That Time I Had A Baby...And Nothing Went As Planned

I have been set on having a natural birth my whole life...like, as young as I can remember. My mother had 4 children, 2 of them were in hospitals, one at home, and I was born in a birthing center with midwives. My mother had some horror stories about her hospital experiences, and so I just grew up expecting to have a natural birth with a midwife, at home if possible. As I've become an adult and have had friends birth naturally or do water births at home, I've loved the beautiful photoshoots that come out of it...soft and tender, surrounded by comforting surroundings and people you love. Living in an apartment, I couldn't do an at home birth...(I think my landlord would have been upset with the mess and neighbors may have been disturbed by the screaming)...but I was determined to have my baby with midwives at a birthing center.

I love midwives. I loved my experience with the midwives at the birthing center. Everything was so calm, they explained everything to me, especially the things that I didn't have to do if I didn't want to, and it was really great for my anxious, freaked out prego self. I will probably continue to seek out midwives for my future babies.

Alas, I was not meant to have my baby in a birthing center. Or with midwives.

12am Monday night (or Tuesday morning) my water broke. Curtis and I had just laid down to bed after some...fun. I spent the next half hour or so walking to the bathroom, laying back down, then having to walk back to the bathroom. Finally I woke Curtis up and told him "Hey, my water broke."

Then the contractions started. We called the midwives and, of course, they advised me to try to sleep and to call again when my contractions were really close together.

YA RIGHT, like I was going to sleep through my first birth. I fully expected to hold my baby in just a few hours, my mother had extremely fast labors. Inbetween contractions, I instructed my mother and Curtis on what to pack in my "hospital" bag...no, I hadn't packed it yet. I had 3 days until my due date...PLENTY of time.

My doula, Autumn, arrived shortly after. The woman is and was a rockstar, works as a doula for free because she believes every woman should have an advocate at their birth. I do not know how I would have survived my experience without that angelic woman by my side through the whole thing.

Around 6am we packed up and headed to the birthing center. Contractions 2 minutes apart, let's do this thing! We arrived to a flurry of midwives and assistants setting up the birthing room, getting the bath started, and changing sheets. After a vaginal check, I was sent home. Womp womp. Only 1 cm dilated. So lame.

I could give you the exact details of the next 12 hours but we'll shorten it. Basically, we tried everything to get that baby out. I was power walking, doing squats and lunges (which is extremely tricky when you are both pregnant and in labor), we tried nipple stimulation (still makes me giggle), and sitting on the toilet (my least favorite). I slept in 10 minute intervals occasionally but was mostly on my feet and moving, because the contractions were too strong and painful to lay down or sit.

I finally hit a wall. Never had I clung to Jesus more tightly. I thought there was no way I could make it through another contraction. I thought I was going to die. I really did, and I wept and clung to Curtis and whispered through tears "I can't do this anymore"

So we packed it all up again and went back to the birthing center. I told Curtis on the way "if the midwives try to send us home, we're going to the hospital. I am not going back home, we are having this baby." This time, there was no flurry of activity. Just one midwife who happens to be extremely empathetic and was exactly what my heart needed at the end of the hardest ordeal of my life. Kat, the midwife, did a vaginal check to see how far dilated I was. She discovered meconium (baby poop) which meant I had to be transferred to the hospital. (the baby is in danger of inhaling the meconium and not being able to breath).

Packed everything up AGAIN and headed to the hospital. I was so relieved. The hospital has drugs! The hospital has answers! Like, why have I been in SO MUCH PAIN for so long without ever dilating past a couple centimeters? I'd love an answer, and a solution, for that question please.

Despite all my anxieties and trepidations about hospital births, I had the best experience at Evergreen. Dr. Vasaveda was very understanding and clear about what was happening (baby was breech...maybe THATS why he wasn't coming out). April, my nurse, was upbeat and funny and renewed my spirit in preparation for my C section. Bill, the anesthesiologist, was like a family doctor I had grown up with...the man oozed safety and security and caring. The C section was quick, soon after it started Bill held my head up so I could see them pull my son out of my belly (he gave a loud POP sound which was funny), April weighed him near my head so I could see him and then brought him to lay on my chest for skin to skin time while the doctors sewed me back up. Curtis held Elwin right by my head the rest of the surgery and then walked with Elwin behind my bed when I was wheeled to my room.

