The Most Ordinary Extraordinary Thing

On February 20, little Margaret Colette entered our world. It's strange to write this first post since her birth, almost exactly four weeks ago. Our little daughter brought with her many emotions, most of them joyful. The love I feel for her is a love of paradoxes. I feel like it's all-consuming and yet distinct. I feel that it's powerful and yet quiet. There really was no explosion of the heart when she was first born (for me, although for her father there was), perhaps because I'd been pushing for almost three hours and was exhausted, and then when she was handed to me, I started to tremble uncontrollably with cold. I didn't feel the intense, overwhelming love that you hear about, not quite immediately. But I felt joy, for sure, and awe. And since then, she has created such a place in my heart that sometimes I feel that she is my heart: she embodies and personifies my heart.

I love nothing less than I did before her birth. I love Elijah the kitty as much as I did before, and I love Benjamin Bunny as much as I did before. I love my friends, and I probably love some people even more than before, if that's possible, such as my husband and family, especially my parents. No, in matters of the heart, nothing is diminished. Everything has grown or stayed peacefully full. (Granted, I have less time to express my love, especially for my wee animals.)

In some ways, it still seems surreal that I am now a mother and that I have a daughter. A daughter! A little baby girl to call our own! I look at her and savor this time, when she is so tiny and dependent in her infancy, but I also find myself excited for when her smiles become more intentional, when her personality develops and blossoms, for learning who she is and seeing what she will become. But then, I remind myself to come back to now, today. She will never be this small again, able to wrap her entire hand around the top of my thumb, her little arms as long as her head, her feet able to fit into one of my palms. Everything about her is real and ordinary and yet extraordinary and wonderful. She's beautiful and healthy, and I am her mother.

The Benefits of Acupuncture

Today, I am 41 weeks and 3 days pregnant. It feels as though I've been pregnant for a short eternity: through honeybee swarming season, honey harvests, 4th of July fireworks, a road trip down the coast to California through the redwoods, my friends' wedding, summer school, a trip to Seattle and flat tire, the ending of a job and school year, the start of a new job and school year, Burning Man (which I didn't go to and had serious FOMO about), another friends' wedding which I officiated, a feast hosted by my chef friends, Halloween parties, the harvesting of chickens, Friendsgiving, Thanksgiving with my parents, the Christmas holiday, New Year's, book club gatherings,  Snowpocolypse 2014 and snow falling on the same bridge where I watched the fireworks. Not to mention countless appointments, prenatal yoga classes, meditation challenges, papers graded, books read, vet visits for Elijah, house projects started or completed...

And here I am, still pregnant. Which leads me to the point of this post: why I recommend acupuncture to anyone trying to have their baby without being induced via pitocin or another such drug. According to the studies and statistics, my placenta supposedly has a shelf life. And that shelf life is right about now, with each passing day a greater risk for my placenta to go kaput. So I'm trying the no-drug methods to induce this baby. I can't yet attest to any of them working, and quite honestly, with acupuncture, I don't think that it matters. I would encourage any woman past 40 weeks pregnant to consider acupuncture for the following awesome and beneficial reasons:

Relaxation

As is commonly known, it's hard to sleep when you are housing a 6 lbs. plus baby, and while some women still get fairly decent sleep (me being one of them), many suffer from insomnia. And fatigue can be worse at this stage than any other stage of pregnancy, even with decent sleep. Acupuncture is extremely restful whether or not you actually fall asleep. Each time I've gone (3 times now), I've gone into a state of complete relaxation where I've been able to escape my anxieties and feel a sense of calm come over me. I have only slept one time, but each time is a wonderful, restful experience. I can only imagine that this respite of worrying about and wondering when the baby will come and this sense of peace must be beneficial to mother and baby. Plus, it helps me get some much needed to rest.

Meditation (good practice for labor)

If you haven't before, I would recommend meditation or guided relaxation techniques throughout pregnancy and before trying acupuncture. Once the needles are in, I meditate, focusing on my breath and perhaps a mantra. My current mantras are very simple: "Open" and "Soften." Something about the acupuncture helps me go into a trance-like meditative state where I feel that everything will be okay. All anxieties melt, and I am able to focus on breathing and focusing techniques that I have learned over and over again will help get me through labor.  Therefore, I see this practice as a way to help train my mind to go to certain places of peace and comfort during labor. For example, today I decided to think of my contractions as waves on an ocean that I am riding over, the stronger the contraction the stronger the wave.

Visualization

While I'm in this meditative state, I am able to visualize the labor and delivery of my baby and set my intentions for how I want things to go. While I understand that many aspects of this whole thing are not completely in my control, I believe that the more time I spend visualizing a drug-free birth, skin-to-skin contact with baby, and peaceful breastfeeding, the more determined and optimistic I will be to achieve these very things.

