before. It was so complicated even in its good fortune and grace. For the first 2 years that we lived in Mount Horeb I remember feeling like I had stepped into my wrong life. Like I was living as the Shadow Mother from Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, button eyes and all. I had taken a step sideways off of my path and onto another. Which now I can see, was also mine, full of unexpected fruit that I probably wouldn’t have accessed had I not stepped sideways. But it was complicated and intensely painful and, like I said, wrong at times. Maybe I am getting brave enough to write about the details of that time sooner than later, but not today.

Today, I am simply struck by the image looking back at me out of the mirror, with grubby clothes and a baby strapped to my chest, and a face and belly that feel so soft and complete in Love. I look like me. The me I have always felt myself to be and the me that I have scrambled like hell to crawl back to or remember or maybe just be known as. By myself. By the people around me. It took so long for Wilfred to get here. And it took so long for us to get here. There were multiple failed attempts on both fronts and they fucking hurt like hell and in many ways they still do. We carry the grief of our missteps and our losses even once we have made right it seems. Perhaps because we have gained an acute awareness of how easy it would have been for things to turn out differently. To have settled with the not quite right life, in the not quite right place, missing someone who you have always known was supposed to be right here.

And now we are here and he is here. But I remember the unknowing and the doubt and the second guessing. And I know we would have been ok if things had turned out otherwise, but I cannot begin to express the sheer joy that they did not. It is like truth in my bones.

In the days right after he was born, Chris would say to me things like: I am so sorry we waited so long, I am sorry that I ever doubted that he is supposed to be here with us. I always balked at folks that said they were complete at the arrival of a little one. I had never felt anything of the sort, BUT NOW I DO.

This morning when I was driving Eider to Orchestra I told him how grateful I am that he was at the birth of his brother. Even if he wasn’t in the room, I could feel his presence and was thankful for it. He said that it was hard and uncomfortable because what I thought was just some moaning he thought was some full on howling and roaring like a wild animal. Like a wolf. He is not wrong. That becoming was an immense pain. And it had to be in order for me to die and be born and give birth all at once. But still, it’s hard to see your mama hurt like that, he says. Even when it’s Pain With A Purpose, as they say.

When I look in the mirror at this new old reflection of myself and my newest cub, I feel wonder and awe and gratitude and grace. And also so much grief. For the alternate life. For the life in which my baby never comes and we never make our way to the mountain. But more than anything, for the people whose vision of their life never arrives, who have to fight with no end in sight for more than 5 years, or for any amount of time, or indefinitely.

I guess this is a lot of words to simply say, I am changed. I am made new and made old at the same time. I believe in the unrelenting faith in the deep vision of our own truth. Even when we feel guilt about having such big dreams. Thanks if you’ve read this far. Thanks to my family for trusting me. Thanks to my community for allowing me to change. I see you and I love you and I am here to say: holy shit, the difference a year makes.

what I know right now

Gotta keep this brief. Because I have to keep everything brief these days. Except for holding an often fussy baby while he negotiates sleep. There is nothing brief at all about that task right now.

Wilfred is 5 weeks old. Which means that this new iteration of me is 5 weeks old as well. I like thinking of myself this way. It helps me maintain some perspective and remember that this is just another season of life not something that will last forever. None of it does. And thank god because no way anybody could do this newborn-postpartum shtick indefinitely. Just saying.

Everything I thought to be true about myself as a parent before Wilfred arrived has turned out to be mostly false. A giant illusion on the part of my own ego. OK, not everything, but A LOT of things. I wasn’t getting better at parenting and figuring shit out with my second kid. Nope. Not by a long shot. I had an exceptionally easy second child. I can see now that Eider was a unicorn and the ease of his babydom had nothing to do with any increase in proficiency on my end and everything to do with what a rare jewel of a baby that kid was. It’s probably not even that Wilfred is that fussy, but more that he is a third kid who is very much expected to be what is needed by the group in the moment and he is simply not having it.

I mean, his wake window seems to be about 35 minutes. 35 MINUTES. That means that anything past that and he is overtired and mad and just try getting him to fall asleep easily. Go on. TRY.

He sleeps in arms a fair amount and has what appears to be the same hair trigger as Maple when I try to lay him down. Not entirely but often. He’s down now. He must be because I am using two hands to type which is a massive indicator that I am not holding a baby. But, that said, I am getting quite good at doing many things with just one hand, while bouncing, maybe even with some kind of white noise machine strapped to my body. Pretty cool. But my back is broken. And my left scapula feels like it is mostly detaching from the rest of my body. And I remember this feeling. It can go away for years but when its back, much like pregnancy, you are very much like: oh yeah right! You! Anyhow, in the moment who gives a shit about my body because MY BABY IS ASLEEP! Mom instinct to the max over here right now people.

Not complaining. Not really. More just trying to make light of what often feels quite heavy and oppressive. Again, reminding myself of the season of things. And I love my little guy. His very existence thrills me.

I do want to mention a few things that are really helping me out right now. Not that it is about things, at all, and it is easy to get bogged down in the intense narrative of consumerism that is a new baby. But there are some helpful things for sure and I want to let you know what those have been for us.

Swaddles. This guy loves to be held, so he loves to be squeezed and if you are even gonna think about lying him down he sure as shit better be swaddled. This one is quick and easy and amazing, but kinda hot. This one is great because its nice and light and stretchy.

White noise machine. Holy fuck an absolute life saver for us. I have an app on my phone, a machine in our room by his bassinet and I just got another one to hook to his carseat. We use it all the time and it is loud. The sleep consultant I spoke with said it’s 80 decibels in the womb. Loud.

Pacifiers. Not consistently but way more than Maple and Eider ever took one so I am going to go with it. So far, we like these ones the most.

Sheep Skin. OK, this may seem like WTF extravagant but it has come in handy for us big time. He actually loves to lay on that, it keeps him cool- which I wouldn’t have thought at all- and it is made to handle pee without becoming stinky and gross. Which leads to my favorite thing:

Elimination Communication. I didn’t do this with Maple or Eider and I always felt a little bad about it because I could see the ways in which I was teaching them to go potty in a diaper and wouldn’t it have made a lot more sense to teach them to go in an actual potty from the very beginning? I have only been easing into it for sure but it’s totally rewarding and fun. I think I am probably catching about a quarter to a third of all pees and poos and it is so fun to start reading his cues and watch how he is beginning to read mine as well. I feel very connected to him when this happens. Even if I do possibly get peed on a bit more than I would otherwise. But that is what the wooly is for…

OK. That’s it. There is SO much more to say but I need to take advantage of this moment and spend some time with my big boy. Maybe bake a cake…. Because showering can wait and this dried spit-up in my hair has almost stopped smelling like cheese so I’m all good.

ha ha ha ha ha . . .

postpartum movement

Wilfred has been with us 4 weeks as of yesterday. We love him with everything that we are, even as we are just still getting to know him. Funny how it can work like that. Whole-hearted risk-everything love without very much certainty about who he even is yet. He is a still a mystery in many ways, but he is ours, as much as anyone can be, and we are all his, that is for sure.

I have wanted to make sure that I take a minute, while I am in it and it is all fresh, to talk about bodies, and movement, and yoga postpartum. And as we are now 4 weeks, there is a start of sorts here. Let me begin with this: I am 41. This is my 3rd baby. My first came when I was 28, my second when I was 31, and if I learned anything from either of those experiences, it is that rest and recovery are paramount and the urgency that I may feel to jump back into activity is so much less important than it seems.

I did not really rest well with either Maple or Eider. And maybe I got away with it a bit because I was younger but I still suffered a prolapse with Maple-that made sex painful for a full 18 months- until I got help in navigating healing. I jumped back into so much before I had any business, and I am unwilling to do that again. There is a lot of compelling information out there on the connection between not resting and postpartum depression, as well as not resting and subsequent miscarriage, and not resting and early menopause. I am not certain that some of that not resting in my own postpartum past may have led to what became a long road to conception with Wilfred.

So, I believe in rest, I believe in recovery, I believe in being a vigilant observer of what my body and mind are telling me about how I need to care for myself and about when I am going beyond my capacity. I am backing off when needed. I am resisting the urge- with some success- at going more when I feel I am up for it. What that has looked like these last 4 weeks is this: bed rest for the first 10 days or so, with the core and pelvic floor restoration and breathing exercises, from Expecting and Empowered’s postpartum guide, practiced once a day. At around 2 week PP I began the walking suggestions also offered in their guide. At 6 weeks, I will begin to follow the 3 weekly workouts that go all of the way to 38 weeks postpartum. I cannot really say enough good things about these guides, for pregnancy and postpartum- but seriously for postpartum. And, hey, you can start the postpartum guide any time in the first 5 years after delivery. So if you think that you may have missed the boat on creating the healing and recovery that you need- maybe not.

