There are two chairs in the center of the dining room. By the door, repurposed shopping bags, gift bags, and duffel bags sit on boxes, all piled in neat clusters. The rooms are bare, all is scrubbed clean, and only essential daily items remain unpackaged, but ready to be gathered up in a minute's time -- this is living out of a suitcase.
Early May, when we were still in the process of looking for a house, I began packing. Everything. I also began finding furniture. With no real clear date that we'd be out of our current rented house, I still wanted to get ready-- nesting instincts were running strong (not necessarily a good outlet-- imagine going grocery shopping when you're famished). While I'm a person who thrives when there are impending deadlines and goals to reach-- we had no move-out date at our current house, no ending lease to worry about. Heck, we hadn't even bought a house yet. Soooo technically I was going about it wrong. Putting the cart before the horse? Yup that is accurate. But my driving thought was "Get ready! Don't wanna be unprepared!" It did turn out to be helpful, I found out, because we closed on a house August 24, two weeks after Asher was born-- right about the time I finished most of my hobbling around and had come to accept lack of sleep. Thank God 50% of the house was packed up at least. I suddenly had much less time to devote to moving. But still, there wasn't a rush, because we didn't have to be out till an entire month later-- Oct 1, months and months after beginning our search. All those days and nights before we had even found a house, when I shuffled about, filling boxes and clearing shelves, what else could I have been doing? Losing myself in a book, visiting with friends, getting ready for Baby, writing for hours, singing with my husband, exercising, creating a new design... Well, moving is already a daunting thought, and early on, all the unknowns involved were leaving me banging my head against the wall. Even before we could think about moving, unpacking, decorating, I had to do something. As a person who prepares all at once in a mad rush to meet the deadline, or in absence of a deadline loses track of time, this was one time I wished to be decidedly prepared. Today, I can tell you that in the face of big changes, impending deadlines, and major moves, for the sake of mental clarity sitting down to chart them out is a huge help. For example, something like • project due-- 2 weeks • Going out of town for a week-- 3 days from now • Get married -- six months • Sister's wedding -- tomorrow is daunting. Lots of big things. BUT NOT IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. It's easy to see them all as equal priority in your mind and get a little frantic about which to prepare for first. (Speaking from firsthand experience guys) But charting them out, seeing how much time you have before each one, and when you can actually prepare is so freeing. Ignorance is NOT bliss-- let's inform ourselves so we can relax about deadlines! I'm learning little by little how to get those priorities into the right order, on paper and in my head. I don't want to be preoccupied with things that don't need to be thought about just yet. My fretting doesn't get results-- only distracts me from where I am. It is so not God's timing, and thank God for that. So glad He doesn't run on my clock. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Luke 12:25 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. Isaiah 55:8
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Sky's lit enough for trees to stand silhouette -- moon's awake for a little while. Rhythmic waves of breath keep the room calm, humming with dreams. Daddy's asleep.