My entire labor lasted 23 and a half hours. I ended up having a hospital birth AND a C section, two things I didn't even remotely think were possible.

Did your birth go as planned? What was the biggest surprise from your experience?

February Goals

There are some key blogs that I love love love to read, and keep an eye out daily for the newest posts. Some are super encouraging or life-giving, some are funny little vacations from my crazy busy life, and others just motivate me or get me excited.

The Tiny Twig is one of those motivating blogs! Every month she writes about her goals for the coming weeks and reviews the goals she set last month, whether or not she was able to accomplish them (I really wanted her to meet Bob Goff for one of her goals last month but she did get a pretty awesome consolation prize!). I think it's a great tool to fight those "did I accomplish ANYTHING this month?" when the dishes are piled high, the carpet is now made of dog hair, and the bedroom smells strongly of baby urine. I will definitely have to hold off my inner drill sergeant and NOT turn these goals into laws.

Deep breath.

Here we go.

February Goals

• Give gifts. The Spirit has given me some ideas of gifts for some friends and family that I think will greatly encourage their hearts and express how much I love and care for them. Remember what word God gave me for this year? soft. And here He is, just filling my brain with deliciously "soft" things for me to do. God is so crazy, when it rains it pours with His grace and revelations!
• Read two books. Halfway through On Becoming Babywise by Gary Ezzo (because I heard other parents say "oh ya, our baby sleeps 12 hours...we do Babywise" and I thought "I must have this black magic!") and I just CAN'T put off any longer the Vaccine Book by Dr. Sears because E turns 4 months old Feb 29th (I know, shut the front door, back door, doggie door, all of it) and then we (by we, I mean me) MUST make a decision on which vaccines and when and why (being a mommy can make you crazy. forget therapy for my kids later, i need therapy right now.)
• Make time for connections. I need those meaningful moments with other women, which means I have to reach out to some friends, get dressed (horrors!), make time, and most importantly be vulnerable. Ick. And yay!
• Love my husband. This could be listed first because it is my #1 goal for this month. There will be more posts on this later in the month, but I have done a bang up job of wifehood our short 2 years of marriage. Remember that Proverbs woman that drove her husband into the desert because she was such a witch? Ya, me neither.

I am tempted to put "change and wash cloth diapers 934334.29 times" and "hit snooze 5 times before waking up" as goals as well, because I know I can knock those out of the park!

What are some goals that you have for this month? Do you like setting goals or are you more of a "wing it" creative type that actually makes the pins on your Pinterest (I love/hate you)?

A Heart of Stone

I have not fallen into motherhood as gracefully as I thought I would. I have been extremely ugly to my husband, weighted down by the needs of this tiny tiny person. I've run through Jack in the Box for curly fries more times than I can count because I hadn't eaten all day. My child's hair has been greasy, with my food stuck in it, for over a week before I bathed him. I've been strung out and frustrated for 2 months.

Pregnancy was the car pulling me on my skateboard and delivery was the car screeching to a halt. Motherhood has been me faceplanting into the asphalt.

As hard as it's been, God has been gracious. Bonding with this small person is downright miraculous. Now he looks directly at me and I know he recognizes me. I've been pushed to limits I didn't know I had and God has met me there. I've had glimpses of His grace and provision that I never understood before.

Like how deep my sin goes.

How great His love has to be to dig out that sin.

How present the Spirit is when I call.

God's peeling back a layer of myself that I haven't seen yet. 

I realize I am judgemental

                demanding

                unrelenting

                selfish

                prideful

I am gifted with discernment and prophecy, I am able to cut through the fat of an argument and go in for the kill. I am able to clearly present information and explain its relevancy. And I also love to be right. So I jump right into those Facebook debates (you know the ones!). I'll also engage people in person, often voicing my opinions strongly.