But what about yoga? It’s so healing, right? Well… So I thought with the older 2. And perhaps for the breath and the mindfulness. But one thing that we need to remember about any kind of movement is that there are the movements or postures themselves, and then there are the loads. And it is possible that we are putting a load on our body which is doing more harm than good. I think that this has been me at a variety of times throughout the course of my yoga (and movement) life and I would love to prevent/minimize that now as much as I can.

Which means that I will be taking a conservative approach. Quite conservative. Even though I feel tight in ways that I can’t remember ever feeling, I am playing it safe. I am more or less following the instructions given by Geeta Iyengar and more clearly documented by Chris Saudek, in a Pregnancy and Postpartum guide that I have had for about a decade. It goes like this: basic pranayama for the first 4 weeks; at 4 weeks, a few poses can begin to be practiced, with a few more added each week; at 2 months postpartum more are added, and at 3 months all postures can be resumed if there are no complications or special conditions to consider.

The poses for this first week: Vrksasana, Trikonasana, Parsvakonasana, Sarvangasana, and Halasana. However, yesterday I had to go to the DMV and it took quite awhile and it was a bit too much for me and so I started bleeding a little bit again. So no shoulderstand or plow. (Even though I think that most likely the reason that those 2 postures are included is because they are helpful if there is a bit of a prolapse.) I did do the other 3 poses though. 2 times each. It was a grand re-entry to hatha yoga that lasted all of 10 minutes. And I have to admit, there was a part of me that wanted to do more. (just like there is a part of me that wants to start practicing Christina Sell’s asana junkies practices or go to a 26&2 class… but c’mon) Instead I am going to wait and see. I am going to see what happens with a slow and careful re-entry.

If you are interested, I think I’ll share what the postures are each week as they are added in. It’ll help me stay steady. And all of it will help me spend more time where I should, where I rather be anyway. In the time that is short and fleeting. With my babe and not-so-littles while we are all here together, belonging to each other.

the scene.

birth story

Wilfred is one week old today. 9:45 am. I keep on circling around wanting to write down what I can about the story of his birth. I am in that fuzzy, spacey, postpartum time, where all of my time could easily go the way of baby-staring. Which, why not? It is so slow and sweet and fleeting. And such a supreme gift to be able to occupy this space one more time. But I also know that as time unfurls that the details of our story will likewise unwind and fade and as much as it feels impossible, with time there will also be forgetting. So I will try to get it down as best I can now. Most likely in stops and starts between nursing, changing, sleeping, eating, repeating.

I shared in the previous post my efforts to manage Group B Strep, not so much to prevent needing antibiotics in labor, but rather in an effort to prevent my labor from beginning with my water breaking. So, I had been doing the herbal protocols for just about a week, and I had also been slowing down immensely- like physically moving so slow that it was almost like moving through heavy water. I was so stretched, and uncomfortable, and cumbersome that it was hard to imagine 2 more weeks of growth.

So it was, that in the very early morning after Maple’s swim team banquet and the very last of our scheduled summer obligations, I woke to the most subtle internal pop. And I was fuzzy on what exactly it was, maybe extra mucous from the herbs and garlic, maybe something else? I felt strange and wobbly, a bit disoriented and shaky as that first wave of adrenaline began to move through me. In a few hours there was the telltale bloody show and intermittent leaking of waters. Indeed, same old same old, my journey into labor began the same way that it had twice before. However, that was perhaps all that was the same. The midwife and I had agreed that they would head over before too long to put in a line through which I could receive high-flow antibiotics every 4 hours as a prophylactic for the baby and there-in also remove the worry around time and duration. The antibiotics would make sure that we were safe and there-in greatly reduce any impending need to transfer from home due to GBS. A relief. And as such, a chance to simply settle in to the process, however long it may be.

Tuesday morning. After cancelling a few meetings and whatever else was set for the day, Maple and I headed out for a walk up our road. Jeb had run off- again- which made me super anxious and was yet another reminder that I needed to reschedule to invisible fence installation. Chris looked for him while Al came with us. The thing that stands out for me the most from that walk was that Maple twisted her ankle, somewhat painfully, and had a big cry about it. I could see in her emotion the fear and the worry and the concern that she was struggling to keep from surfacing and I was glad for the outlet of physical hurt for her and also somewhat amused that it was possibly going to prevent her from being much help- which it did.

In the months leading up to this day I had listened to Chris and the kids gaming out what it was actually going to look like. While I had been trying to paint it as a serene event, Chris was hyping it up a bit to be loud and intense and full of a screaming mama. This concerned me a ton- and irritated me- and I made a stubborn and impossible commitment to myself that I would have a quiet labor. Ha. Turns out he was wise to prepare them in this way.

Anyway. We spent the day hanging out. Chris went to the market and bought the store and came home to immediately commence making vats of stock. We ate and chatted and watched an episode of Parenthood all together. Eider and I were outside cutting flowers to make a bouquet when the midwife pulled up and began to unload all of her supplies. It was sunny and hot and beautiful on our mountainside. Jeb made it home, bedraggled and exhausted and the whole world was easy. The second midwife arrived and we went inside to get the line started for antibiotics.

Chris and I went on another very slow walk. After an hour I had to have the line flushed to keep it open. Something that would happen every hour for the duration. The evening passed with the occasional manageable, unorganized contraction, much in the way it had with Maple and Eider. The kids went to bed. Everyone settled in to rest. I rested as best you can when you have to have a line flushed every hour… which is not much.

Sometime in the night things shifted. As they do. We got up. Filled the tub. We didn’t have the proper attachment for the hose so Chris had to rig it to the shower head with a sock. It worked. After what felt like forever I got in and labored there for awhile until I was too uncomfortable and frustrated and had to get out. I was either about to have the baby or was forever away. After hemming and hawing for a moment we decided to check me. The only time I was checked throughout. Thank god. It was incredibly painful. And like I had feared I was only at 5cm. And something felt pinched inside. We guessed possibly his arm up by his head pinching my cervix a bit. One of the midwives guided me through some various shapes in an attempt to move him to a new position during sets of contractions. It was miserable and I was now officially just endeavoring to survive each contraction as best I could. The sun rose, the kids rose, we warmed up the tub and I got back in. And I continued to focus on survival. I got loud. Real loud. And I struggled internally with being cognizant of my kids and wanting to keep them safe in their security of me while simultaneously being in the complete and utter thrall of my own sensation.

Then suddenly, after forever, he was at the door. Pushing was a relief, as it is. I never felt like I pushed hard, just steady and with what one midwife later called a perfect, slow, crown. It hurt like fucking hell. But it was almost over and he was almost born and seriously anything is better than the abyss of those interminable contractions. There is a piece here that I did not recall until I was adjusted a couple of days ago. But there was this moment, after I had delivered his head- he was in this textbook position- where when I pushed his shoulders and body out he made that perfect spiral through our birth canal. Ours, for this one eternal moment in time. And then in my arms. Maple was in the room. Eider came in moments following, relieved that we were through the stark intensity of the stretch of time before. Chris was this Benevolent Presence of gentle smiles and tears. A papa for the third time.

And he is here. This little one I have felt for years. Calling to us, called by us, and now here with us, complete, whole, 5. Now one week old. Last night he lost his umbilical cord. Which is a relief and at the same time stirred up a hormonal wave of tears to the fact that, already, he’s growing up so fast… And even though he is mine to hold and nurture and care for so much as he grows, I know that this is all a long long process of letting go toward his eventual and sublime release. Like I said, I’m quite hormonal.

Some details: As my earliest babe, at just past 38 weeks, he was also my smallest at 8lbs 1oz and covered in cheesy vernix. He was also my longest at 21cm. Maple put his hat on right after he was born and has been, in all of the ways that we anticipated, an amazing big sister. Graceful, patient, and oh so helpful. I tore only a slight amount- not enough to merit stitches. Thanks, I imagine, to the “perfect, slow, crown”. Everyone is taking wonderful care of me, especially Chris. He’s been following the guidelines from The First 40 Days, keeping me gently nourished and able to rest. Again he is reminding me, for the millionth time, his magnificence as a papa and a partner.

So I guess that is it for now. He is one week old. This new iteration of us is one week old. Thank you to everyone for all of the well wishes and support and joy at this new wonder in our lives. We feel you each and are blessed by your love to no end.

Now 5.

LOVE.

brothers.

Lucky me.

5 days PP

getting ready.

We had our home visit with our Midwife yesterday. We had been scheduled for the Friday before, but as is often the case with midwives, she suddenly had 3 births to attend and we were rescheduled. The home visit means many things, but most importantly it marks having been cleared-time wise-for a homebirth, generally past 37 weeks. In addition to getting oriented to each other in our home, we also had a number of other logistics to review, consenting and declining to the myriad things that are recommended for newborns by the medical system.

