Kristina's Journey to Life

 Hello, world. It's been a minute. Or a few months at least. I have been writing on this blog forever... Or actually a decade now and it's taken that long to get to a point in my life where I am finally committed to ridding myself of caring what other people think and once and for all, living for me.  I have been walking and working towards this point with the understanding that was ultimately the point however clearly I was so separated and disconnected from myself that it took a decade of self-reflection, self-investigation, and self-forgiveness to finally realize what that practically means.  I'm tired of caring what other people think of me and I'm tired of trying to fit in with others. I am ready to live for myself, with myself, and as myself because I am the only person I actually have to live with!  So the last month I have been diving into this understanding and practicing what it means to live self-love, self-care, self-acceptance, self-trust, and self-hones...

April 23, 2021 -  Today I had a bit of the "baby blues" I guess you could call it. Since I had Phoenix almost 1 month ago I have experienced lows. I wouldn't go as far as to say it is postpartum depression but I definitely have had days where my experience is much lower/heavier than usual and pretty much anything can make me cry.  I haven't had a "low" day in almost a week so it's a little discouraging this experience is making an appearance. When I came out of my last low, I felt much brighter and lighter and more looking forward to my days, more optimistic about myself and my circumstance, and trusting that I would/could make this whole mom thing work. A lot of my lows have been in relation to the fact that I am unable to produce an adequate amount of breastmilk to sustain my son and we have to supplement the majority of his nourishment with donor breastmilk.  I am so grateful he is at least getting breastmilk but the fact that I am not able to breastf...

Our son Phoenix is now three weeks old and we have been home for almost three weeks as well. We are slowly navigating through our new normal, learning what's possible as our day-to-day living as well as the demands of this new little human. I am grateful for this new experience and the journey we are in though that doesn't mean I haven't found reactions and challenges within this new process we are walking.  Yesterday was a cool example that I actually processed quickly within myself, meaning - I saw a reaction and fairly quickly realized and made the correction. I wanted to share here because I think a lot of moms could probably relate.  My days consist of taking care of this new little bundle of joy. There are other things like cleaning up the house, preparing food, doing laundry that is part of the days as well, and then there are additional tasks I've done for years that I've been trying to incorporate into my new daily routine but haven't yet been successfu...

March 29, 2021 Last week at our 36-week midwife appointment our midwife suggested I try to collect colostrum for our little one for after he's born. Because I have been diagnosed with gestational diabetes there is a chance he could be born with low blood sugar (this may be because if he's been getting high blood sugars from me, his body could adapt to that amount so once he's born, it can drop as he's no longer getting that amount from me). And if he does have low blood sugar, he may be unable to breastfeed right away after birth and so to avoid giving him formula she suggested I stock up on a supply of colostrum now for him just in case.  And so she showed me how to hand express the colostrum. While at our appointment, the colostrum did not come out so she suggested when I got home that evening to take a hot shower and then try again. I did and still nothing. The next night I did it again and again, no colostrum came out, and instead, I just have sore and sensitive bre...

March 28, 2021 (3 days before my son was born). I am over a week into my maternity leave and the little routine I had set up for myself at the start of this was disruptive midweek when we had our appointment with our midwife. We found out due to my gestational diabetes and being insulin-dependent that there was a chance I would need to be induced early and starting tomorrow when I'm 37 weeks pregnant and full-term, I could try some home remedies to induce myself.  This was definitely unexpected and caused quite the stir within me as I had convinced myself of how the last 4 weeks of this pregnancy were going to go. I would have 4 weeks off to finish the final things on my checklist to prepare for his arrival - last-minute nitty-gritty cleaning of the house and just ensuring overall we had everything we needed for him. Because I had 4 weeks still I was taking my time at the start of this maternity leave and so when I got the news that we could trigger labor by next week... there was ...

