Waiting
Oh this waiting is a funny thing. In the waiting for a baby your world slows down only to speed up when you have a string of contractions which make you wonder if “this is it”. The funny thing is I imagine this long line of pregnant women and each one that I had put ahead of me has gone on to birth. So I know I am next. So the waiting is a bit more… I dunno…filled? heavy? legit? I have a nice little rhythm going on of collecting my 7 kids and taking them to the pool with a picnic lunch everyday. I abandon all my grown up work…and set my sights on sun and swimming. Today after a rather eventful string of contractions I looked at my favorite birth partner and said, “You better be praying for me today… because those were real and I am next in line… and I sort of want to find the biggest pregnant lady and push her ahead of me in line yelling,‘take her instead. I will take tomorrow’” . I remember being like this in other pregnancies….so my need to shove a pregnant lady in front of birth and for me to hide in my room, isn’t new to me. I may not understand the actual baby concept… but I get the labor one. So I am waiting…and clearly I am trying to be oh so mature about it.
A Great Weekend
What a peaceful authentic Father’s Day and I am so thankful for….
A HusBen who is always trying to be a better father.
A HusBen who is always trying to be a better husband.
A HusBen who is never complacent with just being awesome… he wants to be at the next level in everything.
A HusBen who can’t just own one company but is on a quest to build more for his children.
A HusBen who (I am so proud of) ,as soon as he starts the new company, major bands come a calling to have him build for them.
A HusBen who celebrates who I am too… and builds a whole room to celebrate who I am.
A HusBen who will put up with and even love them anyways, an embarrassing level of family drama than I could ever hope for!
A HusBen who loves regardless.
A HusBen who makes the best egg sandwiches ever.
A HusBen who inspires me and changes my views on money.
A HusBen who is my very favorite beekeeper in the whole entire universe.
A HusBen who buys a gluttony everything bagel… which in this house means either we have house guests coming OR he believes a baby is coming very soon and he is going to make me my favorite food for after the baby….
Spiritually Connecting with your Baby.
Recently, I have been asked by readers and friends alike how I connect spiritually with my baby before it is born. Perhaps it is my inability to really quite grasp the actual concept of a baby …like a real live human baby will be joining us here soon (crazy! let alone the fact that this will be number 8!!! Double crazy!!!) … that makes connecting with their spirit much more reasonable to me. I don’t know what exactly makes this happen but what I do know is that I have always been very spiritually connected with my babies long before I have ever seen them. If you think about it their little bodies are immature but in the spiritual timeline of things we are all practically the same age. If anything our time here on earth interacting with others actually does us many a disservice, most of which we have to unlearn just to get back on track and delve deeper into a better understanding of our Creator. Did I loose a few people there? It sounds way more complex and out there than it really is.
Okay so…..
How to listen to your baby and connect spiritually:
- Are there words that He keeps bringing to your attention when you think about this baby?
- Are there colors you keep “feeling”?
- Songs that pull at your soul?
- Have you had dreams about your baby? What was your baby’s mood and disposition?
- When you pray over this baby are there some things you keep coming back to?
- Anything through art , be it your own or someone else’s , that speaks deeply to you?
- Painting, doodling and journaling all ways to find a theme.
- Sitting in meditation and prayer or worship… will allow a connection with something much greater than your own understanding.
- Literally talk to your baby…watch and feel the response.
Truthfully this is how I go about my day just connecting with God… but I extend these types of things in regards to my baby to learn more about him or her. I believe very strongly that the Creator who created with you is more than willing to talk to you about this little ones spirit that is growing within your spirit. It is such a unique experience to think it is all about vitamins and doctors appointments… nurseries and baby showers cheapens the whole supernatural aspect of it all. Albeit there is a lot to learn and experience through those things too!
As you exercise these things throughout your pregnancy you begin to collect more and more knowledge of your baby.. one will build upon the other… Please do not be surprised if after you birth your baby if he or she doesn’t “look” the way you thought… that is more of a human flesh thing. What I am describing here is connecting with the soul and spirit of your little one. Some babies are also a lot easier to get a “read” on … just like people you see everyday…that is okay too.
Some of my other birth experiences and stories:
Nesting for 8.
Everything has been handled. I have nested like a champ. Mostly because I have this friend who always asks me, nearly every other day, “So what let’s see what you got ready for the baby.” Or she asks me things like if I have an outfit for after the baby is born…what about this or that. She is like a birth concierge which is super handy for me. Like I have said before.. I am little removed from the concept that an actual baby will be here. I am very well aware of the reality of labor, birth and the recuperation afterward… but that an actual family member will arrive blows my mind.
