On becoming a parent

This week we celebrated M’s 6 month birthday. Before I was a parent, I never really understood why parents made such a big deal about their babies’ monthly milestones. But now, I get it. I haven’t written much about it, but every month that passes in a baby’s life is such a miracle. It is such a gift to watch a life and a brain develop, literally day by day.

A few years into my marriage, I suddenly woke up one day with the realization that being a wife felt more natural than not being a wife. I realised at that point that though I had been married for a while, it took time for me to grow into the role. Over the last 6 months, I realised that the same can be said of growing into the role of a parent. It is the passage of time that shapes us into the roles we take on in life. We celebrate the traditional milestone celebrations like birthdays, marriages, graduations, etc., but from my experience, it is rare that we have fully entered into those roles on those dates. Rather, we grow into them.  The day I got called to the bar, I didn’t feel like a lawyer, but slowly, over the passage of time, at some point when I wasn’t looking, I became a lawyer. Similarly, the journey into parenthood has been gradual, and is still very much a work in progress. Maybe one day I’ll wake up feeling that it feels more natural to be a parent, than not to be one.

Over the last six months, I have marveled in awe at our little miracle. I have also been stretched and challenged in various directions. Sleep has been hard, yes. But more than that, I feel challenged when I think about the responsibility I now have to raise and shape a PERSON. I can’t help but look ahead to the time when my daughter will display our character traits, good and bad – and most frightening – those I intentionally taught her, and those I didn’t.  More than anything else, I feel the burden (in a positive way) of refining my character so that this new life can be imbibed with the very best character traits that I can offer to her.

On a lighter note, the past six months have also been very fun. Some of my favorite moments have been the first time I heard M laugh (as well as every subsequent time I heard her laugh), the first time she stretched her arms out towards me signalling that she wanted me to pick her up and the time that she stretched one arm out to me and the other out to J, showing that she loved both of us and didn’t want to choose. Other highlights have included bath times, waking up next to her happy self every morning (yes, we co-sleep, that will be for another post), as well her most recent experience trying solids for the first time (a banana, in case you were curious).

Happy six months, M! We love you 🙂

Picture of the Week: Madeleine at 3 months

 

Madeleine’s Closet Nursery

When we first moved into our place, we made sure to get an extra room.  Being able to host family and friends has always been very important to us, so a guest room was a must. We also thought that we could use this spare room as an office for the majority of the year where we don’t have guests. But at the back of our minds, we were also thinking that if we had a baby, we would most definitely require an extra room.  Over the past couple of years, we’ve enjoyed many seeing many guests come and go, and I also ended up working a full time job from home, so the extra room was definitely a smart move.

Then, when we found out that we were expecting a baby, we realised we wanted to keep our spare room as an guest room/office, rather than convert it into a nursery. It is with this thought that J and I both separately had the same brain wave: Why not convert our walk-in closet into a nursery for our soon-to-be baby?

We started working on the nursery-closet (now known as Madeleine’s room) back in April before we left for Toronto for a few months. This is what it looked like before we started:

As you can see, it was in pretty rough shape.

At the time, J was finishing up his exams, so this project was basically mine. I started by sanding down all the peeling paint, and then continued by filling up the cracks with “crack fill”.  I then painted the top of the wall (above the shelves) a pale yellow, which I thought would be a perfect colour for a baby room, but would also work well as a closet colour for anyone using this space after us.

Here is how it looked after the sanding, filling and painting:

The next step was to put up some white wood paneling which we picked up from Home Depot (Side note: I never realised how much I could learn from chatting with people working in hardware stores. I knew absolutely nothing before starting this project, and learned so much just by asking questions to the people who worked at Home Depot and Home Hardware. Who knew!). By this point, J was finished with his exams and was able  to join me – thankfully 🙂

Here’s how the room looked after all the paneling was put up:

And here is how it looks now:

We were super blessed to have M’s curtains sewn by my friend Emma, over at Emma Poliquin Photography (whose pictures I highly recommend you check out!). We picked up the dresser at Wicker Emporium, and it worked perfectly as a dresser/change table. Overall, we are super happy with the space! It is a perfect size for a little baby, and it is also very convenient to have M so close by during the night, while still allowing her to have her “own room”.  The only downside of course, was that we had to sacrifice our closet space, but we were able to be a bit creative with storage for our clothes, and in the end it all worked out 🙂 We are pretty proud of ourselves for turning our 2 bedroom place into a 3 bedroom place!

