Giving light

I am crazy busy these days, specially at finishing my homework for the course I am taking on line at the University (it ends tomorrow!! so this is the last and most important days), but also with work and running after Adiel. She is unstoppable and learning so much everyday... However, I wanted to stop by and share a few words of advice I am writing to my friend Aida for her labor (due date is today!). I thought maybe you have some recommendations to share as well... (...oh, those days we were all learning about becoming parents in our childbirth class!)

*****

Dear friend, without any doubt I can say nothing in my life has ever been so explosive, powerful, intense, empowering, healing, emotional and wonderful as giving birth to my daughter. With all my heart I wish your experience is perfect for you and your baby, that you are able to go through it as if it is the most beautiful gift and that it will grant you all you expect from it. This is a short list of advices and reminders I wrote to myself during pregnancy, with the purpose of having them close and read them in my early labor. These are words from what I learned in my prenatal yoga class, my childbirth class, and the books I read. Then, I also added a few points from my birth experience. I do not recall exactly what comes from where, but I have to however recommend 2 brilliant books (I might or might not be quoting): "Birthing from Within", and "Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful" (they are a pregnant mama must reads!!). 

Words for labor, giving birth or, as we say in Spanish, giving light (dar a luz):

1. The only certainties for labor are: it will be hard work, it will be painful and you will be able to do it. Labor is a wild ride... you will not know when it will start, what will happen, how much it will hurt and how long it will be, but you can be in disposition to take whatever comes your way with love and strength, and trust that is the best for you and your baby.
2. Your body won't give you anything you can't take.
3. Give birth with your body and not with your mind. Lose yourself into it. Giving birth comes from within you, from a universal consciousness that encircles all generations of women that came before us. Your body knows what to do and the more you let it do it, while shutting your mind and trusting, the simpler it will all be. Nature will do its own thing if you allow it to work for you.
4.  When the time comes that contractions overtake you, there might be a visualization that help you through it. A phrase I took for myself is "open like a flower". It's a nice reference!
5. Forget about time. Do no ask anybody to tell you the time because it might generate anxiousness. "Laborland" has its own time and space. Go to your inner self, to your baby... whatever goes on outside is not your problem.
6.  Breath, breath, breath deep. Breath with an open throat and a long rhythm... like the sea or the mountain breaths. When you groan with a high pitch, there is resistance and pain, your throat closes and the sound is distressing. If you moan in a deeper way (exhaling with a wide "aaaaah", instead of a high "ayyyy") it will help you connect to your inner wisdom. Think of the waves coming and going, or the leaves of a tree moving to the soft wind. Contractions are easier with rhythm and harder if you resist and stop your deep breathing.
7. Every contraction helps you to open your cervix and brings you closer to the moment of giving birth and being with your baby. Experience them to the fullest and with gratitude... take one contraction at a time, moment by moment, being in the present.
8. There might come a time when you will want to give up, you might think it is too hard for you and you can not take it... Fortunately, that means you are really really close to giving birth. Then you will surrender to the process. Go to the edge and beyond with no resistance!
9. There is NO correct way of giving birth. Do not judge yourself or your experience, don't feel ashamed, do not feel bad. Whatever you are going through, and the way you are going through it is your own perfect way. Forget about your plans and your ideas of "the ideal way to birth". Respect and embrace your baby's journey and destiny. My ideal way was a water birth... lets just say my Adiel was born in very different circumstances... she was born her own way.
10. A lot of tension is accumulated on the jaws, do not tighten your face and neck... the less tense you are, the more your body will cooperate. Ask the people who will be with you in those moments to remind you to let go of the jaw!
11. Whenever the pain is getting intense and you start thinking you can not take it any more, it makes a world of a difference if you smile. For some reason it snaps you out of being focused on the pain... so give contractions a big smile!
12. There will be people around you during labor (like maybe your mama) that might start getting worried or feeling bad for you. They might be troubled by the pain your are feeling or the way you are expressing it. However, it's very important that you feel absolutely comfortable to express whatever comes to you (you can not control it, so do not try to control it), even if that means shouting and cursing. Talk to your birthing team beforehand and remind them that you can do it and that you are not helpless (you do not want worried faces around you!!). Ask them to be supportive of whatever your body needs to do.
13. Remember your baby is also working very hard to come out. Your baby is your partner here, talk to her and let her know what you require.
14. Do not be afraid!!! We established there will be pain and you can not predict or control anything during labor. It is a very primitive process of your body and you might cry, shout, vomit, pee or poop! Or all of the above! All of that is ok, those are natural body secretions, so do not mind them. Do not be concerned of being unladylike, birthing is not for ladies, is for warriors! Let it be.
15. Talk to your partner and ask him to NOT take anything personal.
16. Move! Even if you have to force yourself it is better to move. Specially when pain takes you, if you stay in one place or position your muscles (working harder than ever) will get a little stiffer with every contraction. Take a few steps, even if it is not the easiest.
17. You need energy, a lot of energy. And you need to be hydrated (it is critical! I know people that had complications because they forgot to drink water). Drink something refreshing with many calories like coconut water. 
18. Push only when your body has no choice but to push. Do not force yourself into pushing. If you are thinking about pushing or thinking about when to push, then it is not your time yet. 
19. If all is good and you have the chance take a few minutes for you and your baby and let her do the breast crawl. I was able to do it, and I cherish those moments. 