Baby squirms and whimpers. His is a bleating sound that melts me and leaves cracks in my soul that will never mend. I roll from under covers to pull him close to me, hushing his mouth with milk and a cooing "oh goodness, here you are." Bleary eyed, I blink tightly to wake up enough to watch him breathe. Brush dribbles from the corner of his lips. Unwrap him from his cocoon to ease out the air in his belly, as he protests all the while. Hold his hand while he drinks, his other fingers wrapped around his ear, his grip softening bit by bit as he fades. Watch as he grins, drunken, rolls his eyes and melts into sighing sleep. Nights on end, broken into a series of golden-houred moments, woven with smallness and milk-smiles, linens and velvet-soft skin. The small hours are better than any dream I could have had. Sunday August 7th, I pretty much expected another no-show. It was a still a week out from our baby's due date, but I'd been having really sizable Braxton Hicks for weeks. On top of that, the days before Sunday the 7th were a lot of false hopes. Thursday: a two hour, one-every-four-minute Braxton Hicks sesh. Then nothing. Friday: yet another. This time while Andrew played a gig. Afterwards, we walked around antique stores in Old Town Leesburg, seeing if that would help the Braxton Hicks turn into anything else. After a call to the midwives, we went home to see if anything would become unbearable, but a bath and back massage soon remedied the situation. Darn. Saturday: Still not a thing. In fact, less symptoms than the day before. Hmm. Maybe Asher really was going to wait till his due date. Sunday morning came around and I sat in the coffeeshop at church working on art commissions and getting up to make a pour-over from time to time. Every so often I'd have a cramp. That's it. No full-on muscle tightening like the days before. I felt like we were going backwards. Sometime mid-morning, I noticed I had a pink leak-- amniotic fluid? My heart kinda shivered-- not a fall, not a leap, just slipping into place-- and my thoughts became just one. "Soon. If not today, then in a few days. So so soon, I'm going to see his face." After Andrew finished his worship sets, we headed to lunch-- and I reassured my coworkers & friends in the coffeeshop that I'd keep them posted, but part of me wondered if it'd be like all those other times I'd told them "Maybe today!" At lunch, the cramp would come occasionally, and was a little more intense. Still not anything distracting. I ate an entire steak and plate of buttered asparagus -- and apparently one can't eat during real contractions, so it OBVIOUSLY wasn't the real thing. Sigh. "Let's go walk around the mall, Drew," I said anyway. Mid afternoon, not even an hour and a half of walking around the mall, the cramps were a little more frequent-- 5-9 minute intervals. They also made me stop, sweat, and groan a bit-- like I ate something off or was having menstrual cramps. I still had no way of comparing it to actual labor. Andrew couldn't answer it for me. We decided to call the midwife and ask, because I still had questions about the pink leak. She said if it was my water having broken, I was almost out of the time window in which labor should have started. If it had broken, they would need to induce labor to prevent potential infection. That meant not delivering at the Natural Birth Center as planned. I sighed and prayed that whatever needed to happen, God would keep Ash safe. About 5pm, we went into the triage room at the Birthing Inn to get me examined. Monica, the midwife on shift, was the very first we had seen early on in the pregnancy. She was kind, and honest with us about the potential need for induction, but said that if my waters were still intact, I'd still be able to have fully natural, fully unmedicated birth as I'd hoped for. The test to determine if my water had broken would take 30 min... during which time I was hooked up to monitors. Andrew and I watched my heartbeat, Asher's heartbeat, and the canyons and ridges of my contractions showing up on the monitor. To wake up the beep-broken silence, and to calm any nerves, we listened to the soundtrack I'd made for the day Ash was born. Maybe this would be it. When the test came back, we were so happy to hear it was only the mucous plug and not my water breaking. They also did an ultrasound to see why Ash's heart rate was occasionally dipping. No cause for concern-- probably just the mild contractions. However, I was only 2cm dilated, so nowhere close to needing to stay. My midwife told me "Go home, do most of this mild early part in your own tub, eat dinner-- and if he comes soon at least you'll be rested." On our way back, a 30 minute drive, the cramps became more random but much stronger. Andrew made me dinner while I tried to relax in a