Thanksgiving Countdown and Forbidden Stew

This past Sunday we did some epic meal planning. Since we had a week and a half before Thanksgiving, I only wanted to go to the grocery store once. We planned for 7 meals plus whatever we had on hand in our fridge/freezer/pantry already, hoping to get us to the holiday. 

Here's what we picked:

Roasted Chicken with Squash and Broccoli (a recipe from this book)

Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuit Topping

Lentil and Mushroom Ragu

Squash & Cabbage Quesadillas

Crock Pot Baked Potato Soup

Crock Pot Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

Crock Pot Beef Tikka Masala

We did the roast chicken first because I needed stock for almost everything else and the chicken for the chicken pot pie, and we even had more chicken left over for lunches. The squash we cooked with it was the top end of a butternut squash and I saved the bottom part to cut into rings for this recently discovered fall yumminess later in the week or on the weekend. I went ahead and made everything between Sunday and now, so my fridge is full of premade meals that we can just pull out and eat. I have the feeling that I'm going to be a little frenzied between now and Thanksgiving and want to simplify as much as possible. 

So far, we've demolished the roast chicken and the chicken pot pie, with rave reviews all around for both. Today I made the potato soup, the tikka masala and the wild rice soup. The first two turned out perfect. The third? Complete failure-turned-amazing-dish.

See...when we went to the store on Sunday, wild rice was something silly like $10.99 a pound, while the forbidden rice right next to it was $3.99 a pound. I had never cooked with forbidden rice and had no idea that it would turn everything purple. PURPLE CHICKEN. Not only that, but as I was cooking, I accidentally grabbed what I THOUGHT was chicken stock but in fact was an apple-boozy-concoction made my a good friend for Christmas last year when I was pregnant so I waited until chilly weather to drink it...and when I stored it, as I do most things, in a Ball jar, I didn't label it, and it looks a whole lot like chicken stock. I may have been able to say, "Oh well dumb luck," if this isn't the second time in as many weeks that I've done this. The first time was to some brown rice that ultimately became unsalvageable but since this was a giant pot of food and I was NOT going back to the store, I had to get creative. In my defense, last night my mom gave me a second-degree burn when she spilled some hot tea on my leg that I had to get treated today so my head wasn't entirely in the right place.

At first it was off-puttingly sweet and I doubted that we were going to salvage the thing. I had everything in the pot and had to figure out a way to save the meal because I hate throwing out perfectly good food. So I started adding savory spices like a madwoman...big chunks of garlic, onion powder. Still horrid. Then we added smoked paprika and cumin, then tomato sauce and more cumin and finally decided to make chicken chili and threw in a bunch of chili powder, then some beans...and it started coming together.

We decided finally that we had made a sweet chicken chili that tasted a whole lot like chicken mole. And thus, a new dish was born! Not that I'll ever make it like that again. I was proud that I could improvise enough to save the dish. We ended up serving it with cilantro, tomato and sour cream, and it was delightful and my husband is taking it to work for lunch tomorrow. Bam.

Afterword

After the birth of our second, everything changed. All of it. I was most worried that I wouldn't have enough love in my heart for everyone. Baloney. It overwhelms me at times. Everything isn't sunshine and rainbows every second of the day - the transition from one to two was HARD.

IS hard. And then you turn around and realize your relationship with your significant other is also different so you have to figure that out again too, amidst the regression of the things and the mess of a house and ALL THE NOT SLEEPING. At the very least, the not sleeping the second time around is totally expected and therefore not so much rage-filled. Maybe just a little ragey. A cute little rage monster. The thing that I struggle with the most, because I am quite a distracted individual at baseline, is how to be fully present with A while in this crazy storm of life with the little one. Even three months into this things have settled down a little, but she tells me she wants "just girl dates. No boys. No daddy, no little bro." and I have to figure out how to do that without jumping up to clean/email/text/whatever.