Becoming a mom has shown me that mothers can be very mean to each other. One will condemn you for bottle feeding while another for co-sleeping. Some will condemn you "on accident" by expressing their opinion that "breast is best", etc, leaving you to curl up inside of yourself for not giving your child the best. 

I am sure I have wounded fellow mothers in just a few weeks because of my bluntness, my crassness, my opinions. My filter is nonexistent and I just spit things out without thinking about what they will do when they land on someone's ears. 

It occurs to me that I have most likely wounded many people over the years. I have never been able to come in with grace and love, gently speaking truth. I've always yelled truth through my bullhorn hooked up to speakers.

It's not just my words that come across as rocks flung over a distance, hard and penetrating. I am surrounded by emotional and mental walls, some miles thick, protecting or suffocating me. In fact "hard" is the perfect word to describe me. Hard to understand, hard to talk to, hard to love, hard to befriend, hard to give grace.

And in these giant walls that wrap around and around and around my heart, there are strongholds as far as the eye can see. Tall, looming towers dotting the landscape. 

As I've contemplated this coming year, and thought about what word God would have for me, I've felt overwhelmed (as I often am) of all the projects He has in process. The obvious work of developing me into a wise (hopefully) mother, the continued work on my marriage, these crazy strongholds I've just discovered, my inability to deal graciously and gently with people.

What word can possibly encapsulate all of this that You are doing already this year LORD? What word can I lean into, grasp firmly, to carry me through the next 12 months?

Soft.

Because I am very hard.

I am praying that God will replace my heart of stone for a heart of flesh, just like He did when He opened my eyes to salvation. For I didn't choose Him, yet He chose me and more than that, He placed the choice before me and asked me to choose. He approached me from in front, never hiding His intentions or trying to sneak up on me. But He surprised me still. Though my eyes were opened, I would not see Him. 

Soften my words, my spirit.

Turn my walls into jello.

Destroy the foundations of strongholds.

Grow my heart for others.

Show me Your love.

Teach me grace.

And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

Ezekiel 11:19-20

In The Meantime

Sorry for the blog silence...I assure you, silence has not been the case over here.

I have so many thoughts, so many quickly scrawled sentences, hurriedly typed notes. Written in the dark, in the early morning light, in the all too soon Seattle dusk. 

At first, I tried to keep blogging. To organize my thoughts, create paragraphs and catchy opening lines to draw the reader into the story.  But after several frustrating tries, I decided to focus on something else.

I'm loving every second with this little guy. I've decided it's ok to spend as much time as I can with him snuggling on the couch. I want to soak up every blessed moment, watch him grow over time, see his eyes process everything around him. 

Because this time is fleeting. He's already so much bigger than when I first held him in my arms. I'll never have this time again and I already miss the moments that have already passed.

So I won't mourn the lost time to blog. I'll continue to jot my thoughts down as I can, and in bits and pieces I'll construct some posts. I have so many things to share, to talk about. But for now, all I want is right here in my arms and I'm not about to let him go just yet.

Any Day Now?

We're on week 36 of pregnancy and little Elwin is still brewing. This whole pregnancy, I thought I didn't have to worry about birth until end of October, beginning of November. Until some friends shared that they had their children at 35-36 weeks. Now I'm imagining going into labor at any second, at any of the events I plan on attending in the next few weeks, during the most mundane or embarrassing tasks. Will it happen in public? Will my water break and it be really gross and some poor employee stuck cleaning it up? How will Curtis react, will he freak out like all the dads on TV? How will I react?!?!

Pregnancy is crazy.

So let's recap some of the past several months for posterity sake. First trimester I looked like this:

Hopefully I will look like that again soon. I was nauseous almost all the time and had to always be eating to keep the nausea at bay. Fun nausea story, I was walking from the bus stop to work at about 1030am and all of a sudden had to puke. I quickly grabbed the side of the closest flower bed and let it rip for a couple minutes while countless people bustled to and fro behind me. Since I wasn't visibly pregnant, I am sure I looked like I had partied too hard the night before.

