~So goose-pimply profound~

I've been going through some intense transitions with all this moving. A huge part of that has been really understanding that our adoption is at least a year if not 2 away (or more). I have been shifting from being future focused (when we sell our house.../when we move.../when we adopt...) to being present focused (right now we can bike/craft/play/study/make music/dance/be part of our community/put down roots/home school passionately) Its a major shift for me because for so long it has been the other way. For so long we worked on our home and put our energy towards our vision of the future while manifesting the now. Now we are renting. Now there is no house that requires all of our time and money. Now we have time...

So, the point of the story...so goose-pimply profound.

When I was in Vancouver at the Birthing from Within Workshop I got the stomach flu (on the last day). My mind was full and whirling with thoughts of our children, our new home, the now, teaching birth classes/doing doula work. I was thinking so much about the transitions I was experiencing as a mother. How I would not be a pregnant women again. That my baby would wean himself with in the next year or so and that I wouldn't nurse again until we adopt. I was NOT focused on thoughts of Ethiopia, our children, adoption. (well, not obsessively anyway...it might have come up once or twice ☺) Partially consciously and then unconsciously.

On my last night in Vancouver I was feeling really trapped. The little basement suite that I was staying in was stuffy and musty so I decided to go for a walk to get some fresh air (this was before I realized that I had the stomach flu). So I'm walking...down the busy city streets...all the sounds, all the smells, and I realize that I haven't been looking at anything...just the ground. So I start looking in the Windows of the shops as I pass. After a while I realize that I've only looked to my left and that there's a whole other side to the street so my gaze crosses the road.....and settles directly on and Ethiopian restaurant!! I stop dead in my tracks. process...do I go in? do I order something and take it back? do I continue to stand here staring like a crazy women? I was so sick, so overwhelmed with being away from my family...I was not prepared to be brought into this very intense head space...my heart is hammering like crazy because, didn't I just decide that I was going to live in the now?? So, I choose to keep walking. Shake my head a few times...take a few deep breathes....keep walking. Live in the now...let go of something that is, at this point, so very far away.

Ahead I see I beautiful mural painted on the side of a building....full of color, bursting with life energy in the middle of the sketchy east side. An Oasis...light in a very dark place.

I decide that I'm going to go check it out before I head back. So I do. I stop and let the beauty of it fill me. I'm feeling inspired. Feeling purpose full. As my eyes dance across the vast piece of magic a glint of brass catches, attracts me. I step closer, realizing that it is a plac describing what the mural is about.

I step closer still, read the words.

I see the word Orphan....

My lungs seem to have forgotten how to breathe. I gasp and it comes out as a choking sob. I break down. There on a street corner in busy downtown Vancouver I fall apart. Completely.

Maybe it was because I was so sick. Maybe it was because I missed my family so much and felt so oddly separated form my life. But this? this brought me right back to the center of this dream...this vision that I have had since I was tiny, that has been a huge focus for so many moons.

Here, away from everything that is familiar to me, I heard our children. I saw them dance across my vision. I felt them so intensely that I thought I might explode. I felt our family. The whole, the complete, the joy and pain of all of our facets that make us US. The threads that create our tapestry....the words that create our story. The punctuation.

Remember to breathe.....

Eventually my feet start moving again. The tears keep rolling. I take a back street until my face begins to resemble something reminiscent of normal.

I return to the wee basement suite. I continue on with being sick...my mind whirling in a whole new way (or old way, depending on your perspective) Somehow, the next day, I make it home. driving 5 hours solo with the stomach flu: not recommended!

So here I am now. 2 weeks later. Processing my trip, the workshop (which was amazing in many ways). Realizing that being away from my family is not something I'm willing to do again. (Its just not worth it to me....and worthy of a whole separate post!)

I am understanding that there is no "back shelf" in my mind that I can place my passion for Ethiopia and our children on. No "back burner" that would ever be sufficient to simmer this while I focus on other things. I have come to understand that this is so much a part of me that I need to have it as part of my life, even if we don't adopt for 5 years...or 10 years....or 6 months! That time frame is something I need to surrender, the control over that....surrender the need to control. I need to embrace my faith that when the time is right, when we are ready, when our children are ready it WILL happen.

wow....not what I was expecting to get out of that weekend!! And somehow all the whirling that has been going on in my mind since we began our move seems to be no more then a breeze. A breeze that touches my cheek and reminds me of who I am...no matter where we live.

I am so very thankful.

(this is the mural, although when I saw it it was cradled in the dark of night)

♀~the Beauty of Women~♀

I was blog hopping early this morning and I came across a lady who posted this link http://theshapeofamother.com/

WOW....this website is so beautiful. SO moving. So TRUE!! Amazing images and stories of REAL women. Real bodies...beautiful bodies in every shape, size and color. Images that tell the stories of the wide and varied differences in the beautiful, sacred female form. The stories of the women who struggle with their image, who struggle with societies pressures and who are trying to rise above it. Learning to LOVE themselves and the form that they are in. Understanding that they ARE beautiful.

enjoy.

share.