This I think will be the struggle of the millennial generation - finding meaningful connection via technology and knowing when to put that aside, sit on the floor and look your kid square in the face and say, "I'm here. Let's play." Hands Free Mama is a good place to start...although I'm reading it on a tablet and that feels wrong...and I think that it also has wisdom for people without kids. I also am enjoying Notes from a Blue Bike and The Art of Simple by Tsh Oxenreider. Simplifying, being present, and living life in this age of consumerism and more-more-more-all-the-everything are all inextricably linked. I wish I had a BLAM! one-size-fits-all fix for this, some prescriptive thing I could read or checklist or whatever but I don't. It's lots of little checklists and no's and conversations about how this or that makes someone feel and whether this THING makes you happy or your life better or what someone wants their life to be like, what they want their kids to remember.

All the big questions and the small questions at the same time. It's kind of a rollercoaster.

I know as a perfectionist yet fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants person that I can beat myself up about missed opportunities or things I could have done differently...currently I am evaluating my craft room, throwing actual DAILY BAGS OF TRASH from there and wondering why the hell I accumulated so much worthless stuff...things that I would "eventually get around to" that eventually just amounted to jumble in my brain and guilt for not having or making the time for the (SEEMINGLY) important but what turned out to be (ACTUALLY) unimportant...eesh.

So yeah, that's the reason for the blog redesign. As a family we're fumbling our way toward an unhurried, intentional, adventurous life.

Is it weird that I say "here's where I document all this unplugged-ness on a blog." ? Yeah probably.

Squash Fall Celebration Soup

Today I created an insanely delicious and super easy soup that you need in your kitchen this fall:

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash

1 acorn squash

1 Tbs  oil

1 red bell pepper

2 poblano peppers

3 slices of bacon

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

stock of your choice

salt and pepper

Create:

Fire up your oven to 400F

Slice your squashes in half, scoop out the insides, and brush some oil (I used almond) on the insides and place them flesh side down on a baking sheet. Roast them for about 45 minutes.

Slice the peppers in half and seed them, and coat those with oil. Put them in a smaller oven safe pan and roast them about 15 minutes.

While your veg is roasting, take a dutch oven or large pot and start cooking your bacon. You're not going to want the bacon crispy but you want to get some oil from it. Throw your onions and garlic in and sauté them until the onions are translucent and the garlic smells good. Next, the peppers out of the oven and put them in the pot as well.

When your squash is done, peel it and put it in the pot, then add just enough stock to cover everything by half. Get everything simmery for 15 or so minutes and then blend everything either in a blender or with an immersion blender.

If I was going to do this again I would have added sage and chives but today it was one of those baby-screaming days so I straight up forgot. 

Let me know if you try this! It's delightful and you could so easily riff on it a million different ways. Also, this is something hat would be great for the whole family as a first course and to freeze for your baby food stash.

2nd Time's A Charm

Hey! So, we had another baby! It's taken me awhile to write about this mostly due to sheer sleepiness and no time whatsoever. Seriously. I can't even return my parents' phone calls. However, in the wake of all the fallout regarding opening or revisiting conversations regarding mental health and depression, I'm going to try to put this all down.

In short: I was terrified for 9 months due to the PTSD and postpartum depression I suffered after the birth of our first. Terrified. Therefore, that and the absence of tequila made for a
VERY. LONG. PREGNANCY.

Last October when we decided to have another child, I was all, "YEAH! LET'S DO THIS!" and then two days after seeing the positive pregnancy test, was curled up in the fetal position. I was convinced I was going to die. Actually had to do some MAJOR working through emotionally and spiritually for 9 months about this. It may not make a lot of sense to a lot of people, but it's like...my body chose flight from the very beginning, and even when I was in the hospital I had a hard time getting my body and my brain and my soul convinced that it was go time. For 9 months, my brain told me awful stories over and over again, random events being taken and twisted. Awful stuff. I wanted to get back on my antidepressant but unfortunately that made me feel physically horrible and even more mentally unstable so I dropped that idea pretty quickly. I had to walk, eat fresh and nutritious food, and be real with my mama tribe - trust the community that I had to work to be a part of for 3 years.

