.fourth trimester.

I turned 42 three days after Amado turned three months, the end of the fourth trimester and a year after he was conceived in the most vibrant season of spring, the foothills are overflowing with pink flock, yellow balsamroot, electric bitterbrush and the pungent smell of sage after spring rains. It’s my favorite time of year - renewal + hope, another rotation around that sun and now the sweet anniversary of Amado. A gift I started growing last year! A gift to celebrate every year. We feel so interwoven, the timing makes sense.

His labor was late (if you can say such a thing when you have no control and hold no wisdom about these things). I guess you could say I was waiting longer than expected for him and then when he started to make his way, things still took their time. 

Every stage took its time, pushing me to my limits. Challenging my ability to be so firmly present to life. 

So much of our lives are lived here or there, past or present and birth will shake you to your very limit to be so so present. I traveled so far deep within myself I didn’t know where I was or who I was. Time and place didn’t exist. All the edges soften to a blur, with only distant murmurs from those who were right next to me. I traveled to the very depths - the darkest place full of curves and corners so you never knew where you were or had any reference to gauge - just here. Then at last it was time to push. When pushing came it felt like I was breaking outside of myself and transforming into a wild animal - breaking myself open to make space for you. The urge would start and then an unseen force would take control until it passed -a moment to breath until it came again. But you came, 2 hrs of pushing later, but it felt like minutes, you came and I saw your face and it all made sense. That face, a face I think I’ve known, no memories, just a feeling of deep belonging. It doesn’t always happen this way but for me it felt like a big huge ocean wave crashed over me and I was so utterly in love with you - my whole body buzzed. 

The first three months have been the journey of crawling out of that dark cave. Not a darkness to be feared, just the unknown with no reference and no time. Three months, so little time and I already barely remember it, just a rapid blur. It feels like the light is peeking through and I’m blinking my eyes heavy with sleep from this deep dream, so overwhelming and so beautiful - I’m speechless. My body is still tired and my mind rapidly evolving. 

It just feels like the most incredible honor to hold you and care for you - to learn you and also a bit confusing to be in this body with so much still unknown and recalibrating.

Three months with you and a new year of life for both of us. So many firsts to come. So much to learn about you. So much expansion. I hope I can stay still and present and in awe for all to come as we leave this little bubble we’ve created. 

.three months.

3 months today. I can't believe it. It's hard to synthesize how much you've grown in these short months. You're strong, determined, loving, warm, curious, kind, patient, smart, and endearing. I can't believe I've only known you for so short a time. It feels like I've known you forever and yet still so much to learn about you. 

I remember the moment you were born and the midwife passed you to me through my legs, face down. I turned you over and saw your face. My first thought was "of course, it's you" a dear soul reunited. 

The entire pregnancy I felt like I was in the dark, trying to imagine what it might be like to meet you, who you might be, and then finally, when our eyes locked my entire body lit up - like a stadium illuminating. The shock from the vast space instantly illuminated, overwhelmed by the depth of this new sensation, this new experience, the buzzing of the lights. I just froze in awe. The awe just continues in ebbs and flows between the tethering to reality - the sleep desperation and the over analytical moments to try to understand it all - but you can't, and sure enough the experience of motherhood - of connecting with you pulls me back to look at the vastness of this transformation in awe. I've cried so many times in the humble awe of this gift.

To think about these past three months it feels like a fuzzy dream. Like when you wake up for a deep sleep and you just had this elaborate dream, the feelings are still there and you remember a few things but otherwise it's just on the tip of your tongue but you can't quiet verbalize it. I remember moments. The moments of overwhelm, fear, joy, painful healing, weariness, sweet slow days, the night walks, the afternoon swings, the small joys, the first time you smiled, started talking, fall asleep on me after a long day, a restful night, a slow morning, so many moments of the deepest sweetness.

You're not a newborn anymore, now an infant. We're on to the next chapter and I'm still in awe with you as my guide, my best teammate and teacher. I'm so glad you chose me to experience life together.