Before I get too far ahead of myself let me just be really clear, I really like our midwife. We found her on the recommendation of my cousin Laurel, who lived in the Montpelier area for many years before making the long journey to the west coast. And while Laurel did not traverse a birth and pregnancy with her, many of her friends have and I am as ever a big believer that connections and rapport are the heart of how everything gets done. I was eager to get out to Vermont and get into the care of a homebirth midwife, after spending the first 2 trimesters of this pregnancy in the care of the UW hospital midwives per the guidance of another midwife in Wisconsin who counseled me on what made the most sense with our timeline and, of course, insurance. (side note: I have learned many things since moving to the Green Mountain State and while the subsidies in Vermont compared to Wisconsin are total shit, my experience thus far is that the coverage is way more comprehensive and inclusive here.) I hated going to see the midwives in Madison. It didn’t feel much different to me than going in to see an OB, impersonal and brief, and as a result I spent very little time thinking about any of the details or logistics regarding my actual birth plan.

Our midwife here though is a great fit. She is just enough brass-tacks and conservative that she is a match for this older and wiser version of me. Not so cavalier and naive as the home-birther I once was. And yet, as ever, more than a little bit skeptical about the culture of fear and lack of trust in the wisdom of our bodies that continues to be a hallmark of western medicine. She is conservative in many ways, which I appreciate, and she is also well researched and has her reasons for her opinions but treads a careful line in not letting her preferences override mine.

So, we had some logistics to move through, at the top of the list being the results from the Ultrasound that I had 2 days before leaving Wisconsin in June… which we had only just tracked down this week. I had the scan ordered to follow up on my 20 week ultrasound in which one of baby’s kidneys was still just a bit dilated and we needed to follow up to make sure that it closed, and if it had not, schedule follow up with a pediatrician shortly after birth. We also needed to discuss dating- for which I have been a little fuzzy since the beginning. My dates have kind of been my best guess, but the little one has been measuring big since the very beginning. 4 days, then a week, then just under 2 weeks. So my due date kept adjusting per the ultrasounds, which I have had 3 of this pregnancy. HOWEVER, the whole reason for the initial scan is dating because after that there are too many genetic variables that have come into play and babies are not just one size. Like in most things, averages mean nothing, and Chris and I are not small people! Hello! This is a big baby, like I have been saying forever, and he will come when he comes. And yet, based on those ever adjusting dates, we are going to defer not to my somewhat blurry recollection of my cycle and instead to that initial dating scan. So let’s say, new date is 8/14, as opposed to 8/18, which is splitting the difference more or less between the 8th and the 18th. Which would mean as of today I am 38 weeks. Fine. So be it. Better than 39 if you ask me. That can wait a week. Gulp.

So, what is up with kid’d kidney? Still has a little 4mm dilation, darnit. And earns him his own ultrasound sometime in his first 2 weeks. He was still filling and emptying his bladder last time we looked, and it is most likely less than nothing to be concerned about, but diagnostics are so detailed and thorough that we can detect more than we can understand and well it must mean something even if we can’t really imagine what that might be… Sound clear to you? Exactly. Our midwife did mention that that might earn us some grief from some folks in regard to our decision not to circumcise if he does wind up having some kind of renal issues… ha! WTF. One of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.

Additionally, I tested positive fro Group B-Strep for the third consecutive time. Having had a baby already who was born with GBS, odds were not in my favor, but I have to admit it bums me out. Like I said, our midwife is conservative, which means I will probably have a port for high-flow antibiotics to be administered once every 4 hours. While the younger me would have balked at this level of intervention and opted for the peri-cleanse that I used during Eider’s labor, older me is fine with it especially as it seriously lowers the odds of me needing a transfer related to GBS. But it still sucks. And primarily because it weakens placental membranes and increases the odds of the bag breaking before any real contractions begin- which was the case in both of my previous births and fucking hurts. Not to say that the whole thing doesn’t hurt, but there is a bit of a buffer before the waters break which just frankly isn’t there once they do.

The hippie in me is getting pro-active as shit around this hiccup and I am going to do what I can in the next days/weeks to decolonize my vagina of GBS in an attempt to keep my membranes as evenly strong as possible. A mix of live-ferments, pro-biotics, garlic, and herbal suppositories to the rescue. If you are curious at all as to what that looks like, there is some great information here, as well as the exact protocol that I am following toward the end of the article.

Ugh. There is so much in this post that you really could or could not care about. Thanks for sticking with me if you have made it this far…

Other than what is mentioned above, we are mostly just busy readying ourselves for the advent of labor. Gathering a whole pile of birth supplies. I am sharing that here and there over on my Instagram stories as they role in. The other big happenings this week are that Eider has been away at Lacrosse camp since Sunday, his first sleep away, and while I am sure he is having a ball, we have been missing him like crazy. I can’t even get started on that, but I anticipate that some deep processing will be had on both his and my end once he returns home….. Tomorrow! Thank goodness. The other big deal is that Maple is headed down to White River Junction for the state meet with her swim team this Saturday and Sunday. She is swimming in 5 events which is super exciting and will be fun for her to get a gander as to what swimming looks like throughout the state. We are all very excited and very proud of her accomplishment. My little fish.

Also, my body feels like it is totally expiring. And while I know that once he’s born I will be resting resting resting for awhile as a crucial part of my recovery, I am longing longing longing to get back on my mat in an even remotely familiar way- where my aim becomes something more than just trying to get my tailbone to move and my hamstrings and calves to lengthen. I miss the steady heart beat of my physical practice. The other night I watched a few old videos of myself practicing and it feels so distant and so impossible and I just cannot believe that my body is sometimes able to move in so many ways that are so out of the scope today. I can still feel it in my heart and in my bones, but I am really looking forward to feeling it in my tissues too.

As a little present to myself, I am signing up for Christina’s next session of asana junkies that begins the 28th of August. And even though I won’t be able to do any of it really for 6-8 weeks, I am so ready to be in the flow of that support. I wasn’t a part of the spring session this year, the first one that I have ever missed in the 6.5 years since she launched the programs. Not cool, fomo, etc… I’m looking forward to it being a source of inspiration, as it always has been, as I move back into my practice and teaching in the coming months. Plus, I miss group practice whenever it isn’t an active part of my life so maybe this will give me the kick in the pants that I’ll need to get something going in Morrisville or Stowe or Montpelier this fall. Odds are good.

That’s it for now. Thanks for sticking it out. Lots of Love.

old hurts

Things are getting a little etheric around here. Strings that somehow effortlessly hold the world in place appear to be dissolving and I am adrift in a new space. The hinges at the periphery of my mind feel transparent and loose. And I suppose that this is me melting into the portal that is childbirth. I’ve been here before. It’s been awhile, but I’ve been here before.

I think I am so close and so remote all at once. I have begun to lie awake at night with that certain feeling that something is going to happen and I’m not exactly the driver but I’m not quite the passenger either. I’m waiting on the vague guarantee of my next becoming.

And like most folks late in their pregnancy, I am tired. My body feels strange and uncomfortable. I am extra tender and teary. And I have circled back around to a trigger and a fear that I thought was mostly mine to navigate in the early stages of this pregnancy. But it is back. And more often than not these days, it has me in its grip.

I have read enough, in on-line and social media support groups, to know that a subsequent pregnancy after loss can be riddled with a nervous and paranoid fear. Not exactly irrational but not quite rational either. The statistics are what they are and loss is a part of life. It is the fear of someone who has had their eyes made open to the very real and fragile and perilous nature of life becoming. The lack of certainty. A void from any guarantees. I don’t think that I was paranoid in the beginning of this pregnancy. Yet, I was definitely guarding my heart. And it was relatively easy to in the beginning when my idea of who this new little one was so fresh and foreign and I was still so within my life before. I guess that my trepidation and hesitancy made sense in some way then.

Many women carry this fear of loss with them through the whole of their gestations. I understand why. And my heart hurts for them. But that really wasn’t me. Most of this pregnancy was busy and excited and filled with this new family wide unfolding. I have enjoyed it much more that I thought possible. My fear was not sitting right up close to me the way that it is now again.

As I near the end of this remarkable stage in my life, where I carry a member of my family inside my body, all strong legs and a big Newlin bottom, I am enthralled with this little one. As the tethers on my mind, body, and emotions loosen to help transition him in to the world outside of my body, I am often consumed by the fear of something going wrong, of him stilling inside of me, of his arrival never happening.

