Kristina's Journey to Life

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...

  January 17, 2021 Tonight my partner asked me to assist him with a drawing he was doing - I was to be the model posing for him so he had a subject to draw.  I really did not want to do it. I had worked all day, I was tired, we just finished eating... I just wanted to do "my stuff" for a while. I didn't like the idea of sitting there and not being able to look at something or read something... basically, I wanted to be able to "do" something while I was sitting there but really he just needed me to sit there.  I did it despite really not wanting to do it. I dragged my feet all the way to his studio.  Once I sat down I realized what a wonderful opportunity I had before me to sit and just breathe. BREATHING is what I could do. And it was awesome because I have been listening to an Eqafe bundle about breathing so it was the perfect moment to allow me to do just that... breathe.  I learned many, many years ago about the importance of breath, with the most simple po...

 January 16, 2021 As a first-time pregnant woman I've heard about the infamous unsolicited comments and advice that come from others - and I've even read ways in which to not react to them. I just got my first such comment that kind of rattled me lol I shared a picture of my 6 month-pregnancy belly and someone mentioned it seemed big for "only six months" and asked if I was sure it wasn't twins.  I definitely had a reaction to these words, even though I KNOW it is a big belly for 6 months lol I have had the same sentiment. I have compared my belly to other women I've seen and mine definitely seems to be on the bigger end. But what can I do? I mean I am 6 months, there is 1 baby and my bump is what it looks like.  So why judge or define it as "too big" or "too small" or even "just right"?  I reacted to this person's word and thought, "you're not supposed to say that to a pregnant woman!" But the truth is, I had al...