 

 

 

 

A very belated announcement

As you’ve probably guessed, a lot has happened since my last post. Namely, we had a baby girl!  Our lives were forever blessed and enriched at 11:26pm on July 30th with the arrival of sweet little Madeleine Cecile.  She is just over two months old now, which I guess marks the amount of time that it has taken me to get into the swing of things and get organized enough to pop on here to share the news. Of course, by now, most of you already knew all of this, but several of you have expressed that you were excited to read my next blog post. I’m guessing this is not for the news, but more for the story behind the news. So here it is:

If you have been following this blog, you know that I had a very anti-climactic due date.  The day came and nothing happened. The nothing-happening-ness lasted for a full 7 days until I had to go in for an ultrasound to determine whether I would need to be induced.  As it turned out, I was getting low on amniotic fluid, so the doctors determined that induction was necessary.  Since I was already 3cm dilated, I was told that I would be induced that day, and that I would not be going home until I had my baby. Even though I had been waiting for this day to come for what felt like an eternity, the news that I would be having the baby that day came as a huge shock.  I did not really leave my house that morning thinking that the next time I would come home would be with my daughter.  Also, J was at work that morning, so I think that receiving this news all by myself compounded its emotional impact.  In the next few hours, J arrived, we settled into our room, and we had some pre-induction lunch (taco wraps!).  The nurses told me that the induction would start at about 3pm, and that people react differently to the petocin, but that if I was lucky, I would have the baby by the next morning, if not definitely by the afternoon the next day.

A note on labor and expectations: I should pause here to say that throughout my entire pregnancy, my hope was that I would not have to be induced. I had heard that the pain caused by induced contractions was much stronger and much more intense than natural contractions. This is partly because when the body goes into labor on its own, there is a natural progression in the pain, whereas when it is induced, the intensity of the pain increases much less gradually.  I had also heard that because of this, women who are induced are much less likely to give birth without the epidural – something I had been hoping to try.

Anyhow, all this to say, that I really had to let go of any expectations I had had, and be open to whatever experience I was about to encounter. As I had been told many times, you can hope and plan for your perfect labor experience, but at the end of the day, you really do not know what is going to happen, and you have to be flexible. So flexible I was. I consciously let go of any hopes and expectations surrounding the experience, and decided to embrace whatever was about to happen – because really, what matters most was that I would soon (God willing), be meeting my baby!

The induction (a petocin drip) started at about 3pm, and the dose was gradually increased every half hour.  J and I would go for walks in between. My doctor came in the room at 5pm only to see me chatting and laughing away with J and my dad – meaning, still no pain and no labor.  It is at this point where he said to me “I am going to come back at 8pm, and if you are still laughing then, you won’t be after I break your waters”.  Eep – ok.  Sure enough, my doctor came back at 8:00, and I still had not experienced any pain.  So, just as he had promised, he ‘broke my waters’, and almost immediately the contractions started – and boy were they intense. They were not joking when they said that it would not be gradual. My doctor said that he would be back at 11pm to assess my progress. At this point I was still 3cm.

