RISE: Made For More

This past weekend I have had the privilege of being able to attend one of the most unique experiences of my life; one I hope I get to remember forever. It is called the RISE women’s conference and was packed with approximately 4,000 women. It is led by Rachel Hollis, a motivational speaker and so much more. Guest speakers came in for talks such as Dave Hollis, Trent Shelton, Ruthie Lindsey, and Stacey Flowers to name a few. The whole concept of the 3 day conference was owning your past, present and future. Digging into your past and pulling out traumas, hidden things we have pushed away but that are affecting how we embrace the present, identifying patterns of the past and how they affect us today. Owning our present, teaching us about habits, how we get habits, how bad habits start with a trigger and how to identify our own triggers, how to be grateful, how to create new and improved habits, and how to overall focus on our own health and wellness and loving our body AS IS.

AS IS, LADIES, AS IS!

Owning our future was about turning our crazy passions and dreams into an actual, doable reality and how to get there. How to show up every day even when it’s hard, even when we forget our why. She gave us tools on how to remember our WHY and how to create the “How”.

What struck me the most and what I will always remember about this conference is the sense of community it brought. I am an introvert by nature, but thanks to years of theater, teaching others in front of a classroom, and having a job that necessitates extroversion in order to be successful, I am a pretty good extrovert when I need to be. Even though it’s scary and seems like 7^th grade again, I can go up to a table of women I don’t know that are talking to each other and ask if I can be their lunch buddy. However, this conference had such community that the whole concept was that everyone was approachable. There were no mean girls. Everyone- although so different- such different backgrounds, different traumas, different beliefs, different cultures, different futures- everyone was the same in that we all were here for the same reasons. If you weren’t approachable then what were you even doing here to better yourself? I met a handful of beautiful women that I had amazing conversations with, and I admire their story. Even after the conference, with the help of social media- us 4,000 women that were connected at this conference can stay connected online and use each other as constant reminders to use what we learned.

One of the most heartbreaking moments of the conference was a sector called “Stand up for your sister” which had the whole arena in total tears before lunch on the very first day. We each filled out a piece of paper, checking off boxes-anonymously- of experiences we have been through- traumatic ones. Experiences such as, “I have struggled with anxiety”, “I have abused alcohol”, “I have been raped”, “I have lost a child, “I have lost a parent”, etc. We had ample time to fill it out and wipe our tears in silence before we all folded our papers and handed them to our neighbor.  Then handed that paper to another neighbor. And another. And another. Until our paper was sure to be 20 seats in any direction, and we had a total stranger’s paper in our hands, full of tear marks. The concept of “Standing for your sister” was that when those traumas and experiences were called, if our paper we now held from a stranger had it checked then we stood for her, our “sister”. The idea was so that we could see the earth-shattering amount of volume of women that stood for things that I at least thought was supposed to be a small percentage of women. When you think you are the only one dealing with past traumas and current breakdowns, rape, divorce, abuse, anxiety and depression, but then see literally the entire room of 4,000 women stand up at once when “I struggle or have struggled with anxiety” was called. The amount of women that stood up when they read “I have been raped” was absolutely gut wrenching. I was personally shaking and this still brings tears to my eyes on the amount of women who stood for “I have lost a child” as I felt deeply for them as a mother. Ladies we think we are ALONE in dealing with these experiences because no one talks about them! We stick with high level small talk but don’t know that we all have the same level of understanding to help one another out on a deeper level. No one is alone! There was not a dry eye in the audience by the end, including Rachel Hollis herself.

               We learned about perspective- about how multiple people can see the same situation unfold and all walk away with a completely different understanding depending on their viewpoint. We were challenged to think, are we standing at the right perspective for the issues that haunt our own self? Are we giving something in our past too much weight that doesn’t even matter? Do we need to adjust our camera lens in which we view the world? Not one of us on this planet lives in the same world. We live on the same planet, but not the same world. We each walk through with a different understanding of how things work and why we are here. The biggest take away I got from this portion was that life is not happening TO us; its happening FOR us- And that is the camera angle I want to always see the world and remember when I am facing tough times or moments.

               We were challenged in finding a word that we can carry with us the rest of 2020. A word that we can pull up in times of great need to help us get through. A word to remind our self WHO WE ARE and who we WANT TO BE and who we need to always reach to be. The word is supposed to scare us, not be a complacent, easily attainable word. I struggled with this at first, tossing around a few. I liked ‘ambitious’, ‘autonomous’, ‘adaptable’, ‘audacious’, (for some reason I had a thing with “A” words I guess). But as much as I liked them, none of them felt right enough to be *my* word, a word I love enough that I could get tattooed on me if I wanted. But then today, I saw a word and I knew it was mine.

EXTRAORDINARY

adjective

adjective:extra-ordinary

1.      very unusual or remarkable.

Synonyms: remarkable, exceptional, amazing, astonishing, astounding, marvelous, wonderful, sensational, stunning, incredible, unbelievable, miraculous, phenomenal, prodigious, spectacular, striking, outstanding, momentous, impressive, singular, signal, preeminent, memorable, unforgettable, never to be forgotten, unique, arresting, eye-catching, conspicuous, noteworthy, notable, great, out of the ordinary, unusual, uncommon, rare, surprising, curious, strange, odd, peculiar, uncanny, unco, fantastic, terrific, tremendous, stupendous, awesome, amazeballs, out of this world, unreal, wondrousremarkable, exceptional, amazing, astonishing, astounding, marvelous, wonderful, sensational, stunning, incredible, unbelievable, miraculous, phenomenal, prodigious, spectacular, striking, outstanding, momentous, impressive, singular, signal, preeminent, memorable, unforgettable, never to be forgotten, unique, arresting, eye-catching, conspicuous, noteworthy, notable, great, out of the ordinary, unusual, uncommon, rare, surprising, curious, strange, odd, peculiar, uncanny, unco, fantastic, terrific, tremendous, stupendous, awesome, amazeballs, out of this world, unreal, wondrous

I want to strive to be extraordinary for Abigail. An extraordinary mom. An extraordinary wife. An extraordinary sister. An extraordinary student. An extraordinary employee. This is my word!

            We were also challenged to face our past by thinking about writing our story. By deluging our memories, traumas, life on paper we can look at it from a new perspective and find patterns in our own life. By identifying past patterns and digging up hidden memories or parts about ourselves we forgot, we can enter the new time of our lives armed with new forces and plans to combat those patterns. Also, just being able to share your story in complete vulnerability is healing. I do want to try this and hope to start that project in 2020. As Ruthie Lindsey quoted, “If we don’t own our story, it owns us”.