Fortunately, I had a completely different social, emotional, and professional framework from which to approach this pregnancy. Love, support, open arms and ears from every which way. There was an outpouring of information and cheering-on from women who had VBAC'd before, and not just women in my generation. In fact, the aunts and friends with college-age children taught me so much about their VBAC experiences. It was beautiful. I still puked nearly every day until discovering the magic of Zantac in the third trimester, and being pregnant, planning a music therapy conference, working part-ish time while chasing a preschooler...it takes a lot out of a person. There are so many things that made it all tolerable - friends stealing my oldest so I could nap or just have time to think my thoughts, or supper sharing (You have corn chips and beans? I have chicken and cheese! Let's make nachos!), and not to mention friends with stashes of Zofran. There were gorgeous mother blessings, and in the week between 40- and 41- weeks, there were innumerable "random" kindnesses. Our elderly neighbors brought us cookies, people called or Emailed to check-in, and sweet ladies texted me not "have you had that baby yet?" but "thinking about you and holding you up in love" type texts. I cried at the abundance of support.

My wonderfully VBAC-cheerleading doctor was scheduled to deliver her own baby the same week I was due. This sent me into a bit of a frenzy of doubt and I considered changing doctors. I was talked off that ledge and eventually did need to be transferred to the care of another doctor, but after a lot of talking and crying and journaling and more counsel from wise women, ended up being fine with it. After all, the doctor's job is to generally catch the baby or intervene when necessary and that one person may or may not end up on call when your time comes, so there's really no point in holding on so tightly to the thought of one person making or breaking your experience. I trusted the facility where I would be birthing, trusted my birth team, so I slowly came around to trusting that everything was going to be okay. I had to decide that I would be the one deciding how my experience would go. Mentally I held VBAC-ing at a distance. I wasn't married to the idea, just because I didn't want to be disappointed. I set my expectations bar very, very low for this birth. My goal was to come home healthy, with a healthy baby, without feeling like a prisoner of war. Everything else I could take or leave.

My due date came and went. No baby. Of course. I was not at all expecting anything early to happen. Hopeful? Yes. Dubious? Totally. Since my first was born at 42.5 weeks I just hunkered, stayed away from my phone and Facebook and walked like I had never walked before. I did all the interventions I knew how to. Red Raspberry Leaf tea, Evening Primrose Oil up one side and down the other (you'll know what this means if you're in a crunchy birth community. If not, ask me about it.), sex, everything. My body just was not ready at 40 weeks. Around 40.5 (Monday) I had a nonstress test, and everything looked great but fluid levels were a little iffy, so the doc wanted me to come back on Wednesday to repeat the test. Tuesday I tried castor oil, and while it made me power puke, it did not start off contractions. I went back in on Wednesday morning, where we found out the fluid levels had dropped, and she had me go "straight to L&D." Do not go home, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Well.

Since I had eaten a paltry breakfast due to the effects of the previous nights castor oil extravaganza, I instead went to get a turkey sandwich, got adjusted by my chiro, and then went to L&D. I might have a little bit of a problem with authority. I got hooked up and answered all the check-in questions while I waited for the Mr. to show up. He had stayed home to finish up packing and deliver our daughter to the friends watching her for the day. When he arrived, the doctor did as well and placed the foley bulb. She maybe got a little flustered and asked if I had gone home because everything was "behind schedule." She and I were clearly not a match made in heaven, but whatever. She checked to make sure that I was at least a little dilated, and I could feel her fingers on the baby's head.

A foley bulb and low dose pitocin induction is a great option for VBAC mamas. The foley manually dilates the cervix but is kind of awkward - there's the bulb inside and then this long tube and then a bag of saline dangling for counter pressure, and YES it is just about as awkward as you can imagine that whole scenario. Upon reaching 4 cm, the bulb falls out and then the rest of labor should be pretty straightforward. So the doc places the foley bulb and I start getting my fainting aura of slowly not being able to hear. My sweet nurse rushed to put a wet cloth on my forehead and get me some ice. Bless her.

I made it to 4 cm and the bulb fell out and there were high fives all around. And then the doc came in to break my water and realized, right hand checking for dilation and left hand wielding a crochet hook looking device like a wizard wand, that the baby had turned. Transverse. She put the hook down and asked to turn off the pitocin and asked for a sono machine. The Mr. texted my doula who came rushing in from a twin birth to see what was going on. Doc says "c section" and I say, "give me time." Actually, I totally freaked out and ugly cried, and THEN requested some time. During this time I had like, three doulas around me trying to figure out every which way to turn the baby. We were on the spinning babies website, doing inversions, and at one point even had ice and peppermint oil on his head to see if he would turn. Nothing. After about an hour and a half the doc came back in and the nugget was still in the same position, and babies don't come out transverse.