Today we came out into the garden to prepare the soil. So many summer adventures ahead of us.

.newborn days.

These sweet fast tiring days.

The days are lengthening and Amado is growing into himself everyday yet we are still so physically connected. We're more settled, there's a rhythm emerging, sometimes. The days are warming up. The nighttime walks have transitioned into daytime swings out back, his fave way to fall asleep. the end of the newborn window is coming to an end. I'm in disbelief to say bye to this blur. I'm so excited to see him wake up to the world and also holding on so tight to these fleeting moments. 

A friend asked "how's motherhood?" and I said I'll get back to you. My days have been so full of feeds, rocking, walking, bouncing, changing, bathing, googling, texting the midwife, feeding, trying to sleep with a baby on me, engaging, tummy time, story time, bath time, bedtime...it's so full, so unknown, so overwhelmingly beautiful. Sometimes I look at him asleep before I close my eyes and cry a few tears at his beauty, for the gift of being chosen, for his sweetness, for a life with Amado.

how's motherhood?

It's the most beautiful, profound, heart exploding experience of my life and I've had no time to process any of it but its the only thing that matters and everything before I saw his face feels like a dream or a past life. I only exist in this very moment. Someday all these beautiful parts/layers will come together - regroup - reemerge - but until then I'm right here holding you while you sleep, my greatest joy!

.welcome to the world, amado.

Welcome to the world, Amado! A little guy who takes his time, isn’t rushed (unless it’s meal time). Estimated to make his debut somewhere between New Year’s Eve and January 3rd on the Super Full Moon but he wasn’t ready yet. He gave us a week of soft relaxing days leading up to his arrival, already balancing out my fast Aries ways with his steady Capricorn approach.

Then on January 5th he began to warm up for his arrival. Things progressed so quickly that I thought maybe he would arrive that night but when the midwives arrived everything slowed down and he decided not just yet. By 3 am the midwives said it was best to try to get some sleep and wait. He had his own timeline. Dialated to 5 cm, I tried to sleep through the contractions, exhausted and wondering if he would come soon or if it would still be a few days. When mornkng came I thought it was just going to be another low key day until around 1 pm things started to feel different and by 3pm contractions were close and strong. The midwife returned about 4pm, finding me in the dark bathroom bouncing on a birth ball. She agreed that he was ready to move things forward.

From here it would be a long journey that became more blurry and nonlinear and the night approached and a new day came. Each stage of labor seeeming to be without a reference of time. I dove into the darkness of birth, being pulled to another place without time or defined edges. I could still absorb my surroundings but they were like far off voices. I wore my eye mask for the birth, using it to block out all the sensory around me to stay deep within. I didn’t want to tempt my conscious mind. Just stay in the present moment.

It felt like ocean waves going deep within and then lightly pulled out to hear a voice offering food, a drink, a light suggestions. 

In and out in and out
Somehow finding moments of reprieve
Water broke
Ginger honey seltzer
Stay curious
Head at knuckles length
I am birthing the entire world
Fully dialated
Time to push
Lick of honey and salt from Jose
New spot
Another new spot
Holding hands
Pushing
Primal desires
Internal convulsions to open
Opening the way to Amado
Out of tub
Holding onto Mary Jo
Head born
Shoulders
Baby
In my arms
Turned over to see
To see his face
To know him
After so long
His bright eyes
Held in my arms
Mi amorcito
Unreal
That he’s real
This being growing inside of me is here
On the other side
24 hrs later
So much work together
The strongest team work never to be forgotten
It’s real after feeling so unreal for 40 weeks
Laid in bed just holding his sweet little body
8 lbs 13 oz
22 inches long
14.5” head circumference
A big healthy boy

Just the beginning

.the waiting place.

I find myself in the waiting place. It's a place we continue to find ourselves in life if we are present. We all experience the waiting place over and over again in small and big ways but there are so many distractions to provide an illusion that we can bypass the waiting place but with all seasons there is pause and transition.