I labored for a few hours with the help and support of J and my doula, and at around 10pm, the pain just became unbearable. I had been coached to breathe in between contractions, but at this point, the pain had become constant; I felt the same between contractions as I did during the contractions. It is at this point where I wanted to give up. I couldn’t bear it anymore – I asked for the epidural. I was exhausted and was foreseeing another 10 hours or so of this pain. Not to mention that I had been told that morning that my baby would weigh around 9lbs! Little did I know that I had just entered the ‘transition’ and most intense phase of labor that comes just prior to the pushing. The nurse then came in to tell me that the anesthetist was in surgery and that I would have to wait until he was finished to get the epidural.   At this point, I honestly did not think I was going to be able to do it, and I wanted to give up and back out. But I couldn’t. There was no choice – had to keep going.  THEN, at about 10:45pm, as if the baby knew I had reached my limit, I felt her coming.  I remember yelling “SHE’S COMING” and having everyone gather around me shocked and excited that everything was happening so quickly. The nurses instructed me on how to push, and I have to say, I was terrified. I felt the same way that I felt that morning when they told me I wasn’t going home until the baby was born.  Anyhow, it ended up being only about half an hour until I was holding little Madeleine in my arms, and felt more joy than I had ever felt in my entire life.  The feeling of holding her on my chest after that whole experience, and after having carried her for all those months, was surreal and so miraculous.  After all the little twists and turns, I had the most amazing and empowering birth experience, and little Madeleine had such a beautiful beginning to what I hope will be an even more beautiful life.  J and I are still in awe of her and we are just loving staring at her and watching her grow. More stories coming soon!

Waiting…

So baby girl is 4 days late so far, though it feels like so much more since I was told to be ready ahead of the due date.  She did not come early though, and when the due date finally arrived it was pretty anti-climactic.  The last few weeks, but especially the last week were strange. I would wake up every day not knowing if that day would be “the day”. Similarly, I would make plans, not knowing if I would be able to keep them or not.  I suppose we never really know what’s around the corner, but these past few weeks have been especially suspenseful. I have found that in the midst of this, I have started to feel a little more overwhelmed by the world. Reading the news has affected me in a way that it never did before. I really feel like I can’t handle hearing too much news, or too much bad news, at once. This was never a problem for me. I have also found myself overwhelmed by technology and needing to take a lot more breaks from my phone than I used to. I’m not sure if this will be a permanent change, or something that is just temporary during this time, but nonetheless, it has been interesting to observe this change.

More than anything else though, these past few weeks have been strange because they have really been reminding me of the last big event I experienced: the loss of my mother.  In the days and weeks leading up to my mother’s going to heaven I felt many of the same emotions that I have felt lately.  To be clear, those days were amongst the saddest and hardest of my life, while these days are of course amongst the happiest. Nonetheless, it is interesting how the feelings of suspense and uncertainty have presented themselves in the same way in these two polar opposite life events.  In the days leading up to my mom’s passing, I went to bed not knowing if my life would be changing in a major way the next day. My mind could not comprehend how life would possibly go on without my mom and every minute of every day felt so precious. Now, I feel similar emotions, but in the opposite way. Again, I go to bed wondering if I will be meeting my baby girl the next day. And again, my mind is just not able to wrap itself around this life change. Losing a mom and gaining a daughter are just two things that you really cannot imagine until they happen. And even then, they are still both very hard to understand fully.

I think the experience of loosing my mother has made the pregnancy journey that much more interesting because I feel like I am experiencing it all over again — but in reverse.  In the first instance, I slowly said goodbye to the most influential person in my life, as well as to the role in life that I played as her daughter. I slowly learned to adapt to life without her physically here. And now, in the second instance, through this pregnancy, I slowly started preparing to meet a person who will soon play a very central part in my life, and when she arrives, I will learn to adapt to a life with her physically here. Again, I will need to learn to adapt to a whole new role in life; that of a mother.

The circle of life kind of amazes me.

Some notes on pregnancy…

Hard to believe, that I have reached the end of my pregnancy. I am 5 (FIVE!!) days away from my due date and haven’t popped on here to tell you anything about how it has gone.  So – here are the highlights:

1-I have LOVED being pregnant! Not only has it been an absolute privilege and honour to carry around this little miracle in my womb, but I have felt so uplifted and encouraged by the way people respond to pregnant ladies. My experience has been nothing but positive. I have experienced people slowing down their cars and rolling down their windows to tell me I look great, a stranger on the street giving me his umbrella in a storm, as well as random smiles and encouraging words on the streets. I don’t know about you, but I really didn’t expect this. Every day when I open the newspapers, I read about all the horrible things that people do to one another, and yet, pregnancy, and the excitement of an unborn child really seems to bring out the best in everyone.