So, we settled in to wait our turn in the OR, chatting and telling jokes. When it was time I walked into the OR, had a long talk with the anesthesiologist so he could keep an eye on my blood pressure, and they hooked up my Spotify "Labor and Birth" playlist. I was nervous, so that means I chatted nonsensically with everyone in the room, and an OR tech kept asking me about my awesome songs that were, in his words, "the perfect playlist - and I'll tell you what. I've heard a lot of these playlists. Yours is the best." Mr. S. had the job of announcing the sex of the baby, and was told to stay at my side the whole time. The surgeons got to work on me and my sweet doula kept a cotton ball of lavender by my nose so I wouldn't have to smell the cauterizing. After a bit, and a whole bunch of digging around in my uterus to get the baby to turn head down (it didn't happen - he came out breech), they said, "Ready dad?" and Mr. S stood up and said, a little choked-up, "We had a boy!"

*we have to pause right here for a minute because I am tearing-up just remembering that moment.*

Everyone in the OR cheered and cried, and I ugly-cried. I was seriously floored, surprised beyond everything, and said something special along the lines of, "I was growing a penis this whole time and had no idea!" Early on I suspected it was a boy, and now looking back I had so much that I was hoping for in this birth but was afraid to hope for, so I talked myself out of things so that I wouldn't eventually be disappointed. Not that we would have been disappointed had we had a girl because SISTERS!, and we have a really great girl name, but I loved the idea of trying something new this time, learning new things.

Here's where things in the OR get really awesome. Little man was taken over to the table to be checked out and Mr. S stayed to hold my hand. Then they brought the babe over to me and laid him on my chest while I was stitched up. As a family we gazed at each other and laughed and touched faces and nuzzled. It was the most amazing thing. I never felt alone or scared, just overwhelming joy and love. Mr. S held baby while I was put on a gurney to be wheeled to recovery and when it was all over, the babe was back on my chest. He nursed like a champ in recovery and we got to face time late with sweet A to let her know she had a little brother.

So yeah, totally different things learned the second time around. The recovery was STILL not a picnic, but my mind and body weren't fried as badly, and I wasn't scared of being a mom. In fact, I turned tearfully to Mr. S one day and said, "I think I've been depressed for four years. And now it's gone." Reminds me of a verse in Isaiah:

"Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
43:15-16

Fits perfectly with what we named him - after a famous wilderness philanthropist.

And hey, here's my Labor and Birth Tunes playlist. He was born while "Out of the Woods" by Nickel Creek was playing, followed by "Magic" by Coldplay.

chicken salad one two punch

I just made a chicken salad that made the hubby say, "You've got to write this down. It's so good." 

Unfortunately for you, it's probably going to be the most obnoxious recipe ever in the history of recipes because I threw in a chard stem relish that had been sitting in our fridge for a couple months...but I think there are some adjustments to make that will make it doable. I hadn't made chicken salad in a good while so I kind of went nuts, trying to use up random little bits from our pantry that never get used.

So first, the relish. 

NO! First, a tasty little trick I learned at a farmer's market that involves getting a tiny ball jar, filling it with mustard seeds, drowning the seeds in white wine or plain vinegar, and letting it sit for a couple weeks until the mustard seeds get soft. I have quite the addiction to this and love putting it on just about everything. We always have a little jar or two of this stuff on hand, and find ourselves tossing it in whatever needs a little acidic zesty zing - salad dressings, chicken marinades, on crackers with goat cheese, in barbecue dippy, really anything you can think of, try it out. Okay so first, do that.

NOW, the relish. We were introduced to the concept of a cooked "pickle" condiment by The Lee Brothers' Pan-fried whiting with pickled peppers and onions (page 191) and by watching copious amounts of Chopped when we had cable.