This waiting place feels big and expansive, more unknown that I've ventured before. 

40 weeks +1 after a late night of rolling contractions, for awhile I thought today would be the day with the baby earthside, but around 3am things started to slow and dissipate to a silent pause, waiting again. So today, I'm gifted another day of slowness of waiting. 

How do we inhabit and hold this space - this gift and challenge? To exist in the unknown is such a real way. 

Like the waiting place, we are always in the unknown but the crossing from here to there - women to mother feels like the biggest leap. It's not really a leap though. As this deep expansive birth calls me in it's starting to feel more like a deep journey down into the darkness - into the silence - into the stretching of what my body feels like, the softness of my mind, the disillusion of time. The slow warm up between this being and I, to connect and start this big work together to leave his first home and come greet this world. To the next phase of learning how to live out here with us in this wild place, but for now - big pause. I've already left the waiting place. 

For right now, the waiting place is holding me. I can allow it to cradle me to be soft and sink deep in or I can resist. I'm trying to just be held by it. To enjoy and remember that life is all exerpeince, there is no real qualifications to put on it - good or bad - right or wrong - just being here in this moment. To be open to observe. To allow myself to be grateful to experience this place. It goes against so much to be open to it. It demands I unwind myself from my linear brain and desire to connect and compare. 

I don't know how long I'll be in this waiting place. I'm just here. I'm already learning though, I'm grateful for that. If I'm allowed more time I know my learning will deepen. Yesterday the big learning was to just enjoy it. To think of a yummy dinner and to watch a movie and to let myself release the day. 

My son was born January 7th. I wrote this 3 days before he was born.

.to be more like the river.

 

how can I be more like the river

let it go

to sit in the river and feel it pushing past me

i can't help but to be changed 

for the molecules of my skin to tingle with the fresh water 

with the pullin of the stream 

I lower myself amongst the big rounded river rocks, let me legs float 

like buoys to the top of the water

in the corner of the river where the fallen trees have slowed the motion

I look out at the beauty to feel so small amongst the pines

.june on an island.

To know a place like this
Waiting patiently for me to returnJust as it does for all the others it nourishes
Giving rest, permission, beauty, tenderness, slowness
Space to roam
Unkept overgrown trails
Offering itself undistrubed
Space to explore
Often alone
Just one-on-one conversations with the nature of here
a softness emerges within me
And I’m reminded of my tenderness

How to slowly start a day,
never before 9, best if you wait till 10
Start a fire
Drink coffee and tea
There’s no rush
Walk or ride a bike
Find the benediction monestary with the unlisted address
Sit in the chapel
Or attend vespers to hear the memorized psalms in Latin
I wonder how many times they’ve prayed these words in their life
Awkwardly trying to follow when to bow and sit and stand
Come back to start another fire
The day is ending but the light will go on
In June the days seem to stretch to very edge and beyond almost crossing the days with nights
With the blue light of dusk illuminating the lapping waves and nearby islands until well after 9 and the dawn quickly arriving some time just after 4:30
It won’t last long, the stretched days of June
Maybe I should
Just stay up
Go for another paddle on the calm water
The ferries are docked and the fishing boats are home
to glide on the open waters in the golden light but
my eyelids are heavy and the fire is out
One more island day

The world is on fire
I hope, even amongst the destruction + dehumanization, that you can find moments of peace and joy to nourish yourself
For the collective work, we are all being called to do to rebuild and reimagined who we are and who we will become

----------------

and such fitting words from Mary Oliver:

On Traveling to Beautiful Places

Every day I’m still looking for God
and I’m still finding him everywhere,
in the dust, in the flowerbeds.
Certainly in the oceans,
In the islands that lay in the distance
Continents of ice, countries of sand
Each with its own set of creatures
And God, by whatever name.
How perfect to be aboard a ship with
Maybe a hundred years still in my pocket.
But it’s late, for all of us,
And in truth the only ship there is
Is the ship we are all on
Burning the world as we go.