My midwife sent us some materials last week discussing the risk of stillbirth in the last few weeks of pregnancy for women over 40 and the medical recommendation for induction at 38 weeks. None of the research outlined is definitive or compels us at all to make a choice to induce, the outcomes are so similar and the risks are so vague across the board. But it has been unsettling for me. Even though I can see it for the feeding on fear and the discrediting of women’s intuition and trust that it is. And still. In the moments when I cannot remember how long it has been since I was well kicked… have there been 10 in the last 2 hours?… then I start to slip a bit. Even sitting here writing this right now- he is so incredibly active and distinct- and my eyes are still wet.

what feels good.

So I guess, to all of the women who have lost their babies before they were born, in whatever ways and at whatever stage: I see you. I feel you. And I know that those are hurts that while they may fade, are truly never gone. And I think also and maybe in contradiction to all of this wanting to bring a strong, healthy baby forward into the world, there is also this strange part of me that wants to stay pregnant forever. Because right now he is mine. And once he is born, he really isn’t anymore. Which is how it should be. Which is beautiful. But a mama’s heart is a tender place.

OK. Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. Here is a short little sequence that feels good to me. Some modifications. Do what feels good.

Vrksasana, Prasaritta Padottanasana, Ardha Chandrasana, Parsva Utthitta Hasta Padangustasana

Crescent var., Wide Uttanasana, AMS, Vasistasana var., Ustrasana, Lunge w/ a quad stretch and a twist, Virasana w/ gomukasana arms, Ardha Chandra Chapasana

Prasaritta Padottanasana, Skandasana, Baddha Konasana, Uppavista Konasana, UVK w/ a side stretch, Agni Stambasana, some backbends over the wheel….

REST-

This time. Presence and Plans.

I do feel a bit like the liminal space continues. Like even though I’ve arrived in a sense, I have yet to arrive. I guess that won’t really happen until this very kicky baby is born and we have settled in to this new space beyond the room to room boxes and the clear sense of what was this fresh beginning.

I have been feeling sick and tired more again as of late, with sleep being the only real fix and I seem to need a lot of it. Interestingly, the best of the rest comes between the hours of 5:30 am and sometime before 9 in the morning which feels so incredibly late and ridiculously indulgent. Anyhow, taking it slow seems to be the name of the game, with a walk up the road here and the unpacking of a box there.

road walk.

Despite the fatigue, I do think that I have done a pretty good job staying active this pregnancy. I try to walk at least 2, preferably 3 miles each day. I have been practicing asana 30-45 minutes at a stretch a few times a week and making it into the hot room for some variation of the 26&2 at least once a week. As good fortune would have it, the teacher whose class I stumbled into in Montpelier shortly after arriving in Vermont happens to be 6 months pregnant with her 2nd, so to say I feel seen and supported in her care is an understatement.

I have also been really enjoying 2-3 strength and resistance based workouts a week, with a nice dose of pelvic floor practices thrown in, from the Expecting and Empowered dynamic sister duo. One of my students pointed me in their direction this spring and I have learned so much as I explore and work through their materials. It has in many ways debunked and transformed many of the ways in which I previously thought of pre and post-natal fitness. And as opposed to feeling left in the lurch when it comes to my physicality during this time, I find myself much more informed and secure in my choices. I am especially grateful that I have my hands on their postpartum guide for when it is time to begin traversing the sometimes dark and uncertain road of recovery. Interestingly enough, several months into my time with E&E I learned that one of the sisters is also my mom’s dry needler whom she has been seeing for a number of years now and who has no doubt helped her avoid knee surgery at the very least.

Lake Elmore

We head to Maine this Wednesday and I am still completely unable to wrap my head around the fact that it will take right around 6 hours to get there as opposed to 3 days. It is comparable to heading to my Aunt Nancy’s cabin in Northern Wisconsin. Unreal. We are all ready and yet not ready to go this summer. Happy to get to our island home and just rest and visit and play, but a little reluctant to leave our new mountainside home with the sweeping vistas and photo worthy nightly sunsets. I am a little nervous to leave the house with all of the unpacking that we have yet to do, knowing that I will be nudging my way closer to 36 weeks pregnant once we return and who knows where my energy will be at that point? As my midwife said last week, it will be time then to have our home visit which of course I in no way feel ready for and am in a bit of denial about.

Today I have a meeting with Constant Contact in an effort to become more organized in my work and my capacity to make sure everyone who might want to know is able to know what I am up to in my teaching and other antics. I am perhaps a couple years- or a decade- late on this, but none-the-less I am looking forward to streamlining a few things and making sure that I do not always feel as though I am speaking into a hollow abyss.

Firetower Pizza

To that end, there are just 2 more months to register for the next round of Practice, Wellness, Community at the early bird pricing. I cannot believe my good fortune in getting to spend some winter weekends in Prescott Arizona this year with my favorite co-teachers and a whole new group of earnest seekers. Plus, it should be a great adventure, all of this teaching in the next year, as I will have a baby (and a baby helper!) in tow and I will really get to practice walking the talk of all of this Life of Practice business. Let’s see how I do…. I am happy for the opportunity to live it both with support and with witnesses.

There is not much more to say at this point I suppose. Except perhaps the thing that I find myself continuously orbiting around as a mother in my family. It is not lost on me the gift of this unusual summer of becoming. This liminal space before 4 become 5 and before our new identities in community take shape here. I have all of this undivided time with my kids right now. At such unusual ages for having all of their attention. Once they are established in friends and activities it will all be different again. Or similar to how it was. And this will have been this little window of slow and concentrated time together. Time that in many ways I do not anticipate I will ever really have again with them while they are young. Never again in this way at any rate after the arrival of their brother. So I am savoring it. Even though thinking about it in the present hormonal cocktail that is my chemistry makes me cry oh so easily and oh so often. It is so sweet and special. This moment in time. And I am here for it. Present. Happy and Sad all mixed up together. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again no doubt, but time is a mother and she wants to love you and consume you all at once. And we will always loose. But perhaps I am learning that that is no true measure of all that we gain in our presence, in our loving.

Ha! Now I’m really crying. You? That’s enough for now. More soon.

Bear.

lots of lasts

It is Sunday morning. Our last at 307 N 3rd St. We pack it all up this week and head east next weekend. To say I am tired is an understatement. To say that our family is a little raw and tender is likewise an understatement. This last week alone, we navigated all sorts of lasts: my last group practice, my last privates, Eider’s last performances, his last soccer games, Maple’s last swim meet…. This morning Eider and Chris are at a lacrosse tournament for the last games with that team. All of the typical words: whirlwind, rollercoaster, barrage, all of those feel right for where we are right now.

My anxiety is up a bit as a result. I am a little wary of simply the sheer effort of getting our entire lives packed up and loaded over the next 4 days. I am acutely aware of the effort and output required for 6+ hours of teaching that I have scheduled for Friday afternoon. And, maybe above all else, I am down right nervous for the 1000+ mile drive that I need to make next Saturday and Sunday in order to arrive in time for our closing in Vermont Monday morning. The drive is not so much the thing. I do something similar at least once every summer and generally twice. The state of my 7 months pregnant body mind heart complex is the thing. I am worried for my state. It is real. I feel physically vulnerable which dovetails nicely into feeling all-the-ways vulnerable. Which I do.

I’m going to make it. And I am not without support. And I am confident it will make one heck of a story after the fact. But… still.

I think it is made more difficult by the steady low level grief I carry in my heart. As much as I am so clear that this is the absolute right move for my little clan it is still very real to be leaving behind the hard won fruits of the beautiful lives that we crafted for ourselves here. And I know that it isn’t really the end of most things, but more a shift into new chapters that draw such strong influence and identity from the ones we lived here. It helps me to think about it that way. And it helps me to take action in the direction of staying connected and engaged on a variety of levels. To the community. To my work. To my passions as they live in the work of both my family and myself.

So, I have been weaving together different strategies of a sort during this liminal phase. Looking toward ways of staying in the flow of my vision for my own path of practice as well as how to continue to support that trajectory for others. It is coming together. It is exciting for me. It buoys me during this transition. I have been plastering lots of dates up on the homepage and they are all driving my heart of inspiration. I am thrilled for all of the opportunities unfolding in front of me and am so whole heartedly eager to watch how it all comes into being. Even as I get ready for another very family focused stage of my life I am so inspired and grateful for all of the ways I can continue my work autonomous of my family, and yet, as ever, nestled deep in the center of that identity and force.