March 23, 2021 I am now 36 weeks pregnant and inching closer every day to the "big day" which is that of giving birth. I've known this day would come and have been preparing physically and mentally - doing yoga, breathing, and reading lots of books about labor and birth.  For the majority of this pregnancy, I have been feeling confident, calm, and prepared for that moment when it's time to actually labor and birth my child but recently I've had an interesting experience coming up. I'd say it's come up about 2 or 3 times now, mostly in the middle of the night when I'm on one of my many bathroom runs, this very subtle and quick moment of sheer panic at the thought of having this child.  I'm not sure if it's the labor/birth part or the fact that once this baby is here, that's it... he's here forever lol but it's definitely an experience of panic. It's a sharp energy that grips me for a moment and the first time I experienced it, it...

March 22, 2021 Today my partner and I had a few moments of reactions towards each other with one accumulating into quite the fight in which I ended up leaving the house.  Often that is one of the first things I want to do, just leave. This is a power move I can see now because I'm basically saying "I'm not staying here/in this or I'm not willing to fight with you anymore" almost like a righteous/moral stand as if I'm being the bigger person. Really it's just an automatic response to an experience, when it gets that intense, I am not able to process so I think if I remove myself I could calm down.  It did work though the guilt and shame for "running away" quickly emerged and I felt like I had abandoned him. I did not like that experience. I was only gone for 20 minutes or so and headed back with the intention to communicate about what happened, my experience, and what I saw as my contribution and so the responsibility to the playout was so that we...

March 21, 2021 Day 2 of maternity leave. Today I slept in a bit later than usual and had a 2+hour phone call with my mother. Usually when this happens, specifically the sleeping in later, I find myself get grumpy and agitated because I feel as though I've "wasted time". Often this is on the weekends when I don't have to work and the days are more "mine" in the sense that I don't have to do any work for anyone else - I am freer to decide what my day looks like. And often I save all the things I want to do for the weekend so my desire to do lots on the weekends often doesn't pan out because I do only have so many hours in a day. So then when I use some of those hours to sleep in a bit later than usual I get upset. And not at myself... usually it's projected outward onto everything else in my reality.  What I can see however is the agitation is really from myself from a) placing unrealistic expectations on myself in terms of what I think I'm pra...

March 20, 2021 Today is my first day on maternity leave. I actually get a year off to have my baby and I will get financial support from the Canadian government during that time. To me this is remarkable. I come from a country that does not have such a social support system and really the only thing ensured is your employer can't fire you if you take up to 6 weeks off. But you get no pay or other support. It's tragic really.  And here I find myself in Canada being given a whole year to birth and be with my baby. It's not a perfect system of course... I worked in a position that provided me enough income that the financial support I will get on maternity leave will not cripple me financially and is a basic income that I can live on. If I made any less I don't know if I could take the whole year off.  I want to document and share this process - whether it be in my vlog or blogs - I'm seeing this new stage of maternity leave/motherhood as quite an opportunity and I wan...

  January 25, 2021 After my last blog, a day of going into the extreme opposite of what I thought I was doing wrong (I was eating too much sugar so I cut out all sugar/carbs) and discussing my experience with my partner and a friend I realized it doesn't serve me to go into the opposite extreme either. The reality is my diet is overall balanced but there are a few minor adjustments I could make to ensure I am not overindulging in things that are not necessarily on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis.  So - did I react to my gestational diabetes test results? Yes! Did it show me aspects of myself I was being dishonest about? Yes! Am I a horrible mom and have already fucked up my child? Of course not.  It was a hard experience - well I was being hard on myself. I felt like quite a failure, I felt ashamed and embarrassed. But in reality - I made some mistakes, I can forgive myself for it, take responsibility for it, and LEARN from what has been done. I don't need to punis...

January 21, 2021 Today I got a call from my midwife with the results of my gestational diabetes test results. The result was high so I have to take a 2nd test. If that test comes back high I will have to see a dietician to attempt to get my blood sugar under control. If that doesn't work I may have to take insulin.  This was not good news for me though I anticipated these results while simultaneously wanting to deny them. My sugar tooth has been getting the best of me, my family had a history of diabetes and something within me wanted to take that test.  Now I consider the reason I wanted to take that test was to attempt to slow myself down from the sugar I was consuming. I wouldn't say my diet was so out of whack lately but for me, I was consuming much more sugar than I normally do/would.  But the only thing I ever did to attempt to balance it was ensuring I had a green smoothie as often as possible or a salad as much as I could. In reality, I was justifying my actions w...