I planned a home birth, so I wrote all this thinking I was going to be with my midwife, and that she would guide me, but also respect my needs. I knew I was not going to be hooked up to the IV, at least on my early labor... I ended up in the hospital giving birth naturally, but with a lot of help from a wonderful doctor and my midwife... but there will be a different post with my birth story one day...

The days before the birth there was a lot of "mama drama", navigating on a roller coaster of hormones and emotions. When I gave birth the story of my life changed completely. I had to forget about that little girl who wanted to be good and pretty, to become a mother who thinks always first of her child, who is loving but fearless, tough and compassionate, patient and responsible, a mother who needs to provide stability and equilibrium to her family, becoming the a pillar for my loved ones. 

So, dear Aida and baby Constanza, may you have a beautiful birth experience and be full of blessings, health and joy!

One last share: the SONG I danced with my father on my wedding day, and that accompanied Adiel and me during many sleepy times! I love singing it to her...

My Adiel 2 days old 

Now that we are here, I want to thank Sada, my wonderful yoga teacher who inspired and guided me so incredibly much through many months, and Jake my midwife ,who was like a loving mama to me in the most critical moments on my journey towards becoming a mother, and who sadly passed away a few weeks ago... Thank you Jake, your memory will always stay very close to my heart!

Finally, thank you to all the mamas, my journey sisters, who walked the motherhood adventure with me and who continue to support and encourage me in many levels.

With much love,
Mercedes

9 months...

Adiel is 9 months now. It's hard to believe all that happened in that short period and in the 9 months prior to it!

I moved to Baja California 6 years ago. I came to do a 6 month project with the Mexican government, and I was thinking I would finish it and then take a few months off to travel the peninsula. I was in charge of getting sustainable development projects for the people that live within the natural protected area know as "The Islands of the Gulf of California".  I love nature.

I met Uri short after I moved, and in a couple of weeks, one sunny morning, I just knew he was the one. We got married on September 19th, 2008 in Mexico city... it was the day of the anniversary of the big earthquake in Mexico city. It was a beautiful wedding, we had a wonderful time.

You can see the trailer of our Purple Wedding here.

Since then, Uri was very ready to become a father, an finally, we heard the good news almost a year afterward. We were so happy and anxious, there were many decisions to make, including me moving to Los Angeles. I got to spend my pregnancy in LA, taking time for myself, in peace and quiet (probably for the last time!). I loooved my days in the city. 

I was on my own, so I started taking pictures to share my bump with my friends and family.
These are some of my favorite.

It is not professional pics taken with a great camera, I know. In fact some of the pictures I took with my Mac... But they mean a lot to me. My friend Karina took the ones at the beach. We had a lot of fun that day (probably the last time I wore a bikini...). By the way, my friend Karina just received some hard news, so I would highly appreciate a little prayer or a candle light for her and her family!!