Also frustrating? We don't really measure. Everything depends on how much chard you currently have at your disposal. For us in the fall/winter and spring, we grow absurd amounts of chard. According to Tamar Adler in An Everlasting Meal, the French do the opposite of Americans and eat their chard stems, giving the leaves to their chickens, because the colorful stems of the rainbow variety are more nutritionally packed than the leaves *

Inspired, we wanted to come up with creative ways to eat chard stems. Luckily, I'm not really a fan of celery, so we sub it like crazy in places that call for cooked celery.

Chard Stem Relish

Ingredients:

white wine vinegar (this is the base of the pickle)

one garlic clove, minced

mustard seed marinade

honey or agave 

celery seed 

red pepper flakes 

salt & pepper

chard stems, chopped
onion, chopped

Method:

1. Heat up the vinegar, mustard seed marinade, sweetener, celery seed, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper in a sauce pan on medium heat. You don't really want this stuff to boil, just be like a nice hot bath base.

2. Once the liquid is good and simmery, add the chard stems, onion, and garlic and let it simmer long enough to get the raw crunch out of the stems and onion, but you still want a little bit of crunch. Pack it up in a Ball jar and let it sit in your fridge for a couple weeks.

Pro tip: The Mister would like to add that this stuff is heavenly on bratwurst.

Um, you're going to hate me. We also roasted a chicken (recipe also from the above mentioned Lee Brother's book) the day before making this. So...besides the mustard seed and the chard pickle, roast you a chicken. Or buy a chicken already roasted, or roast some chicken parts.

NOW without further ado:

Christina's Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

1 whole roasted chicken or the equivalent, chopped **

Mr. Stock's chard pickle ***
A couple spoonsful of nutritional yeast
Sesame seeds

Sunflower seeds

Greek yogurt ****

Mayonnaise (don't worry - I didn't make this myself...this time...)

Sweet pickle relish

Black pepper

Method: 

1. Chop chicken, put it in a big bowl

2. Dump everything else on top of the chicken, mix.
3. Garnish with butter lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, and grapes. 

4. Die of happiness

* hopefully you don't toss your chard leaves - that stuff is so versatile...put it in your pot of beans, sauté it with olive oil and vinegar, make it up into a pot of greens like you would with collards, eat it raw in a salad...oh and okay the gnarly leaves that we grow that are eaten by bugs or just weather worn we toss to our chickens.

**If you're using a whole chicken, be sure and save the bones and make your own chicken stock in a crock pot. Easy peasy and saves you money. 

*** Substitute chopped celery, a dash of mustard, and some white wine vinegar

**** I did about half Greek yogurt and half mayo

This recipe is killer on so many levels. I'm in my 3rd trimester of pregnancy and need to pack in as much nutrition as I can into several tiny meals throughout the day because room in my stomach is just getting scarce. I have found that when I don't eat nutritionally dense foods, I'm just starving all day, and between that and having to drink lots of water so I don't get headaches or go crazy...it makes for a maddening daily existence. So, this recipe is extra jammy packed with protein, plus random goodness that is good for my body and baby.

community will save you.

It wasn't until after baby A was born that I found the parents, the anchors, the friends that have gotten me through the last three years. We moved ourselves right in and pursued the hearts and kitchens and sanity of each other and when I think that I've only been friends with some of these people for less than 3 years...it's mind-blowing. 

I was in a dark place after A's birth and community turned the light back on. I know it's rare but our neighborhood has for the most part very similar parenting styles and is full of people who love to laugh, eat and drink together, and watch our kids grow. I was worried that A would have that "only child syndrome" because I was going to stay home with her, but 10 minutes into a playdate you can see what the parents in the heights see every day: our kids are pretty much like siblings. Which in turn means that my kid basically has like 10 siblings. They laugh and fight and cry and taunt each other in ways that only siblings can. I love this, I love watching this, and I hope that 20 years from now our kids will have what I have: a network of friends with WAY too much dirt on each other. 

Community has gotten me through this pregnancy in the most incredible ways, and when pregnant mamas ask me what they need to know, I tell them that they need to start building their village. It can be built after the baby gets here but I think it would have helped to know who was out there and exactly where when the time came for me to reach out and find other families. I find this happens pretty much around 4-6 months with first timers...once you start sleeping a little bit more and feeling like you can be more than just a feeding/cleaning machine that runs on nothing but caffeine and snuggles. 