I gained 11 pounds before I was even supposed to be showing weight gain, which made me a self conscious and uneasy about my appearance. Now I'm like "psh, 11 pounds is nothing." Luckily I was able to wear all my own clothes through the first trimester, save those pennies where you can!

Second Trimester!

I felt better once I started to have a belly showing. I saved a lot on maternity clothes, my friend Kindal let me borrow several items and I bought some key things (like those cute floral shorts pictured below) from Destination Maternity on sale and finished the rest off with a clothing swap amongst 20 or so other ladies that my friend Stacy invited me too. That's where I got the yellow jacket and blue floral skirt pictured below as well.

                   

Also, I got wild and henna'd my belly! Really cool, I'd do it again! Who doesn't love a tattoo at the fraction of the cost that washes away eventually?

2nd trimester is also when I first felt Elwin kicking around. I was sitting at the table and all of a sudden realized that what I had thought was indigestion or just my stomach gurgling was actually Elwin moving around. Whoa! It was totally freaky. That helped make the pregnancy seem real, instead of just an unnecessary weight gain.

All in all, 2nd trimester was pretty chill. I definitely slept a lot more, taking obligatory naps midday after my breakfast shift at work. The nausea passed, which I will always be eternally grateful for (I hate feeling nauseous). For the most part, I didn't feel pregnant except when I put clothes on or saw myself in the mirror, or the occasional flutter from my progeny.

Third Trimester!

This is when it gets fun. I have inflated exponentially throughout the 3rd trimester as you can see below.


                                            

This first picture was at the beginning of the 3rd trimester, when I felt I was just beginning to have a legit belly...but still didn't feel huge.

              

These two pictures are from about 29/30 weeks and 32/33 weeks. I put them side by side since they are from the same angle and you get a good idea of the difference in size. LOOK AT THAT TUMMY! Elwin kicked it into high gear for the home stretch, Curtis says my belly looks significantly bigger every day.

                               

These two pictures are from 33 weeks and 36 weeks (picture taken yesterday). Huge difference in just a few weeks!

3rd trimester is when you can't deny that you're pregnant. I've experienced back pain and all over body aches, difficulty breathing especially when laying down, tired/exhausted almost all the time, the bigger Elwin gets the more violent his movements, waking up in the middle of the night, leg cramps that you can't stretch out because your belly is in the way, blood rushing to head when bending over, the list goes on. Third trimester hasn't been as fun and I'm starting to feel full to bursting. 

I feel extremely blessed by the midwives we've had at Eastside Birth Center. I remember my first meeting with them, I was so nervous and scared, I had no idea what I was getting into or what to expect or what I needed. They have graciously and kindly helped me every step of the way, even helping fill the gaps when we couldn't afford a birthing class or doula or even pay our bill to the birth center by the date they needed. They've addressed my symptoms with supplements which have worked immensely (I joke that their answer to every ailment is to take an epsom salt bath...but it works!)

Curtis and I are also extremely blessed by the community we are surrounded by. So much of our baby stuff was donated or gifted soon after we found out we were pregnant. Many of my mommy friends have been great resources for all the questions I never expected to be asking. 

It really does take a village!

       

Our First Maternity Photos

July 17th we found out that our sweet little baby is a boy and we named him Elwin Ransom Boyd. The next day we went out to Lake Washington in Kirkland and took some gender reveal photos and maternity/couple photos. I want to share them with you here, as well as the story of the day.

A month to several weeks ago our sweet friend Emily Mason offered to shoot our gender reveal photos for us. We talked about different ideas or themes that we could do. I originally wanted to do colored paint, where Curtis and I wear white shirts and throw the appropriately colored paint at each other. I decided this would be very messy and the waste of a perfectly good white shirt. Ally Macewen gave me the idea of the ice cream cones as well as the idea of throwing the wrong colored cone on the ground. Emily and I loved this idea, so we went with that one!