So does acupuncture work to induce labor? Of course, I want to say yes! And my body has shown great signs of progress towards labor in the last 3 days of doing acupuncture, but maybe those are coincidental. However, I don't care. I'm reaping many other rewards as a result. So if you or someone you know is past 40 weeks and feeling anxious, recommend acupuncture. It will empower her and help her feel (if only for a little while) a sense of calm during this anxious time.

You got: Writer

So, I took this silly Buzzfeed quiz for what career I should really have, and here's what came up:

You are a maker. Creative from the day you were born, you spend most of your time thinking about the world you live in. You are open to new ideas and value beauty and originality more than most. We both know you’re not really the office type, so give yourself some room to create. Other occupations: director, producer, advertiser.

Of course, part of me was thrilled, because for years I dreamed of being a writer, scribbling short stories and poems in journals and keeping a diary. I think, in part, my dream was merely an imitation of my beloved Emily books by L.M. Montgomery. Emily was destined to be a writer; the muses worked through her and writing was like breathing to her. She couldn't not write. I never fully related to this. I wanted to relate. I worked at relating, at feeling this depth of passion for writing that this fictional character had (and which I assumed and still believe to be authentically based on Montgomery's own feelings about writing), and while I loved to write, I never felt like it was absolutely something that I had to do.

Still, there is a richness added to life when I write. This past month, I did my first 30-day challenge: to write in my journal every day for 30 days. I missed two days, falling asleep and forgetting to write anything. Otherwise, every night, I turned to my journal and wrote. Mostly, I just jotted down a few things that I was grateful for that happened that day: a lesson that went well with my students, a sweet moment with my husband, a healthy report from my midwife. Sometimes I wrote about my anxieties and frustrations, but I tried to keep it more a meditation on the positives and beauties of my life.

Now, I'm teaching my seniors, often reluctant readers and writers, poetry, and our first day of poetry was, in my view, a huge success. I started the class off using a method of poet and teacher Sarah Kay: I had my seniors list ten things that they care about. Then, they did a 10-minute free write on one or more of the items on their list. After they wrote for a while, I shared a poem that evokes an emotional reaction in me, and I allowed them to see my reaction. That poem is Sarah Kay's "If I Should Have a Daughter." We talked about ways in which I would relate to and find inspiration from that poem as I'm on the verge of motherhood. We also talked about Sarah Kay's three steps towards becoming a poet: I can do this; I will do this; and I will challenge myself to write about things that I don't know while using my experiences and unique perspective to guide my ideas and my voice. See her Ted talk for the poem and her experiences with becoming and teaching poetry.

 Then, I asked them to tell me, "Why is poetry scary? Or, just tell me your take on poetry." And I got a lot of interesting answers, from it's boring to the fear of vulnerability and the fear of judgment (being graded) on something that's so personal, emotional, and subjective. After discussing these fears and frustrations--and some of the joys--of poetry, I gave them this strategy: Take your free write, underline the moments in it that you like, and turn those moments into a poem. And the joy and surprise to me was that at the end of class students shared their poems! Some of the students who had vocalized fear of judgment and vulnerability volunteered to share. To me, this was one of the best moments of my school year, a little victory for poetry and for creativity!

I might be a writer yet. Perhaps some day I will feel that inspiration in one form or another to produce a book. But for now, scribbling in my journal and writing an occasional poem or blog entry seem to satiate me. And having moments as a teacher where I am sharing the power and joy of the written word with my students is an even greater joy. I feel inspired and wonder: what's next? Who else can I share with them? What other tricks can I use to get them to write poems in a safe environment and feel that rush that comes from creativity and expression?

So I may have gotten writer, but what I truly am is teacher.

Nesting

In a few weeks, I will be a mother.
It seems strange that the tiny moving parts inside of me will soon be here for the world to meet and for us to love and care for. I don't know if baby will be a boy a girl, early or late. I am telling myself late. I am telling myself I still have time to do the things that I would like to do before the baby arrives.
So many things to do:
Finish decorating the nursery
Shop for last minute baby items
Get car seats properly strapped into the cars
Practice pain management techniques for labor
Finish up at my job
Some last minute cleaning and organizing
Some painting
Make curtains
Some crafts for baby
Freezing food
Stocking up on supplies

Or maybe it's not really a lot of things to do, but I feel daunted.

In my yoga class, our instructor said that we spend a lot of time, most of our time, doing. We're doers. We make lists and do stuff and make new lists and do more stuff. Yes, yes, this is true. I relate to this. She said that we do not spend enough time just being. Just living in the moment. And, she said, in many ways, labor is about being in the moment.

So maybe what I really need to do, to prepare for this baby as best I can, is to try to live in the moment more. To practice awareness of the moment, even as I'm doing and even as I'm checking things off of my list. To not stop completing items on my list, but to focus on awareness of the moment, the beauty of the moment, as I decorate the nursery, shop for baby items, and live these last few weeks in joyful, rather than fearful, anticipation and awareness of baby's arrival.