As I write this I am almost 34 weeks pregnant with my fifth child.  So yes I look huge. And yes, my belly is already cantilevered over my feet which I haven’t seen while standing up in months.  I don’t expect anyone outside of my midwife and husband to keep track of how far along I am. So I don’t mind people asking. What I mind is when they don’t believe me that I am ONLY 3x weeks along.  As though I would lie about this. I also don’t appreciate being told that the end of the pregnancy will fly and she will be here before I know it.

My last 3 pregnancies have ended after their “due date”.  My third daughter coming a full 12 days after her due date and my 4th about 5 days.  So I am not expecting to have her by January 23rd. Which is still over a month away.  And as I get bigger and currently am dealing with the lovely cold my children gave me, telling me she will be here before I know it isn’t helpful.  It actually makes me think of violence. And this isn’t coming from women who have never had children. I am pretty sure I never say this to pregnant women because I know how unhelpful it is.  Especially if you have a history of late children.

There is a 5 week window for safe delivery, which is more than a month. 5 weeks of knowing that labor can start at any time but at the same time you have to live your life (especially if you have other children to look after in your life).  I still need things to keep me occupied, craft projects, audiobooks and books in general. I still have to get through each day until she comes. I am still the parent at home most of the time. And while I don’t want to travel too far from home once I am in that window (because I have had two very fast labors including the last one being under 2 hours) I will still have to get out of the house from time to time and see friends.  

But while I will breathe a sigh of relief when I hit the safe zone I know that it could still be many weeks before I get to greet this little one earth side.  I don’t want her to come before she is ready. I want her to have good lungs, be a good size and be ready to join us. Healthy, that is always what I am working toward with my small ones.

So the next time you see a pregnant lady, no matter how far along she is, please don’t tell her it will be over soon.  Not unless she asks you too. Because time slows when you are pregnant and babies come when they come. And due dates are just estimates.  We are all individuals and we are growing individuals and they come at their own times.

 

Read more of my parenting rants in my Mommy Rebellion Book; Brutal Honesty About Motherhood and Other Sh*it We Pretend to Love. 

August is always a hard month for me and it wasn’t until recently that I put together the pieces of the puzzle.

August brought us the start of school, the last vestiges of summer fun and a change in our carefree summer routines. Some of us look forward to the routine and structure of school and activities and a modicum of space and time to reconnect with ourselves. Change is never easy and transitions tend to touch the emotion around past experiences, good and unpleasant that may have impacted us in different ways.

Some transitions are harder than others, as with death, divorce and trauma, but all life changes, happy or sad, create some level of upheaval, excitement, sadness, grief or joy. And what we do with these emotions and the many and varied ways in which we cope, matter more than ever. So take a deep breath and think about this notion as we race into fall and the rapidly approaching holiday season.

Coming back to August though…… August was the month I left my home in India and travelled to US to study at an American university many moons ago. And interestingly I also gave birth to my first born in August almost two decades ago, and discovered very recently that her birth date coincided with the very first day I stepped foot onto American soil 33 years ago.  

I’m not sure why it’s taken me this long to figure that out but something clicked today, and I went back to my old passport to check the immigration stamp, and sure enough, there it was, a bold pink stamp on the second page of my passport, August 10, 1986. Coincidence??

That stamp signified a radical life change for me, and one that has taken decades to sort through. Its impact has been deep, lasting and has affected my identity, sense of belonging and at my very core, my roots.  It continues to affect decisions I make on a daily basis, though its effect has softened through the many years of soul searching and healing.

No doubt each and every one of us faces multiple transitions in life from the moment we are birthed into this world, until we transition out. Life brings us these changes big and small, every step of the way, and the manner in which we respond to them affects our ability to survive, thrive and succeed.

I know I tend to shut down, get irritable, quick to anger, and get a little clogged up when in the midst of these, and of course, I tend to procrastinate a whole lot. Some years, I don’t even really have any big change or transition facing me, and yet, these old emotions, patterns and experiences are so imbedded in my psyche, my emotional brain and in my body that I still experience a grief and sadness that I don’t often understand while in its midst.