            Rachel Hollis taught us about our fears of failure, about how they are all rooted into three main categories: Loss of security, loss of love, or loss of pride. Most fears all end up trickling down to a true root of loss of pride, but those are the fears we need to move past. We are not afraid of failing, we are afraid of people watching us fail. But what we really need to walk away with is failure is not something to be afraid of at all, and in fact we should chase failure and embrace it. Failure is a part of the journey, not the end. If you set out to write a book, or create a sculpture, or build a house, and everything was okay, you got to the end with no setbacks… Do you think that’s your best book? Best house? Best sculpture? Or how about the book you rewrote 100 times, or the house that fell over mid build and you made a new plan and made it even better the second or even third time? Failure’s are not the end. They are just curveballs we can use as momentum to keep going. They happen for us, not to us- and we are meant to walk with information to improve what we are trying to do. Failure is only failure if we give up. Rachel also engrained in us that if we compare ourselves to others, we will always feel like failures. If you want to start flipping houses and think “I will never be as good as Joanna Gaines”, but what you don’t realize when you have those thoughts is Joanna Gaines wasn’t amazing when she started out either. She probably had an idol she looked up to for inspiration but she carved her own path and kept on going and did it anyway. Do you think J.K. Rowling’s first copy of Harry Potter was any good? Probably not! Did Michael Phelps start out an award winning swimmer? No! No one starts out as perfect, they get there little by little. We SEE them as perfect because that’s when they are entering the public eye. Don’t believe it! Fears that are destroyed come back as confidence.

            The second day (yeah, that  ^ was all day one !) was all about owning our present. Owning who we are today and what we are doing about it. About how “Goal weights” are garbage and we need to throw those away. She encourages daily habits instead which will foster a healthy state which is all we should care about- taking care of our body that has taken care of us- not punishing it into a size 2 jean. If we don’t take care of what’s going on in our mind first, then even getting into a size 2 jean still won’t be enough. It will never be enough until we fix our mind. I have a lot of work to do with this mindset and it will be a daily struggle but the best thing I can do in the struggle is to adapt these positive habits, bless my body with good food, and every time I have a negative thought about myself I need to replace it with a positive one. With the help of Amy Porterfield on stage, we all came to the realization that people that feel like they are not enough on the outside (or too much on the outside- boobs are too big, our stomach is too big, arms too big, whatever) we compensate for these negative things by wearing more expensive clothes, or clothes meant to hide those flaws, or we compensate with our personality but those personality traits are FAKE. That’s not who we are and if we show up how we truly are, body flaws and real personality, that is the best thing we can do for us and our peers, for our children. Rachel’s powerful slogan is “Move your body- Change your mind”. Its not “CHANGE your body, just MOVE your body.” Know the difference. To truly love myself as is today, no matter what. To love my body for not just how it looks but what it can DO. To thank my body every day for what it can do. To love it every day for continuing to beat my heart every day and send blood to my brain. To be able to walk. To be able to hold my baby, to climb stairs, to play with my baby. It is an amazing body and I am making the next right steps to truly love it for what it is. We finished that segment with a hard exercise. We had to write down all the crazy things we hate about our bodies and then had to turn to our neighbor, a stranger we did not know, and tell her all the things we just wrote down. And I kid you not, we all wrote down the same things and yet thought each other were all beautiful!! I told my neighbor that I hated how big my arms were and how I couldn’t wave without them flabbing in the wind and she said she hated hers so much she got surgery, now she can’t raise them above her head and she regrets it every second. What is that?? It was an exercise I will never forget.

            Guest speaker Trent Shelton came and inspired us to adjust our mindset. To stop talking ourselves out of greatness. Instead of talking myself out of reaching for something because I am not qualified, instead replace that with a FACT of why I am qualified. To stop giving other people permission to place limitations on my own life- regardless of how close those people are to me, they are not me. To stop taking advice from the wrong people. To stop accepting the “cant’s” in your life- “I can’t do that, I can’t do this”. We can literally do anything. With research, determination and practice, we can do anything. People will judge us no matter what, its just human nature. They will judge us and hate us even when WE think we are our best selves or our worst selves. So, if they are gonna judge no matter what, why not just be our best selves then? My biggest takeaway from Trent, was he asked us to think about- when someone is around me, how do I influence them? If people hang out with me or have even a small conversation with me, do they walk away motivated and feeling good? Or do they walk away drained and feeling negative about whatever we were talking about? That really sunk in with me because it is easy to forget that what we go through does affect others. The way we carry ourselves and present ourselves to our family, friends and coworkers does affect others. Its so easy to think “I’m not doing great and not living my best life but its okay I’m just going to internalize it all and everything’s fine and no one will ever know”- but in reality- those people are spewing out sadness, negativity, doubts, and putting down others to bring others to their own level. So this may have been my biggest motivator yet- is that I want people to walk away from interactions with me feeling good about themselves, good about their space, their day, their world, the task they have to do- not dread, fear, insecurity. This is going to take a LOT of work! Its easy to complain to others when others are complaining to you and having a mini vent session! Others are complaining, you want to fit in and so you join in with the pool of complaints, so you feel connected! 100% the easier path. But nothing great in life is easy. I have to do the hard work to get on a higher path, and hopefully I will start noticing that I don’t as often hear negativity around me anyway because I have inspired others.

            On our last day we transitioned to the concept of owning our future and planning out how to turn out crazy dreams into a reality. One way that Rachel Hollis herself has done this is she started writing down her dreams every day as if they’ve already happened (past tense). If you write them down as goals, it scares your brain because they seem too big, too insurmountable, too lofty. But if you write them down as if they already happened, your brain gets used to it and even starts to accept it as reality. Then you can push past the fear and start living the life as if these things are true and make concrete steps to make them a reality. So, I am going to lay it out there and be really vulnerable. She challenged us to write down our dreams for where we want to be in 10 years, no matter how crazy or ridiculous they may seem. So here goes!

1. I am a published author and N.Y. Times Best Seller and have gone on book tours and have seen the difference my book has made for other people.

2.    I am a successful and well known and sought after real estate photographer.

3.   I have written and sold scripts for multiple television shows and movies.

4.   I travel the world and show my daughter new cultures- and we fly first class.

5.  I solve world problems working hand in hand with world wide organizations like NASA, WHO, CDC, Google, Microsoft, etc. using predictive analytics and machine learning.

6. I speak worldwide to audiences to tell them about #5.

7. I am a successful innovator, having created multiple inventions and ideas and worked with big home and health technology companies such as Microsoft, Johnson& Johnson, Google, Apple.

8.  I have a successful podcast with a huge following, number one in its category.

9.  I have my own business and company with employees that has turned one of my business ideas into a reality.

10.  I work with big tech companies on developing new uses for virtual & augmented reality that’s used not for gaming but for training people and for therapy. 

Ahh! There they are, some of my crazy dreams! I don’t know how I will maintain a life where all of those are true at once but that’s beside the point!