2-The past 9 months have been a true journey of personal discovery for me. J and I took a wonderful birth preparation class called ‘Your power, your birth’.  Along with learning a whole lot about the birthing process (which I knew virtually nothing about before!), I also learned to see my pregnancy as a journey to motherhood. My daily experiences began to be framed through this lens.  I’ll give you an example. I had an unfortunate situation in my workplace where I faced a fork in the road. In short: fight for my rights or put my head down and allow others to walk all over me.  When I put it this way, the choice seems obvious, however in the moment, making the right choice was not so obvious. I had people tell me that the best thing to do was to avoid any sort of stress on my baby – which was good advice, but which ultimately, was not what I needed to do. After some thought, I realised that if I was going to bring a little girl (oh yeah – it’s a girl!) into this world, I needed to be able to show her how to stand up for herself. And if I couldn’t do that for myself, then I would have no credibility when it came time for me to teach her that lesson.  And so – that growing little spaghetti squash in my stomach became the inspiration and the lens through which I made that decision and many others over the last few months.

So – when it came time to create a ‘birthing bundle’ in our pre-natal class, here is what I did:

The assignment was to put together 3 objects: one that symbolizes the women in your family and the power that they bring to your upcoming birthing process, one that symbolizes your partner (if applicable), and one that symbolizes you and your baby working together. Here is my bundle:

For the strength from the women in my family, I selected this cross, given to me by my mother, symbolizing the Christian faith held by my mother, my mother in law, my sister and my grandmother, all of which have been inspiring to me throughout my life.

To symbolize my husband, I selected his wedding ring.  If you look closely, you will see that the inside layer of his ring is made of rose gold, surrounded by a tough layer of titanium.  When he had this ring made, he was thinking that the delicate rose gold layer symbolized me, while the second layer hugging and protecting it, while being exposed to the elements, would symbolize him and his role in our lives. The two layers in the ring symbolize a marriage union of us as two separate, yet combined layers. I could not think of a better partner and source of support for what is to come.

Last, but not least, to symbolize my baby and I working together, I selected the wooden salad fork and spoon set that I brought back from South Africa a few years ago. If you look closely, the spoon is more weathered than the fork. So, the spoon is me, and the fork is baby girl. I viewed us a separate, but still working together. As the ‘womb’ I ‘spoon’ feed her and our nutritional intake is one and the same. As the newer and less weathered fork, baby ‘prods’ me, and impacts my decisions and outlook on life.

3-Throughout this journey I’ve read some great books, here are my top two recommendations:

1) Birthing from Within by Pam England and Robert Horowitz

2) Great with Child by Beth Ann Fennely

And before I go, here is one of my many favourite quotes from Great with Child:

On becoming a mother:

“You understand yourself as lodged in history in a way you didn’t before. Your beliefs will be tested, your hypotheses put into action, so you’ll consider them in a new way.  Whether you’re explaining where pets go when they die or teaching your child to recycle, your philosophies have ramifications. For the rest of history, echoes of your voice will be heard”.

Some notes on dealing with change

“Change itself, if you go through it consciously, is the doorway into the next stage of growth — one that propels you into a deeper relationship with yourself and the world”.

As you know, the last year has brought about some major changes in my life.  Whether you’ve been experiencing big changes or not, I am sure that you have been experiencing some sort of change in your life too. After all, things don’t tend to stay the same for very long. With that in mind, I thought I would share some lessons that I’ve been learning for the last little while on how to navigate change. I can truly say that these principles have helped me to face the unimaginable. These principles were taken from an article I read while in a waiting room one day (who knew I’d read a life changing piece while waiting for a yoga class!) called “7 yogic principles to help you navigate change”. Unfortunately, I don’t know which magazine the article was from and wasn’t able to find it online. Therefore, the principles are very much paraphrased based on the notes that I jotted down on a crumpled up receipt in my purse, and the descriptions and how they have applied to my life are just my own thoughts speckled with some quotes that resonated with me enough for me to jot them down (next time I’ll jot down the source too, silly me).