August is that month for me, every single year!!

And how interesting that the very month I chose (unconsciously thought it may have been) to launch my long awaited, integrated website for my varied businesses, was none other than August! Are you sensing a theme here?

I can tell you that bringing a long held vision into reality is both exciting and terrifying and while I’ve worked hard to bring it to fruition, I worked equally hard at delaying the inevitable for as long as possible! I’m a little scared, a little worried that it will be a major flop, and perhaps equally worried that it will be a big success.

Normal, natural emotions I know, but sometimes hard to identify and articulate.   Big life changes can often strip us of a sense of the familiar and of what keeps us in emotional equilibrium and control of our lives. It can leave us feeling raw, vulnerable and sometimes confused. Making sense of these emotions and all the practicalities of the change can be difficult without support, guidance and context.

As I grapple with the smaller transition of  Mood Indigo Living from the kernel of an idea to her birthing, the fact that my youngest child is now a senior in high school and will be flying the coop soon is looming large and I find myself trying not to think about it. This will be my last Halloween with my son and every holiday that approaches will feel different. I will be an empty nester soon! There, I said it!! I think I was invited to write about the season of change as it applies to the holidays but that may need to wait until we explore this notion of patterns of change and its influence on us. I’d really love to hear about YOUR life transitions big and small. Whether your simply starting a new job, moving to a new city, ending relationships, starting new ones or dealing with the loss of someone near and dear to you, or dealing with some very real trauma, I’d love to hear from you.

•  What has it been like for you?
• How are you coping?
• Are you even aware of what a big impact this life transition has had on you?
• How has it affected you?
• In what aspect of your life have you experienced some level of stress or anxiety as a result of this transition?
• How has change affected your holidays and your kids?

I really want to keep talking about this, so please reach out and email me or join our MIL Community and share. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Réa Wright, LPC, is a psychotherapist, personal coach, mother, and founder of Mood Indigo Soaps, an all natural, eco-friendly skin and body-care micro-business that began in her kitchen in 2005.

 Réa has been described as a “Soul Healer, Empowerment Coach,” and “Soap Witch” and brings a tremendous depth, creativity, and momentum to her work that is both unique, and transformational. She believes that we are on the cusp of a healing change in the world, led by everyday women, as we face our deepest fears and reclaim our innate feminine wisdom and power.

As a global citizen and psychotherapist (for over 25 years) Réa brings a unique perspective to the struggles women face around identity, belonging, displacement, potential, and a sense of Self.  She masterfully supports women to tap into their creativity, their brilliance, and the resources to create the lives they truly desire.

She is also a Soap-Nut, who loves staying up into the wee hours of the morning stirring a cauldron of hot soap, while blasting bad eighties pop. Réa says, “Making soap allows me to connect with my creativity and provides a wonderful outlet for my limited artistic abilities! It gives me the opportunity to engage with an incredible community of people who support my vision of healing from the inside, out! ” 

Réa offers powerful groups and Retreat programs, both online and in-person. As of 2019, she has begun offering stand alone Retreats in addition to those she offers via her group programs, and is in the process of a developing a small international retreat to India in 2021. 

Joyful, Vibrant, Healthy and Conscious Living from the inside out, is a theme that anchors all Réa’s work. 

Connect with her by checking out her website – https://www.moodindigoliving.com – and on Facebook and Instagram

 

PS. Stay up to date on all things new baby by joining our Mommy Rebellion Newsletter HERE.  

I have four and a half empathic children.

 My husband and I are empathic, which means that sometimes we have a lot of emotions bouncing around my house and sometimes we can very easily get into a never-ending feedback loop of feeding off of each other.  This was not something I bargained for when I started a family. This was not something anyone talked about or I found in any of the parenting books I read. Sure I learned all about attachment parenting from Dr. Sears but no one really talked about what to do with all the big emotions kids have, and what to do when sometimes those emotions were not even their own.

 

Looking back I am sure that my eldest was picking up stuff that wasn’t her own.  Hubby and I used to joke about how we would take her for walks in the mall and she would turn on ovaries wherever we went.  Which might be a cute superpower rather than an empathic one.