We set the shoot for Tuesday, July 18th, right after our ultrasound. Emily and I both called around Bellevue and Kirkland, looking for ice cream places that had a blue ice cream. For your information, blue ice cream is not very common. Everyone has pink, no one has blue. I thought we might have to scrap the idea and do something like balloons but Curtis said "why don't you just buy blue food coloring and vanilla ice cream?" Genius! So I made a trip to Safeway and got some waffle cones, strawberry ice cream, and vanilla ice cream. When I went down the cake aisle though there was no food coloring to be found. There was, however, some cupcake icing spray paint....I'd never seen anything like it before, you use it to spray on the cupcake icing to make it whatever color you want. So I grabbed a blue bottle and called it good.

Emily showed up Tuesday afternoon and we packed up our little ice cream picnic and headed south to the park. Everything was going great, the sky was blue, the air was warm, and there was a shirtless jazz flute player giving us some mood music. I got our cones all ready and sprayed Curtis' with the blue spray paint (which is labeled as being completely edible). Curtis took one small, cautionary lick of his ice cream cone and refused to touch it again. "It tastes chemically" he said. "Curtis, you have to lick the ice cream cone!" I said to him over and over. I would pose for the camera and glance over at my husband grimacing at the cone. "You're going to ruin our pictures!" I even ate some myself to show him that I could take one for the team, so he should too. He eventually mustered up the courage to get a few licks in.

The photos turned out great, thanks to Emily. 

Here is Curtis looking at his cone while I tell him he has to eat it.

This is me hitting him, insisting he has to eat it for the pictures.

Obviously neither of us was too upset about the whole thing...after all the trouble it was to get to the park with pink and blue ice cream, we just found it all really funny.

My ice cream was delicious.

Curtis did not like the idea of throwing the pink ice cream on the floor. "What does that say to girls? It's like we're saying 'get on the floor where you belong!'" Emily and I overruled him though and we did it anyway.

I made him compromise and pretend to eat the cone for this picture.

I think I just put some ice cream on his face.

I definitely put ice cream on his face here.

Then I laid down the law and was like "EAT IT!"

Then we took some photos together! I really treasure these pictures because are only other photos together are from our wedding and a couple engagement photos.

Comparing our bellies. I win.

Crazy face!

Can't wait for Elwin to join our family!

The Legacy Begins

The baby is really kicking around nowadays. The first time I felt him/her move, I was terrified. I had the impression I had accidentally swallowed something alive and it was going to burst out of my stomach at any moment. Like Will Smith in one of those Men in Black movies when the alien swallows him. Or the alien in Space Balls that pops out of some guy's stomach. It was not an endearing moment for me. It's still not super endearing LOL, the baby doesn't exactly snuggle my intestines or softly pet my bladder. He/she is a little more forceful in his/her movements.

It is hard to use two pronouns for one person. Let's do away with all that since we had our ultrasound and we know the gender!

We scheduled our ultrasound for Monday at 1pm. This is my first child, so excuse me if I use way too many details. I want to remember everything. We showed up extra early to fill out paperwork, they emailed it to me but we don't have a working printer right now. When they called my name, Curtis and I were lead into a room and I laid down on a reclining bed with 2 pillows to put my feet up on. A nurse put a towel around the top of my skirt. I pulled my shirt up and she put another towel around my shirt so that my clothes wouldn't get wet from the goop they use for ultrasounds.

A few minutes later, our ultrasound technician appeared. She was very sweet and we enjoyed the hour or so that we spent with her. After she put a mountain of gel on my belly (and I mean a MOUNTAIN, I swear she used an entire bottle of that goop) she began the ultrasound. The baby was head down and we saw a cross-section view of the torso first thing. It was really confusing at first, but I instantly knew that we were seeing the heart. And of course, I started crying there and didn't finish until the end. But not bawling, I was proud of myself for that...I kept it together for the most part.