bath, drinking red raspberry leaf tea, but the pain was getting more distracting. I had to just lean over and wait for it to pass. We were only at home from 9pm till 10pm before calling the midwife again. Things felt like they were at least progressing, so she said she'd check on me, but it might still be too early. We planned on staying with Andrew's sister, 5 minutes from the hospital, if we couldn't stay yet. We arrived at the Triage rooms again at about 11pm, where I was strapped with more monitors and examined again. Still only 2.5 cm dilated. But the pains I was having were definitely mild contractions, so Monica gave me an Ambien and sent us off, saying that the labor contractions would wake me up, and that I would at least want to have slept before labor began. "Pain worse than this?" i thought. "I guess we'll see what that feels like." After arriving at Andrew's sister's house at 12:30 or so, we both tried sleeping on the couches. But I soon found that the waves of deep pain and pressure would not let me fall asleep, even as I yawned through the Ambien. I had to get off the couch because my back arched on its own, the contractions caused bowel movements, and I began to feel sick. Around 2:45 AM Andrew called the midwife-- I could no longer speak and my limbs had begun to shake on their own-- and she said it was probably the start of real labor. So we drove back, went the Triage rooms for the third time in a row, where after a checkup, they told me I was 7cm dilated. 5 centimeters in three hours-- the sudden intensity of contractions was doing its work! "Yeah, let's head to the Birth Center," Monica said with a smile. I could only nod and attempt to breathe through my body's tremors. They brought me a wheelchair. In the Birth Center room, I remember lowered lights and the hushed sounds of nurses getting things ready. Monica set up something that looked like a crockpot and asked what kind of essential oils I wanted diffused. A nurse ran the bath in the enormous tub. Andrew put our playlist on via bluetooth. All I could do was shake and try to breathe evenly. I never threw up but continued to feel nauseous with every contraction. Along with the waves of deep pain down my lower back and along my middle, I felt just a great pressure in my pelvis, as if gravity had taken hold and wanted to pull me inside out. In the tub, the immense warmth of the water dulled the edge ever so slightly. The weightlessness the water gave me seemed to take some pressure off my tailbone, which I'd fallen on months prior. But every time a contraction would wrap itself around me, my body would arch my back and I'd rise out of the water. At this stage I was still only a little past 8cm, so the midwife cautioned me not to push just yet, even if my body tried to. Andrew breathed with me as each hour passed of contraction after contraction-- every 3-5 minutes. He let me steady myself on his arms and helped me keep my focus as he coached my breaths-- else I would have gotten lost in the pain and begun to hyperventilate. But just listening to him direct me ("Follow my breathing. It's almost over. You're doing so well Rachael!") led me through what felt like an endless barrage. At about 6:30am there were cracks of light through the shutters and a dim glow in the room. I could no longer stop my body from pushing on its own. Each contraction sent me crying out and nearly standing up out of the tub. "I can't stop it!" I told the midwife, and Monica could tell that something had changed. "Alright, you can start pushing now." I got out, got on the bed on my hands and knees and leaned over a wedge pillow, with Andrew there to hold my hands and guide me through. The midwife and nurses gathered around, ready. Pushing is no joke. I knew I needed to... on top of the most incredible waves of pain I've ever experienced. I pushed with all my being, with each contraction, pretty sure my eyeballs would pop out before this baby did. But there came a point where one of the nurses said, smiling, "He has a lot of black hair!" and guided my hand to feel the top of his head. That did it. That meant only a few more pushes before I saw our baby-- before we got to hear his voice and see his face. I opened bleary eyes to look up at Andrew. "You're doing wonderful! You can do this! We're gonna meet him soon." 6:53am was the final push. I could hear the ladies commenting on the fact my water had not broken till the very end. The immense pressure suddenly faded and I heard bustling behind me, as the midwife and nurses checked and then handed a small bundle to me. Shaking, I realized it was him. He was small, wet, and covered in dark hair. "Baby!" I looked at him all over, incredulous, wondering if he was okay. I suppose I expected him to cry, but he just looked at me with wide, black eyes.