            Dave Hollis came to speak and was excellent. He gives a much different perspective than Rachel as he comes from a past of being afraid to change and fearing who is wife was becoming on her own personal growth journey. Fear of losing her. So, he coached us in some new ways about how not to let others get in our way on our future journey. He warned us the people we hold closest and love the most will try first to get in our way; to say our dreams are too big and unattainable, to say we won’t do it and why don’t we just keep doing what we’ve always done because it’s working? They will attempt to keep us at their level with them because they don’t also want to go on this journey at this time but that doesn’t mean we can’t acknowledge that and still go on our own journey. He also challenged us to accept the fact that we get in our own way and need to change our relationships with social media. He challenged us to accept reality that when we are browsing facebook, Instagram, snapchat, whatever- if we see something that makes us feel uncomfortable, less than, smaller, negative in any way- UNFOLLOW THEM. Facebook has this thing where you don’t have to unfriend them and make it awkward (unless you want to), but you can just unfollow them and remove them from your newsfeed! On Instagram, no one will notice if you don’t follow them anymore. Remove the beautiful models that make YOU feel LESS THAN THEM because they are posting fake pictures of themselves because THEY are insecure! Remove people that make you feel like less of a mom or less of a wife. Remove things you see that make you upset in any way! Unfollow unfollow unfollow! And stop watching the news if it makes you upset! There are new ways now to stay connected to the news you DO care about without having to sit through stories of rape, abuse, murder, etc. Get that crap out of your morning routine! I subscribe to an app called “Medium” that allows you to pick what topics you enjoy and they send you emails every day with GOOD articles about these topics. Do not let room in for negativity. And don’t worry, if a huge world event is happening- you will still know.

            Dave also challenged us to change our relationship with our calendar. It should be reflective of our values and our visions, not obligations and things we do not enjoy. Not things that aren’t helping us get to that 10 year vision. He said something that really stuck with me- “When someone asks you to do something – if its not a HELL YEAH, then it is a HELL NO.” Period!

            Stacey Flowers came on to coach us on who we surround ourselves with and why we do what we do. She gave us a metaphor based on her years as a waitress. Women go to a steakhouse and want steak. We order a beautiful steak and can’t wait for it to come. We wait the 20 minutes and the waitress comes back and brings all our friend’s plates and gives us…… a chicken. We didn’t order a chicken, we ordered the steak we came for. She said there are four types of women. The first kind immediately says, “I didn’t order the chicken, I ordered the steak!” The waitress apologizes profusely and offers to go replace it but the woman says no, no no, I will just eat it, it’s fine. Everything’s fine.  It will be great, the chicken looks great. So she eats the chicken but the whole time is sad she didn’t get the steak she came for. The second woman says to the waitress, “how dare you bring this chicken, I ordered the steak! You got it wrong! I am standing up for myself and showing you how wrong you are!” The waitress apologizes and offers to replace it but the woman does not want to be further inconvenienced by waiting another 20 minutes and says NO, she will EAT THIS CHICKEN but she will complain to her friends the entire time. The third woman won’t say anything. She doesn’t want to cause a fuss so the waitress doesn’t even know a mistake was made! The woman just eats the chicken in silence and is sad she didn’t get the steak she came for! The fourth woman- she sees the chicken being handed to her and she politely tells the waitress, “I am sorry, but I ordered the steak.” And she waits the 20 minutes again for her steak to come because that is what she came for and that is worth waiting for. Now, which woman are you? The metaphor here is that the steak, the steak is our best self- it’s the person we want to be that we need to put in the hard work for (i.e. the extra 20 minute wait) but too many of us just accept the chicken because its easy. It won’t cause a fuss. It’s not an inconvenience. It’s easier than waiting for what I really want. So, start waiting for the steak!

Overall, I took away from this weekend five main points:

1.     I thought my dreams had an expiration date, but they don’t.

2.     I can figure ANYTHING out if I know my why and if I put the effort in and keep showing up, and keep trying.

3.     All women have the same fears and insecurities about themselves and turns out no one is judging you for how you look, they’re too focused on how they look!

4.     If someone has an opinion about you or something you’re doing and you don’t like it, who the F cares? Move on!

5.     Every experience that we have had and have every day, *Every little thing* has happened to us for a reason. Good, bad, traumatic, whatever- we have been put through these experiences to teach us something. We have survived. We have come out stronger and we are still here. Ever since returning I see the beauty in more things and can more easily pick out the new patterns I learned in other things I see now, i.e. TV shows, other peoples content, songs, movies, etc. Positivity is everywhere as long as you are open to seeing it.

            I really did think my dreams had an expiration date and I’m starting to see now that dude, I am only a THIRD of the way through life and I have so much more time. I have accomplished SO MUCH in the last 10 years and cannot wait to see where the next 10 will bring me. When I was a teenager/young twenties I had a lofty goal thinking I was going to be “the next big writer with a best seller and my selling point was that I was so young and boy look how talented she is and yet so young!” But now in my 30s I have subconsciously felt like a failure because I could no longer have that dream of people shocked at how such a good book could come from a “young” writer. But GIRL people publish their first book at the age of retirement! It is not over! Does it matter if I had written an amazing book at the age of 22 vs the age of 32, if its amazing either way? No! The point is that it’s amazing, and it will be written when its meant to be written. Life is not happening TO me, it’s happening FOR me. The book will come! The dreams will come.

            Ladies & Gents, I wish I could have summarized every single thing I learned and took away but ya’ll, these are just the highlights!! There was SO MUCH content jam packed into 3 days. If you have the means and ever get the chance to go to one of these conferences, I highly recommend to go, just for the experience. That being said, I am now re-listening to Rachel Hollis’ book (Girl, Wash your Face) and have been listening to her podcasts, and a lot of the same content I heard at the conference is in her other content as well. But the conference does give you something you can’t buy at a store- the sense of community, the participation factor, showing up, dancing with 4,000 women, being really vulnerable to present your true self in front of total strangers.


Thank you for reading!

Here are some pictures throughout the conference:

Lessons to my Child: Between a Rock and a Judgment

 

This picture is floating around the internet and seems to be centered around relationship building and understanding, but I don’t see it that way. To me this is a lesson on basic human understanding, judgment, empathy and compassion.

 Similar to how others have interpreted what is happening, when you first look at the picture you see a man trying to save a woman (relationship unknown). But that’s only the first layer, the first circumstance. When you look at it further, there seems to be a rock crushing the man at the top, and a hidden snake biting the woman’s arm inside the cliff. Now you might think, okay, so what does this mean?

Well, what if the woman is thinking, as she barely struggles to hold on, finger by finger, “why isn’t the man trying harder to save me? He should be strong and be able to lift me up, why is he only putting half the effort in??” But what the woman can’t see from her angle is that the man is being crushed by a rock on his back. But alas, he’s still trying to save her despite his obvious pain and suffering. He is doing his absolute best, and meanwhile the woman thinks he isn’t doing enough.  And the man might be thinking, “I am trying so hard to lift her up but she’s barely even trying to help herself!! How can I be expected to do all the work!?” But what he doesn’t see is the woman is getting bitten by the snake that’s crawling out of the cliff, and she’s afraid to use the ledge to help herself climb up because of the snake.