I truly do love dreaming up and then working toward ways of nurturing path of practice in myself, in my family and also in the folks who seek out that work. It feeds me. I like tending to myself and putting effort into staying fresh and dynamic with that. I like to scout out and then take action toward cultivating meaningful and growth oriented engagement for not just myself but for my kids too. Making sure that we have the soul food we need is possibly one of my most clarifying and grounding acts. And I love love love helping others get connected in any ways I can. To themselves. To their potential and purpose. To their truth. This is my purpose. And the heart of everything. It is the fuel behind my vision and effort around Life of Practice. And more recently, it is the motivation for my involvement with Beautycounter and my interest in assisting not just my family but anyone who wants to grow their confidence in making healthier choices for themselves and the planet. For me, it is all connected and I always lean in the direction of propagating connection and growth oriented decisions.

OK I’m out of time for this space this morning. Time to dive in to the lists. Thanks for reading this far. I am pretty certain that my next update will be from our new home on the mountain. And I will have lots to share in terms of what life is looking like and what comes next. Hopefully, by then I will have a newsletter that you can sign up for with some more streamlined ways of staying connected. Fingers crossed for me, yeah?

If you are so inclined, please check out our registry- I will be updating the ship address today because not another thing shall enter these doors that must be packed and moved!

And one last thing… humble brag perhaps? This morning my incredible local student body is having the first of what will be monthly group practices in Madison. Round robin leading style. Collective connection. I could not be more delighted at this development. It is the very heart of what I have wanted to build in my time here and IT. IS. HAPPENING. If you’d like to get connected to this group of dedicated yogis, let me know and I’ll send you their way.

So much love.

m

some new directions

I am so hormonal that it is difficult to distinguish what is what. My emotions are in a bit of a murky slurry as I navigate leaving a teaching gig that I have enjoyed for the last 6 and a half years as well as say goodbye to a supportive homeschool community full of deep and guiding connections, and embark on moving our growing family across the country to the side of a mountain. To say that there is a lot going on right now is a class act understatement. And yet…. And yet, I am so inspired by what is and delighted by what is to come that I am not ever clear if the tears are led by grief or simply the exhaustion of a 6.5 month pregnant, working, homeschooling, mama.

I recently took on a venture in direct sales with the skin care and cosmetic company Beautycounter. This may seem out of left field, but to me this is a natural extension and addition to the mentoring that I have been doing for years. After all, it is all sales anyway. Sales and rapport, as I continue to learn from my smarty-pants spouse every day. We are all selling something, whether we want to admit it or not, and I simply rather take a conscious and active roll in that selling.

I was introduced to Beautycounter by my former colleague from The Studio, Aja Lefebvre. Of all of the folks I have worked with in the yoga world over the years, Aja has stood out to me as someone with keen perspective, a lot of drive, and a lot of vision. She and I made a lot of cool shit happen together and when she moved on, I paid attention to where she went. However, it wasn’t until Maple began expressing interest in exploring makeup that I contacted Aja regarding Beautycounter. I knew that I really wanted to support Maple through her self discovery but I also knew that I wasn’t comfortable with her putting just anything on her skin. I have always sought out cleaner options when it comes to skin care, but some of it can be murky at best and is often very limited. We use very little as a family- and I certainly am not one for makeup more that once or twice a year. I gravitate toward oils and simple soaps, many made by my longtime friend Rachel from LuSa Organics. I also end up cutting corners when it comes to things like shampoos and conditioners and sunscreens. And at 41 years old and after 3+ years navigating fertility difficulties, I knew I needed to be watching what was going onto my skin and into my body with keener attention.

So Beautycounter caught my attention. I wrote out all of the reasons why I am into this company and why it feels right to get involved, but Maple told me that it sounded too much like an ad and she was right. So I deleted that. If you are curious you can follow the link above and read about them for yourself. Or you can ask me about it and I will be happy to chat you up. I realize that when I get into something I become a walking advertisement which can sometimes drown out the actual message, so let it suffice to say that Beautycounter is awesome and the work they are doing is making a real difference for the health of the planet.

At this point in time, we are on the edge of a real point of no return when it comes to planetary and personal health, and it is every single choice and action that makes a difference. I want to do everything that I can. It is about honesty, it is about integrity, and it is about accountability, and it is the very heart of what Life of Practice has always been about. So, as much as I love to support people in the pursuit of their asana practice, I am also passionate about educating people in the direction of their own empowered self-care and lifestyle choices. That passion is what Practice, Wellness, Community was born from. So this involvement with a business like Beautycounter is a natural extension of that same vision. I want to be a helper. I want to elevate what is good and be honest about what is not. I want to close my eyes at the end of every day knowing that I made some sort of further reaching difference, no matter how small.

So this new direction, along with getting ready for Life of Practice Mentorships, are what have a good deal of my creative attention right now. Mentorships will begin in October. They are available by application and will be on-going with a minimum 3 month commitment. The program will center around weekly asana practice with monthly refinement of goals and accountability. There will be one on one support throughout the month as well as an encouraged opportunity for postural and technical review and refinement. I am exploring an on-line coaching platform to host us, but it may just be a little more low-tech as often suits me best. TBD. Anyhow, it is not a bad idea to let me know if this is something that you may be interested in now, as space will indeed be limited.

Other than that, my last public classes are at The Studio this week. I would love to see you on your mat, but if we don’t connect, no worries, there is so much more to come…

xxx,m

not my dogma

I do best to let my intuition guide me. It is true for me as a parent and it has been true for me in home education as well. Neither were a path that I set out upon with much planning but rather were a direction that I felt myself compelled to take, guided by something other that my educated mind. Not that I didn’t then educate myself within the field to which I was led. I have. I do. More rather that my journey down the path of intuition has made clear what I have needed to learn.

This continues to hold true in our homeschool journey and certainly was alive when we first found ourselves making the choice to leave the compulsory education model. I am not the first to say that I had no idea what I was doing, and I certainly didn’t have a plan. Instead I was watching a vision of a different childhood for our children unfold inside my head and indeed inside my heart. One of more freedom, less restraint, of long stretches of time spent out of doors and learning led by desire rather than demand. I saw us surrounded by other earnest learners who were more interested in exploring the world and who they are within it than they were with the status quo and cultural norms. 

In the fall of our first season at home, we found ourselves living in a small town in the Upper Midwest with wonderful access to a sort of pristine rural authenticity as well as a relatively progressive and engaging small city. We also found ourselves living 2 doors down from a large Catholic family that also homeschooled. It was with some mix of hopefulness and reservation that I approached our contact with them. After all, we were all home for much of the day, especially in those early days when the kids were smaller. Having access to potential friends, right on your street, is one of the absolute joys of small town living. And a potentially, very real, downside.

The religious and spiritual background of my childhood was primarily nil. My dad was raised Catholic, sort of, and my mom had here and there attended the Church of Christ as a girl.  In an effort to connect with community she had taken us there for a short time after having lived abroad for many years. But in never really stuck for any of us and after another move, she never sought out a church community again. We were each baptized per some sort of automatic pilot that my parents were on, but without ever any context. We did not talk about spirit or grace, but rather I think my parents had what I can only think of now as an assumed Christianity, superimposed on them by the culture and with no real thought or engagement.

I was free then, as a teen and a young adult, to explore with vigor my own truths and ways of knowing and while I never connected to the concept of Athiesm, I was also a bit skeptical of the term Agnostic. I didn’t want to say that I didn’t know. That never felt right. Or true. Because I did know. I knew that there was a force, an energy in the Universe, far greater than I that held us each together and infused our lives with meaning and with purpose and with beauty and with grace. It is that knowing that led me first to outdoor education and environmental studies, and then later and much more deeply to the lifelong exploration of yoga and a more eastern spiritual influence. I came to think of myself as a spiritualist. I still do. And I have space in my heart and mind for all teachings that ring true, whether they come from Christ or the Buddha or the Sanskrit scholar or my cousin or my neighbor or my kid. I connect most deeply to a vision of inclusivity and wonder and it guides me on the path of living, teaching, parenting, and loving.

So, it was with an open, yet not naive, mind and some trepidation that I approached our relationship with our neighbors. As is often the case in a small town, there are generally more religious homeschoolers than secular ones and I was mindful of this in our daily interactions. Kids care very little for any of this, which is wonderful, especially when they have access to playmates that are not just their siblings. And with a house full of children who were mostly always at home, there were friends for both of my kids to play with most days.

It was mostly fine. It was immediately apparent that our kids had far fewer rules and a much larger range than theirs, which was to be expected I suppose. My kids would wander freely into their yard and across the street to the park whereas the neighbor kids were much more tentative. I had no qualms or objection to the signs and symbols of their faith as it surrounded them. Maple and Eider have been exposed to spiritual statuary and devotional practices their entire lives, as their contact to my yogic life has always been complete and seamless. So, when the neighbors would have their periodic seasons of prayer it was always easy and natural to my kids. For Eider, who has always been attracted to meditation and mantra, it was easy to say yes to an invitation to pray and say the rosary with his friends and their mother. It was mostly ok with me too. Mostly. Save one striking difference.