XO

Jenn

(near the end of my pregnancy with Honey)

~ A Mothers Fears~ part 1

As mama's I think it is part of our job to have all manner of odd and frightening scenario play through in our minds. I remember the first time I had a frightening/morbid thought~ That somehow my daughter would fly out of the stroller while I was stopped at the curb and get hit by a car. Actually, the visual was much more disturbing then that...all the fears of a new mama packed into one horrifying thought. In all reality it isn't very likely BUT it gave me an element of caution that might not have been there otherwise. And who's to say that that caution didn't save that babe on more then one occasion? Now imagine 11 years of fears. 4 babies. 4 children. All the fears that have translated into different cautions and preparedness.

Sometimes our fears can be a catalyst for change.

One sunny day about 4 and a half years ago, while driving into town with my children, Beena asked me a question.

"What are you afraid of mommy?"

I thought about it for a long time. At that point in my life I had let go of many of my "fears" and was in what I thought to be a much more trusting/positive/faithful place.

I answered "Fear. Fear is what I fear most."

It wasn't long after that that my earth was shaken. First Honey broke her elbow. A 1 year old in a cast is a sad thing indeed! We had vehicle problems. Then we experienced some fairly major family trauma during which I heard fear, real fear, in my husbands voice for the first time. There is still lingering pain from this...I wonder if it will ever heal.

Shortly afterwards I became ill.

Now, I guess the first thing you should understand is that I have struggled with illness all of my life. As a child I seemed to catch everything. As a teen I struggled with symptoms that I didn't understand, and being in a high stress situation (living on my own/working/going to school) from way to early on surly didn't help.

After the birth of my first child my symptoms worsened. I was in pain, exhausted, far to thin. My specialists wanted me to take all kinds of drugs and I was getting 10+ viles of blood taken every few months. I refused to take the prescribed medication. I had done enough research and had enough experience to know that my body reacted horribly to their medication. I would always get nearly every reaction known and be in more misery then when I began.

I told them that I would be taking a natural approach and began an intensive vitamin therapy regime. My health improved and Dad-e-o and I decided we would be open to having another child at this point. I was told that it was very likely I would be to high risk later on in life. After Mr. Bops birth I was healthier then I had ever been. I continued to take supplements and began to eat more and more organic whole foods. We began trying for baby number 3 (which took all of about 2 weeks) and I experienced my healthiest, most vibrant pregnancy yet. Honey was born at home in a swimming pool that we had set up in our living room with no complications. I recovered quickly and felt healthier then ever.

I had healed myself. Through healthy eating, an active lifestyle, loving support and a positive outlook I had done something that I was told was impossible and I was impowered by that.

and then I got sick.

It hit me hard. My body was rocked and my mind along with it. I panicked. How could this be happening? I was healed! what is going on! I could barely move for weeks.

I was so blessed to have my hubby working across the front lawn. He would make the kids breakfast and get them dressed. He would come in on his morning break and change diapers/get snacks. He would be in making lunch and back again at his afternoon break. After work he would make supper, read stories, put kids to bed, do laundry, tidy the house. He was my savior.

I began to see a homeopath after the first few weeks. I was able to eat again the day after the first dose of my remedy. We all breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn't been able to eat for far to long and had already lost nearly 30lbs. (did I mention I was thin to begin with?)

One of the things that I struggled with the most during this time was fear. I was experiencing panic attacks and anxiety for the first time in my life. I was so desperately afraid that this was never going to end. That I would never be able to parent my children. To play with them in the sunshine or cook dinner with them. To home school them. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to clean my own house, tend my own garden. I was afraid my husband would look at me and realize he'd made a horrible mistake and leave me.

Fear had taken over.....it has a tendency to do that if we're not careful.

~the choices we make~

There are points in our lives when the choices that lie ahead seem to hold in their grasp the weight of the entire future. In all reality every choice we make, no matter how small, has the potential to cause the pendulum of our lives to shift to an entirely new rhythm. Why, then, do these large choices seem to lay so much more heavily on our hearts?


Here we sit....at the precipice of change. Why does it feel like that? Like the "wrong" choice could cause some kind of horrible chain reaction that would leave us shattered in some unthinkable way, falling into the abyss of the unknown.


I know that I am an adaptable women. That I have the ability to create my own reality, and thus find a way to fulfill my needs and the needs of my children regardless of our surroundings or circumstances. Somehow I must find a way to remind myself of this in the moments when I fear making the wrong choice. It may seem as though so much lays in the balance, but I think in truth the one thing I fear is loss.


I fear the loss of something that I spent years working towards. I fear the loss of friendship, companionship. I fear being alone and unsupported, being somehow unable to handle my life and having no one to turn to for guidance.

When I really sit back and think about it I KNOW that the connections that I have made that run deep will continue regardless of time or miles. I know that across time and space I have surrounded myself with a intricate tapestry of loving support. People to whom I have given my heart and who, in return have shared theirs with me.


I feel so thankful for this and I know that once I truly come to the place where I can embrace the idea that these things will not just fall away if my path leads me else where, I will be able to find contentment with this choice and see it not as a precipice but rather a wide open space full of beautiful potential and opportunity for growth.

Now if only I had a pool of clarity that I could gaze into when I have my moments of insecure doubt.