1. Know that change is inevitable: Even though this seems obvious, it was a big one for me.  I think that on some level we all like to believe that the good things in life will never change. Somehow, when they do, we are shocked.  This is how I felt when things started progressing really quickly with my mom’s illness.  Even though I had more warning than most people do (she had an aggressive form of cancer), I still didn’t really see it coming.  Embracing the idea that change is inevitable, and accepting that my life would always be in some sort of transition, somehow made it a little easier to accept what I was going through. Since that time, it has also made me value what is around me a little more – because I no longer expect things to stay the same forever.

2. View change as the invitation: I found it particularly interesting to learn that in more traditional societies every phase in life was regarded as an invitation into a new way of being.

What if our society viewed change in this way? How would our response to change differ?

We  may not realise it while it’s happening, but changes tend to redefine us, whether this be in some subtle way or in a more dramatic way. I used to think that celebrating little milestones was silly, but I’ve come to learn that the little (and big) milestones in my life really have helped me to grow in different directions and I would not be who I am now without them.

So how do you go through change “consciously”? The article urges us to “consider the way in which the change will expand you, teach you about yourself, show you both your limits and your capacity to move beyond them.  The more you can accept this as an invitation process, the easier it is to discover the gifts of change”.

3-Meditate (or pray) through uncertainty: I don’t meditate that much, but I cannot underestimate the power that prayer has had in my life.  If you are not into prayer, I would at least recommend regular, quiet reflection. I jotted down this quote from the article “the real antidote to discomfort is to move into it rather than away from it”.

As I prepare to go through one of the biggest (maybe the biggest) change of my life, the transition from “maiden to mother” (as my pre-natal instructor put it), I plan on being fully present and conscious of this change. The last big change I went through was a very difficult one, and one that I wanted to ignore. Since this one is a happier one, it won’t be as hard for me to acknowledge it, but I still think that the above principles apply just as much to good changes as to bad ones — after all, both types of change stretch us and help us grow, and for that reason, they merit acknowledgement, attention and reflection — and maybe a little celebration!

Remembering Mom – 1 year anniversary

Today marks one year since my mom’s soul left this world and entered another. A lot of people have been asking me how I feel so here are a few of my thoughts:

In a lot of ways, today feels no different than any other day. I think of my mom daily. In fact, I think about her several times a day, and as I told my husband not too long ago, I feel as though she is a constant background to my thoughts. She is always on my mind, whether I am thinking about something in specific or whether I am just missing her presence. I plan on writing a separate post on the things I learned about how to support someone through grief, and one thing that I will include, is that you never need to worry about bringing up someone’s loss for fear of “reminding them” and making them sad. When you lose someone special, they are always on your mind, whether people bring up the topic or not.

At the same time, today does feel like a special day to me. And that’s because it marks the day my life changed in a very big way. In the same way that my birthday and the birthdays of my friends and family will always be special days, February 4th will now forever be special to us, and will be a day that we will always set apart to collectively and intentionally remember mom. I tried to think about what my mom would want us to do today, and all I could really think was that she would want us to spend time together as a family, strengthening our relationships. This is one wish that she spoke of often during her last few years, and one that I plan to honour.

In my culture, as in many others, the first year is the official “grieving period”. It doesn’t mean that the grieving ends after a year, but just that the first year is a very special one. We hold a commemoration 40 days after the day of death, and then another one on the one year mark. There is even a special saying that you say to those grieving on the days of those commemorations. Translated to English it means “May you continue to live and remember”. I think that is a beautiful saying, and in general, I have found these cultural traditions to be a huge help throughout this first year when everything seems new and foreign and nothing else really makes sense. Sometimes, it’s nice to have some guidelines that take a little bit of pressure of decision making.