Maple has always lived half in and half out of fairy land. In many ways she is a Waldorf girl through and through. Her exposure to their approach toward early childhood education made a lasting and meaningful impression on her. She has always moved seamlessly between the magical and the mundane, weaving stories and crafting wonder as she goes. She used to have this book of fairies, artfully done, portraying a mix of mischief and mayhem and fun that appeals to kids. One of the neighbor girls that she was close to was particularly drawn to the book and Maple was happy to share it with her. So she took it home to borrow, but not before removing the jacket cover. I thought that was odd, but no sooner did she have the book home than she had to march back down the hill to return it as well as deliver the news that they were not to play with my kids for a spell. Not surprising to me, shocking to Maple.

And there is the difference. So began my kids’ education in the contrast between our worldview and that of Christian culture. That contrast to me was glaring. Why was it ok for them to invite my son to pray to a God that he has no claim to and yet not ok for their girl to look at mystical artwork from a tradition outside her own? It is confusing to me and I am the adult. 

It is either assumed that we live within a complete absence of spirit or that any spirit we do lay claim to is false, without merit, evil.  In the west, and in the US in particular, the predominately Christian culture demands that we conform to that worldview, whether or not it is our own. Our respect for others beliefs and our silence regarding our own is generally taken as consent and the price becomes our sense of self, our connection to our own truth and the validity of our convictions. This feels a lot like persecution to me and quite frankly, that is not the world in which I want to be raising another generation.

As they have gotten older, the kids have not maintained their relationships to our Catholic neighbors. In part because they moved away and in part because they just couldn’t continue to find common ground as they each became more and more aware of their own beliefs. Today, my son’s closest friendship is with a boy who I think thinks of himself as a secular Jew and my daughter with a Christian girl whose family is passionate about the Gospel of Inclusivity. They are all finding their own way in this new world. Carving out a relationship to spirit that feels right and true to them. Honoring themselves. Respecting each other. And I’m continuing to respect the process. Follow my intuition. I’m trying not to negate my own knowing by adhering so strongly to social norms and etiquette.

Because here is something else that I know to be true: when we have been able to put the specificity of our language aside and not get bogged down in whether the words for our experience are the “right” words or not, the deep connection to grace that I have shared in relationship with my religious friends is profound. Full of awe, mystery, and peace. Our words may not be the same and in fact might even clash, but the magnitude of heart and wonder is the same. My faith in something bigger, in a Universal consciousness, is expansive enough to make room for more ways of knowing, for limitless belief. What I feel negates no one else of their feelings. Nor should it. And I want the opposite to hold true. I want to make footpaths across this gap of faith in which I am not always conceding to organized religion but rather where we meet each other in the middle and hold space and honor and respect for one another right there. In the middle. There is plenty of open space.

conditions shift

Over the course of the last month or so I have been making it back to the hot room about twice week and practicing a hilariously modified pre-natal version of the 26&2. If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, or better yet studying yoga with me for a stretch, then you know well enough how much I love this particular practice. I love love love how the beginning practice is accessible to really most folks and I also love how the practice develops past the beginning series with such a powerful emphasis on spine strength, mobility, and overall health. It just really works for me. I also really enjoy most of the teachers that I have met that share that practice. They are authentic and honest and by the grace of some sophisticated paradox are able to separate the man from the method- even though I will support anyone that advocates for a complete system overhaul and re-naming in which we no longer use the name of a sex offender to communicate said method…. but I digress.

Anyhow, it’s hot in that room and I am a big fan of less is more in terms of apparel for that particular practice so you will generally find me in some iteration of a sports bra and short shorts, essentially as free of garments as possible. This has been interesting with a physique that is ballooning on the front side and pretty much yields a locker room environment in which the only topic of conversation is my pregnancy. It’s fine. Really. I can handle it and I am polite. But really, wth with pregnant ladies bodies being fair game and open to conversation? In general I take the stance that we never comment on someone’s body. Even if we think those comments are well meaning or “positive” because we simply have no way of knowing what is happening inside the person and more often than not what is happening with the body is not an accurate reflection of what is happening with the mind or the emotions of any individual. It is simply not a fair gauge.

But all bets are off with a pregnant bodied person. And I get it. We want to connect, to relate, to support. And often I will lead a little just to break the tension of the potential awkwardness of the moment, because a naked pregnant body can be intense and I generally like to cultivate ease in my surroundings. So there is that. But I do think we need to check our behaviors, especially as women, in the ways in which we treat a pregnant person as though their body is public domain and I think that the way we talk is a very basic way to become conscious of that. We have to fight for agency over these bodies at every turn and our reproductive autonomy is on the line in far reaching and dangerous ways. This is my 5th pregnancy. This will be my 3rd child. There was one I lost and one I chose not to have and the truth of every last bit of this is my right because this is my body and it is me that governs it. And generally, I do not want to talk about any of this in the locker room with my clothes off and my big belly and swollen breasts on the loose.

Ok, ok, ok. So serious. And here is my own hypocrisy… I actually love it more when my sister or my close gals pals will say something along the lines of: “Sweet jesus Meg, your boobs are freakin’ enormous.” In that simple statement of fact, I feel seen in my humanity and in the temporal and the very conditional nature of this human skin suit. I saw my bestie Sam 3 or 4 times over the course of this winter, each time a little further along, and each time she saw me she did just that. I felt seen and known and it was intimate. BUT SHE IS ONE OF MY CLOSEST PEOPLE. There is a difference. I could feel her loving me. Same as when my sister says anything, or my kids, or my husband.

Anyhoo… my two sense. For what it’s worth. Or not.

I will be back in this space soon with some updates on future programming. I am so excited as to how things are taking shape. More soon.

xxx

leaning into the flow... gratitude practice in action.

At the end of last month, as we were getting ready to teach the final weekend of the pilot round of the PWC, in typical Meg pack-it-in-tack-it-on fashion we simultaneously listed and sold our home in Mount Horeb. It was a whirlwind of 6 full price offers in under 24 hours, one of which we accepted 48 hours after listing. It was nuts. And amazing. And inspiring. And such an affirming sign from the Universe that we are indeed on the right path.

Of course, all of this came to pass while wrapping up a collaborative teaching program that was made from the stuff of dreams. Practice, Wellness, Community was a long-time vision of offering an in-depth study opportunity for earnest students that are not necessarily on the teacher training track. It became more than I could have ever hoped for and such a source of inspiration and growth-oriented collective affirmation that Rachel and Sam and I have scheduled dates to offer another 3 part intensive in Prescott Arizona this next winter. Can. Not. Wait. The page on this site is updated with those details now and we will have some promo materials going live in the next couple of weeks. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it countless times again, but holding space and teaching with and learning from my long-time sisters on the path is one of the most fulfilling and rewarding things I have ever done. Truly, this experience is not to be missed. The growth we each experienced and in-turn witnessed in all of the participants was at once humbling and profound. The relationships forged and developed will far outlast the span of our collective time together. So good. So important.

I think I could go on and on, but there is more to say in other regards…

I have been dragging my feet at announcing the next bit, and then reluctantly sharing it with folks here and there. It has been a long time coming and yet at the same time always felt so far off that it has been hard to make it real in the here and now. I have been private about it. And perhaps a bit superstitious as well. This June our family is relocating to the mountains of North Central Vermont. Chris and I have found the little spot that we have been dreaming of since the very beginning, and though so many things are about to change for our little family, many things will go on as they have. I will continue to homeschool Eider while Maple takes the year to explore 8th grade in the local school. The kids will both continue to engage in their respective athletic and artistic endeavors. We will spend more time exploring trails in the surrounding mountains as well as romping about in the local lakes and rivers.

I will continue to teach. Probably not public classes so much, that remains to be seen. I am certainly going to wait until after the babe arrives before I think about making any kind of move in that direction. I will continue to mentor and teach to folks one on one. This fall I will launch one-on-one remote mentoring for both the people that have been working with me in this capacity here as well as new folks who are interested in taking their relationship with practice to the next level. I love this work in ways that I could have never anticipated and I am looking forward to refining my offering in this domain. Obviously, it will look different than one on one with students in my home, but it will keep that depth of intimacy through a slew of touchstones including regular live video check-ins, on-going goal and accountability refinement, and additional customized support.

I plan on returning to the land of milk and honey a few times a year to visit family and friends as well as continue to help Alex in his teacher training programs at The Studio. Kathleen has generously offered to support me in building out my programing during these visits so that I may connect and share with the larger student body- for which I am so grateful. Sometimes I am so slow to see it, but the support I have received from Kathleen and Cass and so many other folks at The Studio these last six years has been everything. They have trusted me, believed in me, and given me the creative freedom to really explore who I am as a teacher in ways that I could never have imagined all those years ago. It makes me so happy knowing that I get to continue to visit and explore these relationships even through the passage of time and the shifting of space. I will also make sure to have a number of in-person privates available to folks during these visits- and hopefully some group practice opportunities as well!