After a long labor, Adiel joined us on April 29. She was 7.1 pounds and 21 inches. What an amazing experience it was. I remember having her in my arms for the first time, it seems like it was many years ago. She looked like a little Russian doll, with the sweetest face.

Here she is in one of her first pictures, wearing the pajamas I wore home from the hospital 30 years ago. I love that picture, her little hands, her eyes just like her daddy.

This is Adiel 4 days old!

There is a birth story to come and some pics of where we think we made Adiel.

Until soon,

Mercedes

To the Journey Sisters (big and small),

It was just over a year ago that we first came together- nervous, excited pairs, strangers to each other, drawn close by an impending dive into the unknown and unknowable. It is wonderful now to look back at those first moments, tentative conversations, preliminary curiosities and see the seeds of the beautiful extended baby family we've created. There was a (not-so-long-ago) time when I would not have believed that such unplanned joy and love was possible. Fortunately, these recent years of my life have been full of powerful lessons in the ultimate potential and perfection of uncertainty- of bold action leading to unexpected wonder.

My pre-baby life seems so far away and always just under the skin. Parts of myself are in retrospect, unrecognizable, yet I remember so viscerally the surging, overwhelming tides of feeling that once pushed and pulled me in every direction, all at once. I remember too, the first glimpses of stillness, the first contact with that mysterious being- intuition, the first sense of true direction. From there, everything happened rather quickly.

At school with "my" first children

In January 2009 I quit my two jobs (teaching art at a charter elementary school and managing a coffee shop), ditched my West Hollywood apartment, gave away a good portion of my belongings and trekked to India. I didn't know how long I would stay, or if I would ever return to LA. My intention was to travel solo for awhile and then to continue an intensive meditation teacher training program that I'd been working towards for two years. The program began in India and then was completed over three months spent in residence in the mountains of Arizona. At the time I left I didn't know whether I'd be able to pay for the Arizona portion of the course so I decided if I couldn't scrape together the money I'd  head to the Himalaya looking for either a wise man to apprentice with or a cave to hang out in 'til enlightenment dawned. I was maybe a little crazy.

On the train from Mumbai-Jaipur

Fast forward a bit (hard to do as I could probably write an epic about those months of wandering), change locations from the foothills of the Himalaya to the snowy peaks of Flagstaff, AZ-- I did make it after all. I settled in with eleven others to begin the long, intense process of learning to teach others the practice that had, just a few years before, radically altered the course of my life and my perspective on just about everything. One of those eleven was a handsome Aussie man with an excellent onomatopoeic surname. We got to know each other through the testing phases of our course, always competing to come out first or best at each individual milestone (I always won). Friendly competition quickly became something much more, something that we struggled to keep within the bounds of the strict rules of conduct for the training. By the end of the three months, we were fully and undeniably in love and without a clue what to do about it. After about a month apart, during which we spoke every day, realizing that even out in the real world our feelings were not changing, I took off for the land of Oz.

On the balcony at our first apartment.

 It wasn't long at all before we discovered that our love was too be big to be contained in just two beings-- our Little One was on the way and had big plans for us. It happened fast, but as we've found, when the time is right, nature has it's own timetable.  What seemed like an endless nine months of some discomfort and adjustment and many, many big changes (we got married! we moved from Sydney to Venice! we taught a lot of people to meditate! we met all of you!) was in a moment compressed until it seemed infinitesimally small and quick-- impossible to have been sufficient for that little being to develop to the point of joining the outside world. But somehow it was, somehow as crazy as the path was, as filled with bumps and turns and mud and mess, it all distilled into pure perfection, on the morning of May 1st, just as the sun rose, when our Saskia Deva Beverley Vroom emerged.

It's very bright out here.

She is a powerful being already. She is what led us to all of you. She fills us with joy and wonder each day and I feel blessed and eager to share her journey with you her sisters, and to watch all the Little Ones as they forge their paths and we fulfill our purpose as their guardians along the way.

Sending love to you all,
Angie