 Now this may be a strange example. I can't think of any situation where this might actually happen, but you never know! But that’s not the point, it’s the basic lesson of human empathy behind it.

We are ALL going through something, most of us are struggling with our demons, grievances, memories, fears, worries, every day. Maybe a physiologic disease or a psychiatric disease, emotional struggles, family struggles, marital struggles, losses, anything, what it "is" is different for everyone. One persons “something” might feel a lot worse to one person vs another, but that doesn’t matter. That person is still going through a difficult time. That person is still being crushed by a rock while someone else judges them for why they aren’t doing more.

 I post this on my motherhood blog because this is a lesson I not only want to share, but one I want my daughter to grow up knowing. It is basic human nature to wonder about other people, and often times our thought processes make us jump to conclusions and judgments that either aren’t true or we aren’t seeing the whole picture, thus we can never make an accurate assumption about what that person is going through. Even the people we love and know best, we can always jump to conclusions too fast.

 I want my daughter to grow up to always think, if she for a second has an impulse to judge someone for their actions, behaviors, looks, life-choices, clothing, etc, I want her to always stop and think, what could this person be going through? What else may be happening to explain this action I am witnessing? We can’t always help. Often times help isn’t wanted, we are unable, or its purely just not our business. But what we can do is try to understand. To think what rock might be crushing this person that is behaving this way? What snake is attacking this person behaving that way?

 

I try and practice this train of thought every day. Multiple times a day. And its hard! As someone speeds past me on the right hand lane when the rest of us hundred cars are in traffic trying to merge because a lane is closing, instead of letting my blood boil, I try to think of why that man might be in such a rush? Maybe his own daughter is very ill in the backseat, or his wife is in labor, or his mother is dying right now in the hospital, I don't know. I have to believe these things because I choose to believe good versus bad when I literally have no power to know what the correct reason was.

 

It’s easier for our brains to put us on the defense, to automatically make us think we are of course, right, and our opinion is always right that we make of someone. I’ve heard it said that we decide what we make lifelong impressions on people within the first 7 seconds of meeting them. Our instinct goes back to cave men fighting threats. The cave man sees a wolf in the wild and immediately analyzes the situation, decides this wolf is trouble and up to no good, and the man goes on the defense to fight the wolf or flee. But maybe the wolf just lost her baby wolf (cub?), or just got separated from its parents, or anything. When we come across behavior, actions or characteristics from other people that WE think are untrustworthy, bad, annoying, poor-parenting, poor life choices, horrible, devilish, etc, we immediately go on the defense. Our first thought on habit is to judge (this man is not strong and doesn’t care about helping me survive this cliff), and then we justify it with our own thoughts (He should be working harder to save me and that’s what I would do if I were him), and we decide that we are right and they are wrong. But we need to change that instinct habit, or at lease instead of letting the thought process continue- we halt it in its track and after we have that “judge mental” thought, we then think of what pressures that person is under? What rocks might be crushing this man? What snake is biting this woman?

 

 

PS I’d like to give credit to the original drawing, but can’t find the source, if anyone knows, let me know!

The Piece You Made With Me

Almost exactly a year ago to this day, I began a new hobby. Prior to that, when making a Christmas list for Christmas 2017, I thought, hey cross stitching looks fun, (and much to my wrong thinking, looks easy). So I picked out a completely random set on Amazon and put it on my list. My husband got me the kit for that Christmas. Right around this time exactly, last January, I was nauseous a lot in the early stages of the pregnancy and I was looking for something to keep my mind off it, especially at nights after work. So I got out the kit and started one night. I had no idea what I was doing and quickly learned this was not going to be easy. I read the directions, and I shook my head and thought to myself, no way. I can’t figure this out. I put the directions back in the kit and resumed watching tv, giving up without even starting. I watched tv for about 5 more minutes, while I stared at the kit next to me on the couch. I picked up the kit again and thought, what the hell? I can at least try. So I got the kit back out, the thread, directions, etc. I still didn’t really know what I was doing. There were color codes for the thread and little numbers next to it like (1), (2), (3), etc., all the way up to 6. What did these mean?? I, of course, ignored it. I figured out the color code and pattern and I began to try and put the thread in the needle. Well, THAT took about 30 minutes my first time, and a lot of frustration (ALMOST leading to the whole thing going back in the kit). I started following the pattern and got about 20 or so stitches done....when the needle literally broke in half. That was it. No more. I was done. This was stupid and stupid to ask for, stupid to try, and it was all stupid. I was giving up. I put it all away again and tossed it aside.

The next night, I looked at the kit again and thought, what did I do wrong? I took it back out and looked at the directions again and saw it...(you professional cross stitchers out there will laugh at this, but remember, I had never done this), but I saw it! Those NUMBERS (1), (2), etc, were telling me how many individual threads were supposed to be used to indicate the thickness of the thread color! Dope me the first time put all six strands in which was way too thick! No wonder it was hard to thread my first time and the needle broke. So now, determined to succeed, I flipped the piece over and started again all over at the other corner and was on my way.

Over the next few nights, I began doing anywhere between 30-60 minutes every single night on this piece. And I made A LOT of mistakes, and still almost thought about giving up many times. It was humbling to work so hard and for so long to feel like I was making so little progress in comparison to the whole picture. But it also occurred to me that the struggles I was facing in the piece, had a strange metaphor to what was going on in my life at the time. I had just recently been asked to cover someone else’s job while they were on maternity leave, a job not only I had never done before, knew very little about, did not have the correct resources/clearances to do said job, had no training to do job, no preparation, and we had just gone live with a software that this job was right in the middle of it all. Oh, and I was in my own first trimester with Abby and nauseous, VERY nauseous, every single day. Needless to say, life was kind of a stressful mess! But as I sat there at night working on my piece, I felt that even though it felt I was making little progress in comparison to the entire huge piece that seemed like it would never get done, I could get one stitch done at a time. If I could make one stitch, that was one more stitch that I had the day prior and I would slowly make progress. And it hit me, that’s all I could do at my job to stay sane. If I could at least show up and get a little done each day, without stressing myself out about the "entire piece" then I could manage that. If I could figure out how to correct my mistakes and set backs in my cross stitch, then I could figure out how to move past challenges and set backs in my job, too. The stitch also provided a way for me to spend time at night not thinking about work and just relaxing throughout the pregnancy.

I continued on, every night, and my job began to let up. The person came back from leave and I finished that "duty", but then got asked to cover someone else’s maternity leave that had a similar job. Luckily I at least knew more about that persons job role and had prior experience in it, so I was a lot less stressed. I began to feel that as Abby was growing bigger in the womb, she was connected to the cross stitch as they began to grow together. We sat for hours on weeknights and weekends together, feeling her kick and getting through the nausea, migraines, etc, together, as we worked on the piece. It felt so good to see progress as I was starting to make out actual shapes, i.e. I made a tree! A fence! A shed! It’s actually looks like something! Each stitch I had worked so hard for, it was beginning to look like something!