Last pregnancy I was fairly sure I had to do everything myself, including pull myself up from my bootstraps when I was feeling crappy. This time, when exhaustion or the funk sets in I know there are people I can call to make sure my child doesn't set fire to herself accidentally while I lay on the couch drifting in and out of consciousness. People to eat with when I don't feel like cooking or eating, people to come over and play when one more 3-year-old "I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT" (really? it's just putting on your socks...) threatens to turn me into a quivering mess of defeat.

Community. Get you one. You won't regret it. And if you get into a crappy one, get out of that and find your people. They're out there, and want to love you.

hospitality and contemplation

This past weekend I had the opportunity to first drive down to NB to see my brand new niece and take the fledgling family dinner. I stayed with a dear friend and the next day drove to Austin for a women's conference called IF:Gathering and stayed with Austinites. I had the best time, and was struck over and over again by the hospitality of my friends. Both houses I stayed in, these are folks I have known at least a decade or more, and man. They know how to host a guest. I am so thankful.

I walked away inspired by both women immensely. At the first house, I quizzed her on her morning routine (she gets up at 5am! I wish I had that kind of discipline!) to drink coffee, eat an apple and some peanut butter, watch the news, gather her thoughts. She explained all this while stirring extra salt into her crunchy peanut butter. I have never lived by myself, but from this brief overnight started thinking that even though I don't live by myself now, I can still have routines and order just because that is who I want to be and how I want to live. Kind of like, living independently while living in community, if that makes sense. It is something that is difficult to do while trying to run a house and take care of two other people but I think maybe cultivating some practices that are just my own - ie: doing the dishes because I like a clean slate before starting a project/meal, and not because I am obligated to the other people in my house to do it - will help me retain my me-ness in this season. 

I am intoxicated by the thought of a morning to myself. A quiet, pre-breakfast snack, tea-filled time of contemplation, journaling, and whatever I want, before the day gets rowdy and hectic. Because oh man. Until about the end of March, life is full to the brim with things that have to get done, and life with a toddler and husband and being pregnant...hectic. rowdy. I just have to start putting myself to bed at 9:30 to make this happen. It's worth a shot.

The second house I stayed at I felt such freedom to find rest and be nourished. This friend moved recently from Dallas back to her house in Austin and I realized that I had never actually stayed at her house in our near decade of friendship because we had always lived close by each other. The first morning there, she made me this bowl of greatness for me that I have to share: 

Quinoa Love Bowl: The only things that are essential here are some quinoa and a fried egg. Everything else is optional, so feel free to riff on it. The original one made by my friend had quinoa, egg, turkey sausage, and avocado. This morning's variation features avocado, tomatoes, and parmesan cheese. Think seasonal and delicious when creating yours. I know that tomatoes aren't in season right now but Whole Foods tricked me into buying local heirloom ones that I thought were ready, but they're not. Still a little too crunchy...and I was too hungry to wilt them in a hot pan before eating. We have some pickled beets in the fridge and right now I'm dreaming of one with pickled beets, goat cheese, and wilted kale. 

Let me know what your favorite morning or evening routines are. I am inherently a person who loathes routine, but lately find myself craving the development of little regular oases...anchors in the storm of life.

It's Time to Begin, Isn't It?

This post today is brought to you by tremendous amounts of ugly crying. 

I am sitting here, overwhelmed, because suddenly I want to write about ALL THE THINGS...there is so much. But I'll just start with today and call it good enough. 

I'm 16 weeks pregnant with our second kiddo, and last week had my first appointment with the doctor who will deliver this baby. Suffice to say I had a really tough time picking a provider. My first daughter's birth was completely wheels-off and crazy and I spent nearly three years cowering in PPD and off-the-charts anxiety. I didn't write a lot because I had a lot to sort through, relationship-wise, mama-wise, and I didn't want to do it publicly. I guess I'm writing to say: It Gets Better.