I had no idea there were so many things to do during an ultrasound. This is our first and only one for this baby, so there were all kinds of measurements she needed to take. Leg bones, fingers, head, spine, amniotic fluid, cervix, etc...everything had to be measured! And sometimes the baby isn't in the right position, so she spent a lot of time poking the baby trying to get some rearranging. It was amazing to see the heart beating, for her to point out kidneys and lungs and brain. The most exciting part were the few times we caught the baby moving, legs or arms or fingers...a few times we saw the head turn back and forth! It's so commonplace to get pregnant and have a baby but so miraculous and crazy at the same time.

So at the beginning we told our technician we didn't want to know the gender...but after 30 minutes of trying to get baby to move around, she forgot and ALMOST told us. But she stopped in time, we closed our eyes while she got the footage of the gender, and then later wrote it down on a card and put it in a sealed envelope. All in all it was a fantastic experience, after a lot of hard work we did eventually get some profile shots (which are the ones that are easily recognizable as a baby) and had some good bonding time with our little one. We were not expecting, however, the "skeletor baby" and "silly putty baby" affect that ultrasounds and 3d ultrasounds have on intrauterine children.

After the ultrasound, Curtis and I drove to the City Target in Seattle. Curtis picked out a gender neutral gift bag and tissue paper (he did a great job, is was really cute) and then we picked out a boy and girl newborn outfit. After we paid for everything, I waited in line at customer service and hoped that whoever I got would be willing to help me with my plan. I asked Cecilia, who was the lucky lady to get me at her register, if she could open our card that told the gender of our baby, put the corresponding outfit in the bag with tissue paper and then return the other outfit back onto our card. I told her it was our first child and we were really excited to find out if it was a boy or a girl. Cecilia seemed really confused at first but seemed excited when she understood. I turned around for a minute and played on my phone while she got everything ready. She put receipt and card into the bag so there was no chance of me accidentally spoiling the surprise.

We wrapped up at Target about 3 or 4 in the afternoon. My plan was to walk around Pike Place market and then find somewhere to eat dinner, where we would open the present. We rarely come over to Seattle so it's always a fun trip to be downtown and Pike Place is so cool on a sunny afternoon. Puget Sound was GORGEOUS blue and there were flowers everywhere. I had a great time exploring Post Alley and some of the shops inside of Pike Place.

Curtis found a nerdy shop where I bought him a Star Wars lunch box. It took 3 tries to get him out of there, he was so excited everytime he turned around.

That is Malcolm Reynolds' gun for those that don't know. Curtis' birthday is Nov 21st, hint hint.

Our friend Geb Black, who is in Seattle for a month or so, met us for dinner around 6. We always enjoy Geb and his wife Amy and their 3 kids who live in Dupont, we were glad to share this moment with him. The place I had planned on eating for price and GF options had decided to close at 3 that day, so we went to a place Curtis had tried recently because it had a great view of the Sound. The sun was coming in through the window, the Sound was bright blue, and I could see multiple big ships moving through the water. It was absolutely perfect. After we ordered, I opened the present to find...

We're having a boy!

After discovering the gender, we immediately started talking about names. Curtis is the 3rd and so he either wanted to name our son Curtis the 4th or Elwin Ransom Boyd. I am glad to say, he chose Elwin. I was not excited about Curtis' middle name (Albert) neither did I like the idea of having 3 living Curtis and the ensuing nickname for our son. For those that don't know, Elwin Ransom is the main character in C.S. Lewis' books Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra as well as a pivotal character in That Hideous Strength...the character goes by just Ransom in the books.

After a delicious dinner of fish tacos and burger, Geb, Curtis, and I walked down to the pier for some ice cream and then the long trek back to our parking.

I was SO tired on the way home. There was a lot of walking and a lot of stairs (for those of you back home in Texas who have never been to Seattle, there are a ton of steep stairs to get down to the water) but despite all of that, it is one of my favorite memories and was one of the best days we've spent in Seattle so far.

The next day, Tuesday, we had our friend Emily Mason shoot some gender reveal photos for us. I'll be posting those soon!