But of course there were set backs. Not only hundreds of mistakes (I am still SO confused as to how I could possibly so diligently follow the pattern and yet was constantly running into errors!) but then there was the BIG set back. I was about to go on a work trip. I was packing for the trip and wanted to bring my cross stitch as something to do when I was alone in the hotel room at night, probably nauseous. I put it INSIDE my suitcase on top of all my stuff, I closed the lid but I hadn’t zippered the suitcase yet as I intended to still put a few last minute things in. I had a late day flight and that morning decided to take a nap before having to go to the airport. Well, right as I went in to go collect my suitcase before final preparations to leave for the airport, there my piece was, on the floor, shredded!!! My DOG, my sweet angel but PSYCHO dog who thinks she is a GOAT with how attracted to paper she is, had completely torn up my pattern. I sat down in tears after yelling at the dog and picked up my piece, which I thought was a complete goner. LUCKILY she SOMEHOW must not have been able to eat the piece itself and was just interested in the paper pattern sheet, which was now officially in shreds! So I still had my piece. I ordered a whole new kit on Amazon so that I could get a new pattern sheet. I had to sit there and cross out all the stitches I had already done and probably lost a good 2 weeks on the process. But, like other challenges, we persevered.

Then a complete new development happened. I was regularly posting updates on my piece on facebook, and my aunt had noticed something very peculiar. She picked up that the piece actually was a picture of a place. It was the Mabry mill along the Blue Ridge parkway in Virginia. All this time I thought it was just a pretty picture. Then for my aunt to recognize it and it was a real place!? What became even more goosebumpy, was that turns out, according to my Aunt and seconded by other family members, turns out the Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway was one of my grandmothers FAVORITE places to visit when traveling. This really struck on a heartstring for me, as my grandmother had passed away 7 years ago. So to have completely randomly picked a cross stitch piece on Amazon, persevere through all the challenges and continue on, and then to realize it was a picture of my grandmothers favorite place? It felt like more than a coincidence. As I continued stitching every night, it felt like not only was I doing it with Abby in the womb, but also with my grandmother watching over my shoulder, too.

Here is the Mabry Mill in real life:

As we counted down the days to our due date, I tried desperately to finish before she came. I had this fear that once a new mom when she was born, I would never have time to do stitching ever again. I feared I had come so far, so close to finishing, only to let it sit unfinished for the next 20 years til I could pick it up again. I didn’t want to let myself down, Abby down, my grandmother down.
But, It was unrealistic. I couldn’t finish before she came. So she came! And yes, the first month or so of Abby being here, I didn’t touch it. For multiple reasons. I was too tired. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to focus on it, I couldn’t focus on it. I didn’t want to get the whole thing out and start stitching only to have her cry and I would have to put the whole thing away again. I wouldn’t label it as post partum depression, but the first month or so post partum, the whole artistic side of me kind of felt shut down. Like mom-mode was so dominant during that time, the tiredness, it all took over and I couldn’t possibly think about doing anything related to art, or my stitch.

After a month or so, I still didn’t want to stitch. Like, I really didn’t want to. I resented it. I felt pressure now to do it, like getting a masters dissertation done after years of procrastination. Now it just felt like something I felt pressured to do, because it had meant so much to me before the birth. But deep inside me, way deep deep down, I knew the answer to it all was to try. I had to try to finish.
So, very similar to how I started back in January 2018, one stitch at a time, I resumed again just so, one stitch at a time. And it did something miraculous. One stitch at a time, each stitch started rebuilding that part of my brain, the artistic side, the me side. It started pulling me out of the post partum funk, reminding me of who I am and what I like to do, and that it was OKAY to work on fun things even with a baby. So on maternity leave, while she napped, I got about an hour or so each day to continue working on it. In December 2018 I FINALLY got it done!

And you know what? There are SOOOOO many mistakes. Like, so, so, so many. Probably over a hundred. And of course one mistake leads to others, naturally, as the pattern has to rework itself. It’s a miracle it turned out even looking like something at all. But, you know what else? To me, its another metaphor about it all. It felt like a metaphor for MY OWN SELF. The mistakes is what made it perfect, to me. It made it unique, technically it was like no other piece, even if they had the same pattern. It was it's own snow flake. And the fact that there were so many mistakes but still came out to be beautiful, gave me hope that in my life there are so many mistakes that have happened over the years but that is what makes me who I am today. And its all still so beautiful. Deep.


So I look at the finished piece today, framed and in my living room as a daily reminder that:
1. Life is all about getting one stitch done at a time.
2. Mistakes are what make life beautiful.
3. Each challenge might seem insurmountable but is indeed eventually possible to overcome in some way.
4. My grandmother is still always watching over me.
5. Art, any kind of art, can help pull a new mom back to herself. Art can do wonderful things for the brain!

I hope to get to visit the Mabry mill in person one day! Life is short. Life is fascinating. It is a small, weird strange world. And I love it.

This piece is for my grandmother. This piece is for Abby. This piece is for me. 

Thank you for reading.

Here is the final piece:

Your Entrance into the World

Hello!!!

So our little princess is finally HERE! She is absolutely precious. It's already been a very interesting journey!!

So I'd like to share my birth story, not only for documentation purposes to remember it but also to help anyone else heading into a same situation! LONG POST, sorry!

So we found out on Tuesday AM that our induction was scheduled for the following day at 7 am. Apparently there was a lapse in communication and we weren't notified sooner, so we had about 24 hours to prepare. This was fine anyway, as 24 hours notice was better than labor starting and rushing to the hospital anyway! We spent our last hours doing last minute housework, running errands, went out to dinner and dessert, etc. Unfortunately my anxiety about the impending day was getting the best of me and was manifesting itself as severe nausea and a bad headache so we didn't get to do much. I tried relaxing as much as possible and was almost successful til the hospital called around 9 pm and asked where we were! Apparently there was another lapse in communication between the office and the hospital in scheduling. So that ramped up my anxiety again. Luckily we were able to still wait until the next morning to go in, but I was a nervous wreck still. I think we both got maybe 4 hours of sleep, if that. We ate in the morning and off we went to the hospital to have a baby!!

So we check in to the hospital at 7 am. Our first 2-3 hours was spent doing paperwork, answering admission questions, being hooked up to monitors, etc. I think that maybe our princess waited so long to come because she wanted mommy to try out some new technology at the hospital! We were about 1 of 7 moms that got to help the hospital trial new fetal monitoring technology, called Novii. It is a bluetooth enabled wireless fetal monitoring system. There were little patches that stayed on me and a little battery pack ( so my stomach kept lighting up hehe), and I was allowed to freely go to the bathroom, walk around our room, go in hallway (up to 100 feet) and all still be monitored on the system. It was surreal being able to see my contractions happening in real time in the hallway as we watched on the hallway monitors! My doctor was excited about it as she was able to monitor me from the physician office as I labored and never had to be unhooked! The freedom during labor was definitely excellent and I am glad I got to trial it!