Birth trauma sucks, and I'm learning from dear friends that you don't even have to have a three day labor that ends in a cesarean birth to be traumatized. The loss of control, blood, modesty, and sometimes even just the startling fact of, "I'm used to things working out, and this might not work out..." is enough to send one's body into a super case of fight-or-flight. And not in a good way.

So...fast forward through rocking my newborn with tears streaming down my face, countless therapy sessions, anxiety attacks, nighttime (ie: INFINITELY WORSE) anxiety attacks, prayers on my face, friends not understanding, thinking I'm crazy, therapy, being terrified of having more babies, antidepressants, and...did I mention therapy? to two days after I found out I am pregnant again: me, curled up in the fetal position, telling the mister that I'm convinced I'm going to die.

Hello, fight-or-flight. Missed you.

Just kidding. Opposite day. More like:
WHAT THE HELL I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEALT WITH.

Surprise.

And you know what? This pregnancy was TOTALLY PLANNED. I went into this all "YEAH! best idea ever! it's going to be great!" thinking that I could just fake it 'til I made it. So, back into therapy I went, for several different areas of life. The journaling and processing started up again, and I began searching for a supportive birth team. I spilled the beans the day that plus sign showed up to my previous doula/current chiropractor. We cried, and then after a few weeks she gave me the names of several providers in the area, and suggested a meeting with the best doula we knew to help get my head straight. After that meeting I scheduled an appointment with the doctor who delivered A and then one with a doctor she recommended.

The one who delivered A was...fine. Charming. Great guy. I mostly went because I was curious how my feelings would be about him, and also because I wanted to get his perspective on VBACs. I'd heard he was one of THE guys in Dallas that champion them. I was disappointed to have him start immediately laying out risks and all the ways in which a VBAC could go wrong, including uterine rupture, which he mentioned at my 6 week postpartum checkup and then I made the mistake of googling it and ended up on the floor in my first panic attack that day. Don't get me wrong, I have climbed way out of the crunchy rabbit hole since my very, very humbling birth with A and I have pretty much ZERO expectations, and a healthy appreciation for modern medicine, so I need to hear that stuff. Throw in a transvaginal sonogram done by a dude and we'll just say I was...turned off.

Since I was a new patient with the new doctor I had to wait to be seen first to do labs (at around 13 weeks is when I did this), then meet with the RN to get a full history taken and THEN meet with the doc (this was last week). I had even managed to get my ex-midwife to give me a copy of my file (that in itself is its own blog post) and brought it. The RN and doc had lots of questions about my birth, wanted to know what my expectations were for this one, and led with the empowering and empathetic understanding I was looking for in doc #1. They said things like, "You will NOT be in labor for 3 days this time." and "You made it to 8cm with no pain meds? You've so got this." and "We're going to be realistic about where your birth is going, don't get me wrong, but we're also not going to put you on a clock and insist on a cesarean and pull the plug early on your efforts." The RN and the doc both effervesced about the nursing staff at the hospital, the doula I chose, and my chiropractor.

When the doc left the room, I exhaled, replaced my paper gown with my clothes, and slowly walked through the hallway to the checkout counter, admiring all the squishy babies on the wall. As I checked out, I felt a prickle behind my eyes that turned into full on bawling by the time I made it to my car. I sat and sobbed like a crazy person...like a full-on Biblical professional wailing woman. I started getting a little concerned it wasn't going to stop but I just kept scrolling through my playlists on Spotify, landing on whatever song struck me as appropriate. Imagine Dragons was first and then Bob Marley. I forget the rest.

It went on for about 20 minutes.

It's been a week, and I can say that whatever that was turned a tiny little light on in my soul. I can repeat, "I am safe," to myself at night when a nightmare wakes me up, and I believe it. I am actually hungry, I laugh more, and I feel like being around people again. I know this is probably coinciding with the second trimester boost, but whatever. That catharsis was way overdue and I know it did my heart some good. I honestly didn't know how sad and anxious I was until it all came pouring out.

Am I sleep deprived? Stressed? Unsure? Yes. I have a three year old and have NO IDEA what I'm doing. She sleeps like an alligator trying to take large prey under on a death roll, and I'm either starving or have to pee 24/7. But this little light...it's started shining through the cracks.

I'm dancing again, trusting, hoping again.

Phew. It gets better.