I'm going to be a mother...

It's been a long time since I've blogged or even thought about blogging. I'm beginning to see a correlation between lack of blogging and how crazy I get. Not that blogging is a cure for crazy, just my kind of crazy. I have to get all these things out of my head and out to other people. Selfishly, I demand to be heard. Cowardly, I find it hard to talk to an actual person about all the serious, sometimes dark things that fill my head. I mean really, how to work that into a conversation of Target and leopard print (although I love both those things). I've never been good at relationships, friends, family, dating, etc. It's a miracle my husband married me.

Now I'm pregnant. Come November, I will have a little tiny person to take care of, nurture, teach, and love. Love is supposed to come naturally, and I have a lot of practice taking care of small children. I'm not a very good wife, I'm worried what will happen now that I'll be a mother. I bicker with my husband about cleaning the apartment like I would with a roommate. Other than going to work, I'm not productive at all. I barely cook anymore, no meal planning, I wait until my husband loses his mind before attempting to clean or do laundry. I feel that failure every day but instead of being spurred to do better, I sink into hopelessness convinced that I will always be the failure...this is just how it is. I used to be upset that Curtis would have friends over all the time until I realized I wouldn't want another woman to see my failures anyway.

These are things that have weighed on me since we moved to Seattle. This coupled with many months of no community and continued existence with few friends, it has been a very dark 8 months. Redemption groups (a form of biblical group counseling) helped a bit with the load I've been carrying and greatly helped my husband and I's intimacy emotionally and physically. I thought things would get better...but the day to day hasn't changed. The apartment is always a mess and I feel myself retreating further and further in myself to block out the hurt.

If I'm honest, I've always tended towards the depressed. There is family history of manic depression and bipolar and while I doubt I have anything diagnosable, there is definitely a pattern of depression in my life. I can recognize it even from a young age. Moving to Seattle has finally removed me from anything familiar or comfortable so that all of these truly dark and ugly things can come to light. And maybe I should be grateful, considering I will have a child in 5 months. I'm miserable almost consistently but maybe I need to be in order to get out of it. Ignoring the mud in the back yard is easy if you stay in the house but not if you walk outside and sink into it.

I don't want to be this woman when I have my child. I don't want to be the mother who's all over the place emotionally and who can't keep herself together much less her house. I don't want to put that added burden on my husband...he has graciously beared it so far in our marriage but the addition of a child and him taking a full time job will I think be too much.

I've also been thinking about if I have a girl and the things I want for her. I want her to have the things I didn't growing up, I want her to know she is feminine and to know the power and the gift of that. I want her to feel pretty always but also to enjoy getting all gussied up every now and then. I don't want her to think about her weight or what the other girls think about her. I want her to know that she is treasured by her father and I want her to have a living relationship with her mother. She may go through some teenage angst like we all do and she may decide she likes sports more than dresses or red instead of pink. But I want it to be her choice out of all the options. I don't want her to turn to something because that is all she has or that is all she knows. I don't want her to regret never trying something or to find herself too old to develop talents she may have. I want her to adore her father and eventually marry someone like him (because let's be real, he's awesome). I want her to still call me to talk when she's moved out. I want her to have so many fond memories of growing up and to know all the stories of our families.

And so for the sake of my child and our family, I want things to change. We still don't know the gender but I'd like to prepare like I'm going to have a little girl. I want to get a handle on this cleaning business, because I like to have the apartment set up and organized, I like to prepare meals, I'd even like to garden a bit. I do enjoy the domestic things, I'm just so sunk into depression that I let it go and then can't seem to get it back. I'd also like to do the little things that are so important to women. A little routine in hygiene, makeup, and hair. I'd like to care more about my appearance or rather put more effort into it because the truth is I care very much. It'll be a slow process because there is a lot that needs to change but today is a good day to start. I woke up and washed my face and last night I cooked a stew...small steps in the grand scheme but huge efforts for me.

So here I go, to do the hard things until they become easy. I'll blog about my successes and my failures here, so join my journey!