In the AM I was still 3 cm, what I had been for over a week at that point. I was having lots of contractions on the monitors but I wasn't feeling them. I joked (shouldn't have) that if contractions were this easy, we could have 10 kids. That was not a good idea to test the labor waters lol!

At 0945 we got started on what is called Pitocin, the synthetic version of the bodies natural hormone called Oxytocin which helps the uterus contract. I was nervous about starting the Pitocin as I had heard that it makes contractions so much worse. But, that's kind of the whole point of an induction so I had to do it! Well, come around 11 am or so the pitocin had been increased a few times already. I was having more and more contractions on the monitor but still wasn't feeling them. Again I thought, hah this is great. Maybe I have a rare condition where I don't feel labor contractions, lol. Hah. Hah.

Around 1 pm, they came in to check my cervix and I was still at 3cm. So it was time to artificially break my water. I was like okay cool, lets get this show on the road. Breaking the water didn't hurt at all, was just slightly uncomfortable in a weird way. But let me tell you, approximately not even 2 minutes after I was finished with that, first "real" contraction came. BOOM.

I was like, ooh okay that hurt, quite a bit, but I can do this. Lets get that deep breathing started and all that jazz. Second, third, fourth one came, all pretty close together. It was getting pretty apparent that I didn't have that rare condition where I didn't feel contractions!! They were now super painful. The nurse suggested I walk around, so we got up and walked around room. I was soon doubled over either looking out our window on the window sill, or doubled over a chair, or we also tried the "slow dance" move (not as effective). I know they have all these other tools like the birthing ball, jacuzzi, etc, but at the moment all I could even think about was surviving and staying close to that chair! They were coming so fast and so close together that I had about 60-90 seconds in between each one. So not much rest time to recoup from the last contraction before the next one started. My husband asked what it felt like and the best thing I can come up with is a Tasmanian devil being in my abdomen doing cartwheels, with knives. And squeezing everything I have in me, with those knives.

Let me just say my husband also tried to make me laugh, and he almost got punched lol. Maybe I would have if I could gather the strength in between contractions!!

The lamaze breathing we learned was maybe 30% helpful. It honestly hurt so much, most of my breathing was half tear crying coming out instead. But it did help to try. I think the best coping mechanism was scratching the chair I was white knuckled holding on to...poor chair. But it survived. For some reason causing the chair pain during my pain helped transfer some of that pain....maybe?

Anyway, around 2 pm or so I decided I can't do this, NOPE. Not cut out for this whole natural birth thing. No can do. Nope. So I requested the epidural. Unfortunately, like I knew was a risk, the anesthesiologist was tied up at the moment but would get there as soon as possible. Waiting that time period was likely the worst of it all, as my body had already given in knowing in relief was coming but it wasn't here yet.

He got in the room about 2:45 and I had to sit still on the side of the bed which may have been the hardest part of it all. I was practically hugging the nurse sitting in front of me as I had to lean forward to get the epidural. From what I had heard mixed opinions of epidurals, I was only expecting a pinch when the numbing needle went in. Nope. Not true for me! At one point he warned me that I would feel a "twinge" in my leg and not to worry. He should have warned me it may instead feel like my leg was being electrocuted, that was more accurate. I yelped in reaction and he had to pause for me to stay still, and that was super hard.

Eventually the epidural was done. I of course have never had one so I am testing all the waters, I am moving my toes and I'm like MY TOES, I STILL FEEL THOSE TOES IS IT WORKING?!

It was. Apparently my other inaccurate vision of epidurals was that it was like a lightswitch and the contractions just "turned off". Not true. I had about 5-6 more very painful contractions after the epidural and I then thought, maybe I have a rare condition where epidurals don't work for me. MY TOES AFTER ALL ARE STILL MOVING. But alas, each contraction started getting more manageable. My toes never lost feeling, but slowly I found I couldn't move my legs anymore.

After all that pain from the previous 2 hours, all I could literally do at that point was stare at the ceiling, not moving a single muscle as I was so thankful for the pain to be gone and I didn't want to move anything that could make it come back. I fell into a little bit of sleep for about 45 minutes. I woke up and it felt like I woke up in a whole new world. My husband was in the bathroom at the time so I was alone and it felt like Rick waking up in The Walking Dead from his coma. It was surreal. All I could do was look around the room, since my legs wouldn't enable me to even reposition or do anything else.

Around 4:00 pm or so the resident and nurse came in to see how far my cervix had progressed. I was expecting to be around 5-6 cm. I still anticipated having a baby overnight or the following morning after all. Well, she's all up in me and she's like, "So, we are at 9 cm. We're gonna have a baby soon!" and although I couldn't move my legs, at that point I felt like I couldn't move my voice box either. I was like NINE?!! NINE!?! NO WONDER I felt like I was about to keel over on the floor. I went 6 cm in 3 hours!!!

So we texted my mom who got there pretty soon after and also texted my husbands parents that baby could be here soon.

My husband, mom and I chilled in the room together as we observed the nurse calmly but also in a rush get together the delivery cart. All I could think was, supposedly I'm NINE cm and could have a baby very very soon, and it just felt surreal. Despite the 2 hours of severe pain, it all felt too easy and quick!

About 5:30 or so, my doctor arrived and checked my cervix. I was 9.5cm. She nonchalantly, which was weird, was like, "so do you want to try some pushing?"  and I am like, uh, yes? I don't know? You tell me!  But apparently it was my choice so I was like, okay let's do it.

I did a "practice push", but apparently I'm a very effective pusher because all the sudden everyone in the room was like baby is crowning!!! I'm like, what! I guess they weren't expecting that because all the sudden like 8 more people are in the room and my nurse is calling NICU that we are about to deliver. It was unreal.

I did two more pushing sessions and the babies head kept moving down. Then the room stress started changing as the doctors were watching the monitors and I wasn't allowed to push. They had me wear oxygen and I had to take deep breaths, but weren't telling me what was going on. The doctor said they are going to have to use the vacuum to get her out, and I'm like seriously? We've pushed like 3 times! She went over the risks of using a vacuum but I'm like, what choice do I have, just do it! (In retrospect, the doctor explained that the baby had a very short umbilical cord and when she started descending she was pulling on her cord and her heart rate was dropping, so she had to be rushed out). Scary!

So we were allowed to push then and I had a whole team cheerleading me on which was very helpful, as with the epidural it was really hard to tell if I was doing anything. All I could do which felt helpful was I tried to visualize the baby moving outward as I pushed.

And then, all of the sudden it felt like a slippery fish had left my body and I heard crying! They put her right on me and I was crying to! Thank the gods she was completely healthy right off the bat and we immediately started skin to skin, after my husband got to cut the cord. It was truly surreal seeing her for the first time, as my husband and mom and I are all crying and here I was, staring at the baby that was just inside of me!!