With my last pregnancy I couldn’t wrap my head around it till , at one point deep in labor, my midwife said very sheepishly, “Where are your baby hats?” I remember having just finished a contraction and furrowing my brow thinking, “why the hell do we need those….Oh! Wait!…we need baby hats for a baby!” Hey, better late than never. So I have a stack of baby hats… they are ready and waiting… but don’t ask me for what.
But they say that “the what” can happen any day…
Long Live the Queen!
~
Back when we released the queen I thought I lost one. I thought she got on my glove and I flung her into the grass behind the hive. She is it. If she doesn’t lay her eggs and get to it…the whole hive will collapse very shortly. She is the only one who can lay eggs… so without her…they all will die off. So needless to say I was a bit frantic. Think the scene from “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” when the dad (Rick Moranis) realizes the kids are in the grass and he is afraid to move..but he must look through the yard to find them. That was me…only pregnant immensely pregnant and without a cool hovering harness made from a drying rack like the movie. I went back out to the bee yard three or four more times the rest of the night looking for her. I was that certain she was what I had flung off my glove.
So when we went out 2 weeks later to cut off some miss built comb and add the queen excluders (those stop the queen from climbing higher and laying babies in your honey) I was worried we would find an already weak hive in near collapse. I never saw the queen… but I did find signs she was alive and very well. There was plenty of brood (baby bees). You can’t have babies without a queen, this I know! I would say there is more obvious brood in that little hive then in the robust thriving ones next to it!
See the little “C” shaped babies all curled up in each comb? The higher up you look the chubbier (older ) the babies are…and as you look down the frame you can see teeny tiny ones. You can even see some have 2 in each spot… I don’t know what happens in those situations. Either way the nursery is full! Do you see them?
To celebrate we were rewarded with that miss built comb! It didn’t last long.
Surrounded by Gratitude.
~
I have been working on it all week.
Each little painting a meditation of thanks.
Each one coming off my studio desk and into a frame… only to come back out and be concentrated on further.
That is how a thankful heart is… as you paint on the canvas of your heart… you walk away and find yourself even more deeply thankful….needing to add another layer of just how thankful you are, even more than moments before.
Habits becoming a way of life.
A diet of gratitude.
An alter of thankfulness in which to lay a life of art upon.
An alter to offer up appreciation for the gifts of this life.
A sign to those still learning… what it means to live here in this Provision.
The ones who come behind will fall in step to offer up their own gratitude as they have seen it modeled as not a holiday but a way of life.
~
sorry and stupid.
After a long day where I forget I am pregnant and berate myself for not being strong enough. I catch a glimpse of my oh so round self in the laundry room window as I drag a bucket of water to the garden…. “oh right, that is why this is exhausting”. This beautiful sun is melting me…and I figure it is time to go in…just sit for a few minutes I tell myself. I scoop a big bowl of fruit salad and pour a tall glass of herbal tea with ice. Off to sit…and not think…just be.
With closed eyes and empty bowls and cups I lean back…. maybe… I could …. just… rest here for a…. second. Startled alert by her sobs I pop up. Everyone knows I don’t do well with being startled…or surprised. A childhood of fight or flight has hardwired me to surge with adrenaline. There she stands crying next to my chair…with something all broken in her hand…she tells me she is “sorry and stupid.”
~
sorry and stupid.
stupid?
A wave of people who shaped parts of my upbringing ,surging voices behind me….
the wave surges and collects momentum and I can feel it about to crush me. I have heard this wave so often before….
I am to tell her she is stupid… she is a knucklehead… she can’t do anything right and she will never EVER live up to my standards.
the giant tsunami gathers speed with “how dare she’s” and “don’t let her see you weaken to her level”… smash her verbally so she won’t forget,
“Make her aware of how clumsy and stupid she is… she smashed your favorite tea pot…she has no respect for you.”
~Because the bullying voices will always try and tell you they hate weakness… but the truth is… they hate power just as much… they have never truly been strong enough to do anything but to bully…to bathe others in fear… They hate the weakness in themselves, and the power in others to do the right thing..something they have never been able to fully accomplish without a selfish ulterior motive.~
Right before the weight of many voices crashes on me…consuming me…
I hear my daughter again say…”I am so stupid…”
The legacy I was given…isn’t the one I will allow to continue.
When her daughter comes to her with brokeness she will not hear this wave gather speed behind her…
Right here and right now she can only hear the voice of her mother…she can’t hear what I hear. May she never.
I will part this sea… it will not crash on her.
I grab her soapy hands , “you…are not stupid…..Nothing about this makes you stupid. You are my smart girl. I forgive you. Stop saying you are stupid… you are not…that is a lie…you are not stupid.”