We spent over two hours together uninterrupted before he finally was cleaned and weighed, but the nurse put him right back into my arms. That day, and the days that followed, every time Asher cries or coos or nurses or blinks at me, beautiful reality strikes me. Meeting Ash is no longer a "maybe today". He's here, with us, and so worth the wait. As a few of you might remember, I posted a while back about my struggle at ages 18-20 with anorexia. At the time, at 5'3" I'd gotten down to 93 lbs, had lost my period, and was getting increasingly more drained. From the time my sister and her husband confronted me and said I needed to get better, it became my goal to be able to recover, and maybe some day being able to have a baby, without using birth control or resorting to eating junk food. I prayed for God to give me discernment between truth and false advertising... Something that kept me from believing I could eat to satiation without getting fat. The magazines said to eat a certain amount of calories. The FDA said to eat low-fat. But it left me feeling miserable. I found out asking for discernment meant I needed to get in and do the work of lots, and lots, and lots of research. So, from age 20 onward, I researched, read medical journals and studies, and really started to pay attention to nourishing my body and not just filling my stomach. I read up on Weston A Price/Nourishing Tradition and had great success getting back up to a good weight without accumulating too much body fat. Because it emphasizes lots of nourishing fats (the essential building block of hormonal health), my period returned after over two years. But still, it included soaked grains, which I found out my body doesn't handle too well. (Some bloating, some breakouts, sluggishness after a meal, weight gain, more hormonal symptoms-- general inflammation) Come to find out, this is how grains affect most people, but they attribute those symptoms to anything but grain! Carbs naturally promote the body's release of insulin, which stalls weight loss and can lead to inflammation if it's released too much. Then, I discovered Trim Healthy Mama about two years ago at age 21 but only loosely followed it -- not quite understanding the effect all sugar/carbs had on my body, and then later not understanding the difference between sweeteners (so ran into a lot of stalling right before my wedding! 😟) Anyway, after getting married and becoming pregnant, I knew it was my diet that needed tweaking. I started the Primal Blueprint approach because it matched the research I'd done over the last few years. This time, I started with no deviations like I'd allowed before. It is super, super simple and with a very real-food approach. No sweeteners, a dab of honey here and there, no corn/soy/wheat/potato products or carbs from dairy. Grassfed meat if possible. It focused on getting enough sleep, managing stress, moving around naturally throughout the day, and eating a nutrient rich, grainfree/low inflammation variety of foods. Lots of fat, moderate protein, lots of veggies, and some fruit. It was so doable, so I jumped in. It meant cooking at home, but I was saving money, feeling less inflammation and seeing results immediately. During the first trimester I had zero appetite, except randomly craving meat, Kimchi and eggs. So I gave into that craving! After hitting 4 mos I had an appetite again but stuck to the simple things I knew I wouldn't react badly to. That meant saying no to milkshakes and corn tortillas. I knew how my body reacted to grain of any kind (badly!) so avoiding that kept any vomiting at bay! When I cheated with mexican food, the next day I'd be throwing up and realize "i know exactly what did this!" Throughout the whole pregnancy I felt phenomenal-- no excess weight gain (I gained what was the baby, fluid & placenta, and lost fat everywhere!) and hardly any swelling unless I had carbs of some kind or was low in magnesium. My blood pressure was always nice and low. The last few weeks before delivery I had more sugar in the form of dates (usually at night) and made a point to drink Red Raspberry Leaf Tea ... as well as lots of walking and regular activities. My pelvis and muscles were pretty sore for the last month or so, so I maybe worked out three times during the whole pregnancy. Ended up delivering 6 days before my due date and the whole labor lasted maybe 6 hours. Pushed for 30 min. Recovery has been AWESOME. I encapsulated the placenta and have had no PPD, or even blues. And Baby Asher hardly dropped much from his birth weight and has gained a pound in the first two weeks! He's a strong little boy-- the doctor said he has the shoulder strength of a 4-month old! Today, I still follow more of a Primal Blueprint style of diet, with Intermittent Fasting happening naturally and no focus on calories, just lots of good fats, quality protein and vegetables (some low GI fruit). Most of all, I eat when I am hungry, till I am satisfied. That's it! No low blood sugar or distracting hunger.
Now I realize everyone is different, yes. Everyone has different upbringings, cultures, and cravings. However, Primal style eating (and elements of Trim Healthy Mama) set the groundwork for finding the BEST nutrition, eating a VERY low-inflammatory diet, and nixing the top offender (sugar) in hormonal problems, cell health and pregnancy "symptoms". You don't have to be miserable just cause you're pregnant. Cheat day? No thanks. Today I didn't want to go out. After having Asher, I'm still not feeling back to normal (although my definition of normal is something I haven't been in two years). And I'm not just talking weight and baggy eyes. All of me is worn, all of me is stretched, and not just on the outside. The mirror is dishonest. I'll see things I like that a camera reveals to be not so. Or I'll hate the reflection even when I'm the only one seeing it.