So that my friends was my labor! She passed all of her immediate tests with flying colors! We did skin to skin for 2 hours and let me just say, I LOVE doing skin to skin with her. She weighs 7 lbs 15oz and is 19 inches. The doctors worked on my "downstairs", delivering the placenta and repairing my tear.

Knowing my story, and how my body was going to react and how it would all go down, the only thing I would have changed was request the epidural right before they broke water or shortly after. Going from 3-9 cm in 3 hours was an impossible task for anyone and I was not expecting that. I think maybe, MAYBE, MAYBE, I could have attempted a natural birth if I had broken water naturally and slowly progressed into labor, but I can't say that for sure. This was just 0 to 100 in 2 seconds and I couldn't deal. But there is no shame in getting the epidural! Only side effect I had from it was as it wore off closer to 8-9pm, it felt like ants were crawling all over my back and abdomen and I was uncontrollably itchy. And also very nauseous. They had to move me to my recovery room but decided to wait as my blood pressure dropped a little, I lost all my color and had the extreme nausea. So I got extra fluids and rest and was able to move around 11.


So far baby, husband and I are doing well and we are home. Soon I will next write about how our first couple of days have been together, there have been LOTS of lessons already learned that I can't wait to share.

Life is such a blessing and it is surreal having one in my arms. She is already our entire world and she is worth every pain, every headache, every cramp, every day of waiting.


With Love,

The New Motherboard.

The Anxiety Ache

Hello readers!

We are 37 weeks! That is insane. Truly.

Things are overall going....well? Considering other people's stories, I have it pretty good. My main ailments revolve around getting bigger, like hip pains, lower back pain, etc. My carpal tunnel in my wrist is flaring up but that could also be the week's worth of rain the northeast just got dumped. My fatigue has been horrible as each day I feel like I could sleep while walking... I guess that is natures way of prepping me for the next 20 years! I have made some adjustments lately so hopefully that improves. Overall I am lucky, I don't have the insomnia, overly frequent urination, heartburn, etc.

My other big symptom lately has been anxiety. As if it hasn't been "real" this whole time, it especially feels real now. IF she waits until full term, then we only have 3 weeks left, (actually by now its 2 weeks and 5 days!!) and thats if she doesn't come early, which she has shown signs of maybe wanting to. I'm thinking (at least hoping) that this is normal for moms this close to delivery to feel. Basically I can't decide what is scarier at this point, her being inside me or her being on the outside living with us.

Last Monday (again with the Monday's) she gave us another scare. I was having contractions on and off Sunday and then came down with this constant abdominal pain that wasn't going away. We figured it was likely the early stages of labor and we went to bed to get a good night's rest, thinking we'd be having a baby Monday. I tried working from home Monday but the pain continued although the contractions faded. I took a nap and the pain continued. I let the doctor know and she told me to rest and try a few stretches to get baby to move. I tried as best I could and went to a cardiology appt that I had, and when I left the cardiologist I just felt dizzy, out of it and still had the pain. I called the doctor again and was told to go to L&D triage. Well, long story short, 6 hours were spent in triage and we didn't leave until 11:30 pm. Our end diagnosis was "heartburn" and I was still in a LOT of pain. I knew it wasn't heartburn, I've had heartburn before throughout my life and know exactly what it feels like. This felt like I was wearing jeans just above my belly button that were way too tight and digging into me, even though there was nothing there. But we were exhausted, I was sore from laying on a stretcher, and were both starving. So we took the diagnosis and left. Tuesday I stayed home from work and rested, the pain continued. I tried yoga, hot shower, resting, lots of water...The pain slightly subsided. I went to get groceries and was practically gripping the shopping cart with white knuckles in pain. I went home and rested some more. Eventually the pain subsided on its own, but it really got me thinking, at what point do you really start raising the alarm? It's not just me and my body anymore, I am a mom now and need to advocate for my daughter. At what point is it just to keep calling the doctors because you are in pain even though they diagnosed you with "heartburn"? I hate being "that" person that doctors roll their eyes at, but they're also not living in my body and feeling my pain. I know its not OK to listen to horror stories online, but how can you avoid them? I hear these stories of mom with weird symptoms that ended up being a matter of life or death for their baby, and they caught it just in time thanks to the mom continuously fighting for their unborn child. It really is hard knowing at what point to trust yourself or to just the doctors. I work in and receive healthcare from a state of the art hospital and healthcare system which I know is a blessing in comparison to other healthcare institutions in my area that I could not say the same for. But it is still terrifying.

So yeah, these last few weeks are anxiety driven as I worry for her health. I go weekly to the doctor and so much technology exists to monitor unborn children, but I know how fast things can take a turn for the worse.  I just am terrified I will miss a symptom and not know she's in danger. I've always been fascinated by healthcare technology and I want all the tests done because I want to know as much about her as possible! Her size, her weight, etc. She always passes her kick counts, but then there are those days where she just isn't moving as much and you can see the anxiety all over my face and my tensed body on those days. I just have had horrible nightmares of her not making it or something horribly wrong with her health and I cannot imagine coming all this way and not getting to meet her and bring her home. I just cannot.  I addressed these horrible fears with the doctor and she offered anti-anxiety medicine. As if. You would need to put me in a coma to get rid of my anxiety, and frankly I would think any new mom would say that! Its natural to be concerned, and I wouldn't want to be a happy go lucky zombie walking around thats not concerned about her child's health.

But that brings me to her being born! Let's skip over the whole labor and delivery part, I know thats full of many anxious thoughts I won't bring up now. Let's skip right to the day when we bring her home. I know my anxiety will continue. That's natural for a mom with a new baby. But being so close to this point, I am trying to visualize our life with a newborn and the next year ahead. I know our life will change drastically and its hard imagining those scenarios and how we will cope until we're in the middle of it living it. We both want to do everything right, but like any new parent, we also have no idea what we are doing. I'm not sure yet how I am going to sleep, especially that first week, and trust that she's okay, alive and breathing. I remember babysitting infants and sometimes would just watch them breathe as they slept to ensure they were okay. But I hope that anxiety fades in time. But even the years to come, It's going to be hard controlling my anxiety with any ailment the child has. She will cough and I will be worried its tuberculosis. Okay thats extreme, but you get my point. With my huge imagination mixed with my anxiety, you can probably guess I've always been a little bit of a hypochondriac myself. And this extends to those I love also. When my husband has a health issue or a close family member, I always feel like I need to err on the side of caution and I think of all the horrible things it could be. I think this stems from a fear of guilt, from imagining if I were wrong or downplayed their concerns or symptoms and then it ended up being something deadly or serious. I think the same thing applies with my future child. As a nurse myself, I fear that if I downplay their symptom, what If it does turn out to be very serious and I ignored it?

We have picked out our pediatrician and he has helped to ease my anxiety. He has been in practice for almost 30 years and seems to really know his stuff and has good instinct. I trust that and hope we will be a good match.