As a final little carrot to put out- if you are so inclined- Sam Rice and I are scheming to run a 200hr teacher training in Vermont beginning in the second half of 2020. For ease of travel and life logistics, we are thinking that 3 intense 7-day weeks over the course of six or so months will make the most sense. Those of you that have been wondering about whether or not I was ever going to run a tt, well, looks like the time has come much to my own dismay and thrill. I will get some information out about that just as soon as we have some firm dates, soon I think!

Phew, this is a lot to download. So much apparently, that my computer has been crashing all morning in my attempt to get all of this information out into the ethers.

But before I give it up for now, I’ll leave you with two little solicitous food for thought items:

1. Wisconsin winters are long. Vermont winters are LONG. And mud season is real. I want to begin making a habit of some serious beach time in march or april and lead or co-lead practice intensive retreats. This is totally uncharted territory for me so I will take all of the suggestions and guidance I can get. I envision a re-union of long-time practice pals as well as the meeting of new friends. Someplace warm, beautiful, and lush, where our cold winter bodies can unfurl into ease and freedom and our minds can realign with clarity of purpose. Sound good? I think so!

2. I am having a baby! Ha! Surprise! And it has been a long long time since I traveled this path and as you might imagine we have very little for a new person. Other than a few hand-me-down hand knits (ok, we have a lot of those…) we have very little. So I did something that I have never done before and made a registry. Seriously. Not with Maple and not with Eider. I didn’t even make one when we got married- I think Chris did? Anyhow, baby stuff is cute, and probably important, so if you feel at all called to check it out, it is at myregistry.com under Meg and Chris Newlin.

Now, that really is it. For now. So much love y’all.

age gap

When we started to think earnestly about having another kid, Eider was 5 and Maple was 8 and I was nervous about the big spread in ages. Flash forward 5 years to when this 3rd seems to finally be on the way and I couldn’t be more optimistic about this big spread. And who knows how it will really be when it leaves the realm of fantasy and the 4 of us suddenly have a baby in our arms, but it does seem pretty sweet right now and I feel more than a little lucky that our kids are eager about the arrival of their new little person.

Perhaps it has a lot to do with how much I am really into the 3 and under crowd and that has rubbed off on them, or maybe I really did just get lucky. Maple has had her red cross babysitting certificate since the fall she was 11 and has been the neighborhood sitter ever since. She is constantly showing me things she thinks we should have for our babe and has even informed me that she would very much like to have her own baby carrier.

Maple and the sled tow she made for the kids at Eider’s birthday last month.

But it goes beyond that. She is bearing witness to something that a lot of kids her age don’t experience. And actually, I hadn’t really even considered it until she called my attention to it. I was in the bathroom the other evening oiling up my growing belly- side note: with my friend Rachels’s Belly Balm that I used when I was expecting Eider as well, the shit is that good- when Moo wandered in to chat with me, which she often does. We are an open door family and the late evening is such a soft time to connect with my growing teen.

At first it was just chatter, something along the lines of how her body is really a mix of her dad’d body and mine. She kinda pointed to my fleshy side and was like: see? I don’t have that… I reminded her that I don’t usually have that either but that I am building up fat for my future milk supply. At which point she changed gears completely and said: It is so amazing that I get to see my mom go through something so vulnerable. Not many kids my age get to see their mom like this and it feels so special to me…

And well, maybe it’s just the hormones but I am tearing up just writing it down now. Her insight and attention just keeps on blowing me away. I love that she is aware of the ways I am exposed with her. Tender, raw and, yes, vulnerable. It feels in a way like a bit of a pay off. All of the years that Chris and I have tried to be open and revealed with our kids while at the same time still shielding them where appropriate. She sees me. And sure, not always. She is still occasionally a belligerent teen. But she is often present for me in ways that I could have never anticipated and as we make this big journey together as a family, I could not be more grateful for her.

That’s all. I just wanted to share what I am seeing right now. It looks so good from here.

yoga, pregnancy, right now.

I have been chewing on a few things the last couple of weeks or so, as I sit with and observe my shifting form, my variable energy, my morphing identity. I am feeling so different in my body this pregnancy than I did when I carried Maple and Eider. Which makes sense. That was a long ass time ago. And I don’t feel bad. I feel strong and connected and good. Just so different.

I practiced throughout both of those pregnancies. Straight through. I took out the obvious things like twists or anything else that compressed the abdomen but I think I kept doing backbends until sometime during the third trimester. And the main reason that I think that I did, was probably simply because I could. I still had the range so why not? And while I suffered a small separation of my abdominal wall, it was pretty slight and my recovery both times was steady and I would say now, smooth and relatively easy. I was 28 and 31!!!

I feel different now. While I still feel capable of most of the usual stuff, strength and mobility wise, so much of it simply doesn’t feel right, and that has translated in my body mind as doesn’t feel good. It makes sense that it’s different now. I’m different now. Over the last decade so much has changed, and on a really basic level, one thing that has changed a lot is my body composition. With age and the natural shift in my hormones I have left the juiciness and fluidity of my 20’s and early 30’s and become leaner and stronger and much more integrated. I have moved with increasing depth into a relationship with my core that my younger self never thought possible. My mind is likewise different. It is much more integrated and refined. The parts of my mind that could once push or force my way through adversity and difficulty now pauses to watch, to listen, to observe. I think I have become more honest in my body-mind as a result. It feels good to be taking note of this now.

So where does this land me right now? Doing a lot less in terms of asana that is for sure. Keeping it real simple and not bringing much stretch to what feels like a much stronger midsection than the one I asked to grow and stretch a decade ago. And having turned a lot of my attention in the direction of longevity over the last few years, I am keeping my eyes turned in that direction. Beyond what I am capable of in this moment, I want to stay connected to and rooted in an awareness of the life of my practice beyond this childbearing year.

But this is all me. It’s personal and intimate and feels like the result of a couple decades worth of mostly consistent self-reflection. And yet, right now I find this private truth affecting how I teach publicly and causing me to reevaluate some of my methodology in my classes. That is really what I am here to talk about in this moment.

Several years ago, I made the conscious choice to move away from the use of student demos in class. They seemed like they were becoming more about the student and less about the posture or drill and that felt divisive at worst, murky at best. Even when they are coming from a sincere place, student demos can be complicated and it is of course impossible to know how they are landing for everyone else in the class. Not to mention, the person doing the demo potentially feeling completely singled out and on the spot. I chose instead to do all of my own demos, as needed for the most part. I feel that I do a good job focusing the energy and attention on the pose itself and not making it about me. It’s imperfect, naturally, but I think it had worked OK. Having grown up in a method that used endless student demos I am perhaps more sensitive to this than I need to be, but I have watched demos land poorly in myself and in others. Instead of being something that elevates and connects they become something that fuels competition and comparisons. I think that it is difficult for someone before they are really established in practice to get the full benefit out of watching peers or folks with more experience or expertise in a particular area. It can feel threatening. And yet, it can also be immensely inspiring. I love watching people practice. I learn a shit ton from watching people do things that I haven’t yet found or refined in my own body. But I didn’t always feel this way and that is what I am sensitive to.

However…. I can’t do all the demos right now. Not even many of them. Especially if I want to keep my classes moving in the directions they are headed and not stall them out while they wait for the depth in my practice to return. So right now, I am choosing, again with eyes wide open, to use student demos in public classes. And I’m going to bring them in for the sake of the group. I want them to be rooted in the collective desire to grow and learn together. I want them to be in service of and elevate the whole. And I really want us to all be on the same page with this. So I’m going to talk about it a lot. Because it is complicated. It is nuanced. As are each of us. We are sometimes many people in a big space and that can be a lot of moving parts. But at the heart of all of the work that we have been doing together for the last several years is the creation of a community of practice. When someone who has more experience than you or has practiced and refined something that you have not yet and demonstrates that in front of the group, I want you to feel as though they are holding out their hand to you as though to say: I journeyed here from a beginning point too. I came here with the support of my community and my mentors and my own burning desire and earnest effort. And I am holding space for you to make this journey too.

And if you ever want to talk about any of this, I am here for that too.

some specifics.

In general, I do really put effort toward not mincing words, not telling only part truths, and not painting a more lovely picture than the one I am honestly living. I believe whole heartedly that honesty is our number one commodity, followed only shortly by trust. So, as of late, I have chosen to stay a bit concealed by virtue of absence rather than weave a not entirely true narrative. But, one cannot hide forever, nor would I really want to, so I am efforting toward a bit of rally and showing up as is, as imperfect, incomplete and unresolved as that may be.