Yes, I know people are their own worst critic, and often times we don't see ourselves with the same lens that the whole other world sees us through. To make things worse, sometimes people see us in a much less flattering lens then we see ourselves… That's always embarrassing! But there's nothing you can do about that.... so there's no need to let it get you down. Our own view is often negative enough. Often I will run into people who view me in a way more flattering light than I have a projected and ever thought that I would appear from the outside. I want to just take their arm and tell them "No, you don't see me the way I do! You don't see where I go wrong! One of these days I'll get it together." What's reality? No matter how hard we try to be genuine, our view of ourselves will always be warped by our surroundings, and the people in them. And no matter how hard we try to be completely kind, what we think about ourselves, and other people, may always be tinged by our own insecurities. It seems then that our standard will always be flawed. We'll always be seeing ourselves and each other with the wrong light and the wrong heart. If we compare ourselves to other people, or even compare ourselves to better times in our own life, it's a blind comparison. We are all flawed, even when we boost up another person to some pedestal of perceived perfection. So.... can we ever find the standard? Where can we find the mirror that shows reality? A mirror that actually defines us? If we keep our eyes scanning the crowds for the thing to emulate, we'll always lack a constant standard to judge anything by. The reality is this. The light that we can view ourselves in all our rawness, and the rest of humanity in theirs, is the word of God. In the Psalms, David, a great, but greatly flawed man, was known as a man after God's own heart. His heart and desire weren't to rise above, or even be equal to the other perceived great men of the era. His heart was constantly seeking after the Lord's. And this is what God saw. Through David's writings, God revealed even more to us about His heart and thoughts. Psalm 139 outlines it beautifully. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. So it doesn't matter how I feel about myself-- God is thinking about me. A lot. Doesn't matter how we think I am doing socially, how I look, how I do at work or in my relationships. God is thinking about me constantly and loves me Anyway. 139:1-4 says He knows me. What kind of past I came from, what I sweep under the rug in order to seem "together", my habits (why I haven't had time to spend on my appearance), what I'm about to say and what's making me say it. And here... the standard, the mirror, the lens God sees us through starts here. Psalm 139 13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Made by God. My life story written by God. What if this was the natural way I viewed myself? Would I really have so much anxiety about the way I appeared to people? Would I be nervous about being fully myself if I just understood that my self was intricately woven fearfully & wonderfully made by God. God sees us as His children, made by Him to worship Himself. Our flaw that is that we disobeyed Him, wanting to be like God instead of what He created us to be. That tore us from relationship with Him, and we've been scrambling with each other to reach that pinnacle of joy in identity ever since-- something we will not ever find in ourselves. Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee. -- St Augustine And when we accept the sacrifice Jesus made, God sees only His righteousness on us. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. --2 Corinthians 5:21 I've been called a confident person. Ha! I know this isn't the case. There are days when I take pride in how I'm handling things, and others where things crash and fall through my fingers. My fears paralyze me on a daily basis. You would not believe the amount of talking through things I have to do that normal people do not have to worry about! The only confidence I've found is by knowing Who made me, Who covered my flaws and sins with His sacrifice, and Who has innumerable thoughts about me and plans for a future and hope for me. I still have the choice to see myself from the perspective of my own mirror (revealing all my flaws, never giving me lasting confidence, rendering me withdrawn and ineffective) or I can choose to see myself in the reflection of my Father's eyes. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? --Romans 8:31 Hello there! For those of you who haven't met me yet, my name is Rachael. Who am I? I'm a child of God, forgiven and free. I'm wifey to Andrew as of October 2015, mama to Asher as of August 2016, and a brand new resident of Berryville, Virginia. Our furniture isn't even moved in yet! You'll get to see the journey of unpacking, settling in, and making this place a home. In between spending time with my boys and moving from our old place to our new home, I'm assistant manager at Holy Grounds Cafe (a coffee shop in Cornerstone Chapel) and owner/maker at Color + Sound Goods.
And any free time is spent • writing for hours • enjoying coffee with friends • making art in any medium I can get my hands on • poring over health/nutrition studies • trying out recipes and international foods with my hubby • making spaces beautiful with decor & calligraphy • hunting for great deals • exploring & enjoying scenic views • listening to music while doing any of the above. If you wanna tag along on some of these adventures, follow me and I'll keep you posted! I love meeting new people and doing life. Even the most mundane things can be made brighter with a little inspiration and a little joy -- and this makes even the smallest details in life just beautiful. So good to meet you! |