Overall, we cannot wait to meet her. To see what she looks like. To bring her home and start living our lives as a family of three (6 with the pets!) and to start seeing and experiences those miracles and her milestones.  We can't wait to start living life through her eyes and experiencing all life has to offer with a child, showing her all the things we love. But I know the next couple months are going to be the most challenging of them all also. We are very blessed to have a lot of support with friends and family very close by and just a text or call away, so I am thankful for that.


Thank you for sticking with it with a long post with me. It helps to just get all of this out, even just for my sanity! Now we are going to go on a walk :-)

Happy Saturday!

Love, the New Motherboard. <3

A New Beginning

Hello Everyone!

So I am starting a new blog! I've blogged other blogs in the past, and I miss it so much! It's such a great, healthy channel to document a journey or just daily thoughts. My main mission here is to document the final and third trimester of my first pregnancy and then continue on to document the joys and hardships of raising our first child! The blog is for me, I'm not working to market to a global audience by any means. The world has enough 'new mom' blogs, thats for sure! But I want something that I can publish as a book for myself after her first year to document the years journey, to look back on all we've done together. What will make my blog a little unique, is technology. I've named my blog "the New Motherboard", partly in that because I am obviously a new mom, and the other half is because I love all things technology. I work as a nurse in IT and get to see and hear about the brand new technology available, particularly how it is used and affects healthcare. As we have been shopping and browsing for things we need for our baby, its been overwhelming on how many options there are out there in terms of technological products. So part of what I want to focus on is not just new parenting, but also using existing and new technology in ours and our child's life.

A little about myself, I am a first time mom at 29 years old, soon to be 30 in one week! I work as a nurse in informatics, but prior to that was a nurse at the bedside for 10 years. I am happily married to my husband, who I met six years ago and have been married to for almost three years. We have been trying for this child ever since the wedding, so we are very excited. We both feel like we were blessed enough to spend our 20's vacationing, enjoying life, exploring, building our careers, upgraded our house, and now are ready to enter parenthood in our 30s! We have three "Furchildren", one girl Dog Daisy, a 10 lb cockapoo, and 2 cats, Belle & Maui, 5 years and a kitten. They already keep us busy!

So far the pregnancy has been relatively good and healthy. My first trimester I was downtrodden with awful nausea. I only vomited once, but the nausea alone was so bad there were days I could barely function or stand up. The second trimester got rid of the nausea (thank god) but brought in severe headaches. I've still been working to battle the headaches, but they've improved a little as I have learned safe techniques to help. The third trimester so far has been mostly back pain, hip pain and heartburn! Yay!

As for baby, we are having a baby girl! She is usually very active and it amazes me the movements she makes sometimes. I was trying to explain how it felt to my husband and couldn't come up with words that made sense. It is just truly surreal. She moves the most when I eat or drink, but in general anytime I am sitting down. Or driving! Lately I have noticed when I am in the car she likes to move, not sure if that means she will be a "car sleeper" or if she will hate the car. Who knows!

I am trying to soak in every moment of the pregnancy. Some days I feel like I'm already so done with this, but other days I don't want this time to end. Our due date is August 16th, and part of me feels like it is right around the corner (it is), and part of me feels like that is forever from now. I strive to take in each moment but life keeps me distracted easily too. I have always been a type of person to adapt quickly to situations and surroundings, whether it be a new challenge at work or in life. So part of my subconscious has just taken this whole pregnancy and just adapted to it as yeah, just a part of my life. I work full time and have plenty at work to keep my mind distracted and plugging through the weeks. But then there are those moments where it all sinks in and I am like, "Holy Sh**, I am creating an actual human being in here. This isn't something that will just be over, we are bringing home a baby!!" Its very scary. But in a good way. It's definitely harder to forget I'm creating a human now that I feel huge and she moves a lot.

Something I have really struggled with this pregnancy is watching myself get bigger and bigger. I know it's the baby, but I know its also me. I've always struggled with my weight and haven't felt comfortable in my body since I was about 20. In March 2017 I had reached the heaviest I have ever been at 212 pounds and it was the wake up call I needed. I hated how I looked and was depressed with it all. I started a journey with the help of a chiropractor and a nutritionist to start losing weight. It came off slowly that whole summer, til I started what is called the "HCG diet" in the fall 2017. This was a 500 calorie/day specific foods only diet used in combination with the HCG hormone. Through this diet in combination with the summer weight loss, I had lost a total of 40 pounds and it felt so good. I had no intentions of returning to any bad habits, I had adjusted to my new way of eating and was in a good place and wanted to lose more. Well we found out we were pregnant in December 2017. With the severe first trimester nausea, I found myself disgusted by leafy greens or excess vegetables, and all I could muster up the strength to eat was simple carbohydrates like bread or pasta. Therefore began my spiral back into my bad habits again. I had intentions to walk it off as I ate more, but we had a very very cold northeast winter and I couldn't really consistently get out walking until late April/May. By then however I was in my late second trimester coming into the third, and walking now is a lot harder. I have been working on other ways to keep my weight in check by doing small exercises and trying to find the willpower to not indulge on everything I want, but it is hard! There's gotta be a scientific fact to prove that pregnancy overall makes it harder to turn down our indulgences!

The last subject I wanted to talk about in my first post is something that has truly surprised me in this pregnancy. I want to call it "Stranger negativity". Almost every person that I have talked to about the pregnancy, whether it be a stranger, an acquaintance, a coworker, or even a good friend, they all have so many negative things to say about "what I'm in for". They all need to throw in their two cents on how hard its going to be in the next couple months raising a newborn, and how our lives will never be the same, and we can say goodbye to our freedom, and say goodbye to sleep, yada yada yada. And I get it! I know all of this is true. We've been waiting for this for over 2 years. That doesn't mean by any means that we are 100% ready, of course not. No parent can truly say they are ready, ever. But we know it's not going to be unicorns, puppies, rainbows and a perfect baby either. We know what the next few months to a year has in store. But what bothers me is how much negativity and "warnings" come from other parents out there. It's exhausting to hear. I appreciate and know they mean well and are recounting their own experiences with their children, but we will live through that soon too and see for ourselves. Why do we have to dread it? I want to strive to take in those hard days and nights as challenges but get through them. Will I likely read this post 2-3 months post birth and laugh at myself? Yeah, probably. I know its going to be hard. But literally only one mom-friend that I have said how good the experience has been for her, despite her many bad days and nights too. Everyone else has been all warnings, dread, and negative comments. It's disappointing and sad to hear and I look forward to hearing other good experiences parents are having. And I want to be that good voice for any of you too, and talk about our good and bad experiences as we raise our daughter. Like any challenge we have to strive to see the good moments in a challenging journey.


Thank you for reading everyone! I hope to post frequently on many topics that I encounter or think about in the pregnancy. Come back soon!

Love,

The New Motherboard