I have been feeling mostly like dirt. The all consuming, debilitating variety of nausea and fatigue that generally dominates my airwaves has been more or less consistent and it has only been in the last week or so that I have started to perceive even the smallest glimmer of the inspiration of ideas that I have come to rely on as a foundational component of my identity. Nothing is more depressing to me than living life devoid of inspiration. And, in general, I find the diversity of muse available to me in my day to day, exceptional. To not be perceiving that is heartache.

I am still waiting for a blood work result. Which is perhaps taboo to even bring up, but again, discretion and silence, not my jam. And as much as I am trying to stay somewhat unattached until we have the results, who the hell am I kidding? I am attached. I both loathe and empathize with the part of myself that is holding space for disappointment and pain, and I am constantly aware that there is no limit to the shit-sandwiches any one person can be served up in a lifetime. And as much as I want to believe that we each deserve so much more than the pain, inequity, and injustice that life is full of, I am not naive enough to believe that just because we deserve a break that the break will ever actually arrive. Sorry to be such a downer. But I guess it is comforting to me to remember that I deserve no more ease in life than anyone else and that the only way to ever get there from here is through the inner work that frankly must be done as we traverse a world in which we each are wise to expect the unexpected. At least to a degree.

Also, I only have 1 pair of pants that fit. And they are not my best pair. I am in complete and utter denial that I should have to acquire different clothing to accommodate my growing midsection. And yet, I most likely had better take action soon. Ugh.

I have been practicing regularly. Not for long stretches of time, but 30-60 minutes generally. For the most part, it has not felt very good. I have felt short of breath, and awkward in my body. Disjointed, disembodied, or simply just sick. It was so long ago in my life of practice that I was pregnant, and everything about my body is so different. My practice has grown so much in the last decade especially and I am seeing the effects of that now, and in a different light, as parts begin to dissolve into this new temporary form. I pulled out Geeta Iyengar’s prenatal sequence this week. A bit earlier than I thought I might. I used it when both Maple and Eider were in my belly and it continues to work for me now it seems. It is peaceful. Powerful yet sattvic. I have used it in the past with pre-natal students and I think that it is so nice for the experienced practitioner. Who, as I have said before and most likely not for the last time, is more often than not, entirely underserved by pre-natal yoga as it is frequently served up and left almost entirely on their own to navigate their practice and their changing body unguided and unsupported. It is my belief, that this particular treatment of pregnant yogis goes a long way to reinforce the notion that there is no place, or at least a very small place in the world of intermediate or advanced asana for childbearing people, and by association for children or for parenting. I have been thinking about this so much as of late.

Anyhow, here is the practice that I have been enjoying. From Yoga: A Gem for Women by Geeta Iyengar.

Trikonasana, Parsvakonasana, Virabhadrasana 1, Ardha Chandrasana, Parsvottanasana: Intermediate stage, Parsvottanasana: Final Stage, Prasarita Padottanasana: Intermediate stage

Janu Sirsasana: Intermediate Stage, Baddha Konasana, Uppavista Konasana, Virasana, Supta Virasana, Parvatasana

Sirsasana, Parsva Sirsasana, Parvrttaikapada Sirsasana, Sarvangasana, Halasana: easy stage, Eka Pada Sarvangasana: easy stage, Urdhva Padmasana in Sarvangasana

Bharadvajasana: easy stage, Savasana

like it is.

Ok. My writing for anyone other than myself hiatus may be over. Good grief that went on much longer than planned. Actually, it wasn’t planned at all. It was more of a falling. I lost traction on my life and slipped off into tunnel vision, moment to moment survival, a hollow, desolate, uninspired terrain. I think maybe my life started laughing at me for thinking I knew anything at all and decided to serve up some big lessons regarding best laid plans and sense of self.

I have spent the last month and a half looking at my life from a distance. Trying to get a new perspective on the big picture even while I have mostly been trying to make it through one nauseating moment to the next. I have been in process with myself. Which isn’t unusual it’s just that I generally am a very out loud processor and am shit at keeping that to myself and well I just haven’t been quite ready to share the ins and the outs just yet. The caveat of course is that I generally transform through revelation and if I am holding all my cards close to my chest there is not much revelation to be had. Just a lot of digesting. But I am a truth teller and the act of wallowing in the mire of secrets is at best somewhat destructive for me.

So here it is, I suppose. Or the beginning at least. Incomplete. Imperfect.

I think, for the most part, I have always known that I have 3 kids. Maybe that’s weird, but it is simply just how it has always felt to me. I love Maple and Eider with my whole heart and while we are absolutely complete, there has always been another one nudging in from the periphery. Just about 5 years ago, Chris and I became pregnant by chance. At the worst possible time in our marriage to welcome in a 3rd. So we made the decision not to continue with the pregnancy for the sake of our relationship and healing and wholeness. Even in its rightness, I bear the pain of that choice always. The following year, we conceived again, but it was complicated and unclear in its own way and I wound up miscarrying at the end of the first trimester. This piece expresses some of that.

Running along side of this all is an on-going interest that I have long had in local foster-care and adoption. As well as my keen dislike of actually being pregnant. As well as the fact that I am not a spring chicken anymore. But instead of making any definitive decisions, we shelved it for a year. Mostly because Chris was really content with 2 and I was tired. I worked on moving on. I focused on all that I have and on making our lives as full and vibrant as possible. But the pervasive sense of this 3rd person just never quit. So in June of 2016 we began trying in earnest. Much to Chris’ chagrin and in many ways, my dismay.

And, well, we did that for a long time. I went to acupuncture regularly to support my fertility. I sought out unending counsel and support. I tracked everything. I spent months taking ovulation prediction tests and never once got a positive one. I pretty much started to believe that I was closed for business and that the only way that our kid was coming was not going to be by biological means. And I was fine with that. Chris was a little reluctant to take definitive action in a different direction- I think perhaps he was hoping we could just stay forever in that space of non-action and no results. But I think together we were letting go and loosening a bit around how we thought things would unfold.

Around the same time as we were beginning to lean into this letting go, we lost our friend, one of Chris’ closest guys for his entire adulthood, his primary inspiration in fatherhood and parenting. I processed that a ton this fall in this space. At any rate, it caused a shift in Chris, and he became much more clear on the expanding nature of a parents love. We moved into a new space of really being on the same page in ways that we hadn’t on this particular topic in years.

But I was all dried up! And pregnancy is a miserable slog for me! So we began to craft in earnest a plan for opening our home to a child who maybe needed us and whom we most certainly needed. And in the momentum of this, I began to do all sorts of things that I hadn’t done in years because I had been hoping to conceive. I certainly stopped charting my cycle. Thank god. I made not one but two long range tattoo appointments. I finally posted a piece that I had been sitting on for years thinking I’d post it when I conceived. Ha! I let go. I let go. And I moved on. I did exactly what people had been telling me to do for years but what I learned on the way is that letting go feels a lot like becoming something else and getting over some of the parts that were inherent in what you were before. It is a changing. At a deep and fundamental level.

So, what happened instead is I turned 41, I missed my period- which I had no idea of until my adolescent daughter who I am all synced up with told me I had- and I peed on a stick thinking “what are the fucking odds now???”

After some initial reeling, I’ve been re-grouping. Despite being just under 12 weeks and not in the clear as of yet- or, um, ever?- I’m sharing what’s up here so that I can hopefully free something up inside of myself that has been feeling stuck and disconnected. I guess it is a gesture of reclaiming authenticity in my new skin that I wasn’t planning on ever wearing again. It is so much more complicated than I anticipated. And I am not just referring to the ins and outs of being of “advanced maternal age”, even though that comes with a lot more complexity than being pregnant at 27 or 30 to be sure! I am like a human pin cushion, poked, prodded, constantly tested in search of something wrong. (Something must be wrong, right?!?) No. Complicated on a soul level. I am re-routing inside myself. Changing shape in my physical to be sure, but even more so within my inner landscape. And like I said way back when at the beginning of this post- thanks for sticking with me if you have!- I have been looking at my whole life from more of a distance. Tracking myself through time and space and making sense of old thoughts and impressions and the ways that they’ve evolved over time within me. Changing me so slowly over such a long stretch of time that I am somehow new inside myself. The same and yet wholly different.

OK. Thanks for making it through. I still have some hurdles to jump through before I can be certain of this baby, but I feel pretty certain…. if not a bit tentative still. Soon. Soon. But it feels better to let myself be seen instead of bidding my time. My path has always called me back to telling the whole truth and this is no exception I suppose. In the meantime, I do feel glimmers of my creative life taking root again inside of me and I hope to share more of that here soon. Life as ever is moving and expanding and there is so very much to take note of.