In this last year, I also struggled between finding the balance between grieving and going on with my life. Does grieving mean that you are not supposed to feel any joy? Or should I think that mom would want us to continue to be happy and go on with our lives as much as possible? I struggled with this question a few times over the course of this year: on my 30th birthday, at Christmas, and just recently, when I learned my husband and I were expecting a new baby(!). The answer hasn’t been fully answered in my mind, but I have learned that it is impossible to stay in a permanent state of grief. Even if you try, life passes by, other people get sick and pass on, and if you don’t move beyond yourself and your sadness, you will regret celebrating all the joys that life does bring our way. You will also regret honouring the life that is around you, because it too will one day end, and you will have been too busy stuck in your own little world. So – with that, I’ve strived to find a sense of balance between grieving my mother’s loss and trying to enjoy the life around me at the same time. It’s a tough balance I tell you.

Finally, one thing that has brought me peace this entire year has been the thought that a person’s memory really does not end with their earthly death. My mother has truly left us with so much. She has planted in me more than I could describe here, and it brings me so much comfort to know that that will never die.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading, and for being along on this journey with me.

Happy New Year and B&B’s Curry-ginger Vegetable Soup

It’s still January, so I think that means that it’s still ok for me to wish you a Happy New Year. Hope you all enjoyed the holidays and have found your way back to your routines.

I have made this recipe a few times over the last few months and J and I have really enjoyed it! It’s the perfect soup for cold January weather – and is also super healthy, so great for keeping new year’s resolutions! It came together one night before we were travelling when I was trying to figure out how to use to broccoli and bok choy that were left in my fridge. I found this soup recipe, and changed it to add some spices, some lentils and some other veggies. The result was awesome! I’ve been meaning to share it with you for a while. Here is the recipe:

*Also, you’re going to have to forgive my laziness with picture taking lately. I do intend to get back to my SLR soon!

B&B’s Curry-Ginger Vegetable Soup

INGREDIENTS

-2 tablespoons grape seed oil

-1 onion chopped

-½ lb of broccoli

-½ lb bok choy

-4 large garlic cloves (1 to be used at the end)

-Juice of 1 lemon

-1/2 cup lentils

-1/2 cup carrots

-4 cups broth

-1 tsp curry powder

-1 tsp ginger powder

-1 tsp cumin

-turmeric to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Sauté onion and three cloves of chopped garlic in grape seed oil for about ten minutes.
2. Add the broccoli, bok choy, lentils and carrots and sauté for another 5 minutes.
3. Add broth and curry, ginger, cumin and turmeric.
4. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the broccoli and bok choy are tender.
5. Salt and pepper to taste.
6. Just before it is finished add one chopped clove of garlic.
7. Puree and then add lemon juice.

Enjoy!

Stuffed butternut squash

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a delicious stuffed butternut squash dish. I also promised to share the recipe.  This meal is very easy and filling, but the prep is a little long, so I recommend making this when you are in the mood for a slow evening.  It is perfect for a dinner party and is also meatless – so an excellent vegetarian dinner idea! Tip: To shorten the prep, make the quinoa ahead of time!

Stuffed butternut squash

Ingredients

• 1 medium butternut squash
• olive oil
• pinch dried oregano
• 1 cup quinoa (cooked) (this will take about 20 mins to cook – make sure to budget this into your time!)
• 1 small carrot , grated
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 box of cherry or grape tomatoes, chopped in half
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 red pepper, sliced
• Parmesan cheese for sprinkling at the end (optional)

Instructions

Butternut squash and stuffing

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.  Cut the butternut squash in half (you may need to microwave it for a minute or two in order to be able to do this) and scoop out the seeds.

2. Place both halves on the baking tray, drizzle with a little olive oil and season with salt, pepper and dried oregano.  Cook for 40 minutes.  Take out of the oven, add the chopped peppers and tomatoes to the tray and cook for another 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, mix the quinoa with the carrots, onions and dressing  (see instructions below).

4. Take the tray out of the oven and transfer the peppers and tomatoes to the stuffing mix.

5. Stir together and spoon the filling into the butternut squash. You can also scoop out some of the squash and mix it in with the stuffing before adding the stuffing to the squahs.  Return to the oven for 10 minutes.

6. Sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top (optional) and serve.

Dressing

1. Pour the juice of one lemon into a cup.

2. Add enough olive oil that it is about equal to the amount of lemon juice.

3. Crush 2 garlic cloves and mix into the lemon/olive oil mix.

4. Add some salt to taste.