 

But once our second daughter came along there were certainly times when they would feed off of each other emotionally and those were often pretty tough parenting moments for my hubby and me.  I think we chalked it up to toddler behavior and how that often does not make any sense to an adult mind.

 

By the time number 3 and 4 came along (they are only 20 months apart) the amount of empathic reactions shot up.  Girls would be crying because other girls were crying and I would be running triage just trying to figure out what was going on and keep my emotions in check and it was really hard.  And frustrating. Yes, you want your kids to feel for other people, it keeps them from being quite so nasty to each other, but on the other hand, this often felt out of control.

 

It wasn’t until I joined an out of the box business coaching program and met some of her other clients and heard people talk about being empaths that it started making more sense.  I started understanding what was going on, and learning the other kinds of empaths there were (not just how I react) so that I could start seeing how everyone in my family is empathic in different ways.  

 

I started saying things like, “I know your sister is super sad right now because of such and such but those are her feelings, you don’t need to try and feel them for her.”

 “Or wow, she is having a big reaction to this thing, and that can be really hard to deal with or sit with right?”

 

I started just trying to hold a safe space for my daughters to process their emotions  Not telling them to stop crying or to calm down unless it was an unsafe situation to be being that emotive.  I started learning about the Emotional Freedom Technique and how I can tap not only for my reactions to their reactions but I could actually tap for them and help process some of their emotions.  I try to encourage them to tap with me, which only goes so far these days but it is a great tool to have in my back pocket.

 

I am curious to see how it is going to go with this fifth daughter of mine, knowing that I have different tools and concepts in my toolbox this time around.  And being able to know that her emotions are not a reflection of me, and sometimes she is just picking up on the general state of things rather than her own personal distress.  It will be interesting because you never know the personality you are getting And who they are as a newborn is not always who they will be as a toddler and then a young child. I really feel like it takes to about 5 before I really get a solid sense of who they are going to be.

For more information on Empaths, I would recommend checking out my friend Jennifer Moore at modernmedicinelady.com/ and on social media – Facebook, Instagram

 

It was two weeks before my due date, and I found myself at Target close to closing time, hunting for the perfect night gown to wear during labor. A “labor outfit” was something on so many of the “what to pack for the hospital” lists, and it seemed really important to me in those last weeks of me time as I waited for my son’s arrival. As I hemmed and hawed over the right one, another pregnant mama who looked equally as pregnant as I appeared, and as we connected and realized how close our due dates were, she shared that she too was searching for a labor outfit.  Flash forward THREE weeks later to the hospital on day three of my induction (baby boy was pretty cozy in there) and the labor outfit was tucked away in my hospital bag, completely forgotten. I had been wearing a robe and a nursing bra for most of the labor, but when it came close to pushing time and my doula asked me, “do you want to get naked so you can be skin to skin when he arrives?” I said yes without hesitation. Thus I found myself totally naked (as so many mamas who had gone before told me I probably would be), entirely unconcerned with anyone around me and focused only on the task at hand.  There was no time for modesty. I pushed and breathed and counted and did all the things, and eventually held my son for the first time still completely naked in a room full of hospital staff.  The point of sharing this somewhat long story about being in my birthday suit for my son’s birth day? Boundaries FLY out the window in the event of creating and welcoming life. At least they did for me.  It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about my body. It was all about this tiny being and getting him safely to the world. I had no thought for anything else except his SURVIVAL.  That theme, which started there in labor, was a thread that snuck its way into the moments, hours, days after labor, into the months after labor.  My brain started to focus on protecting this tiny new human at all costs. It was instinctual and shocked me with its intensity.  Hours later, still numb from my epidural and not able to walk, we hosted our first guests in our hospital room. I found myself smiling and making small talk and passing this new being around, but also exhausted and wanting alone time and wanting to soak in those first moments with my son. And all the worries snuck in.  Was he ok? Did he need to eat? Was he warm enough?  Did he feel safe? And could someone just please hand my son back to me!!?  This was the first time post partum, I would allow a boundary of mine to be crossed without speaking up for myself. And although there would be several more instances like this one in the first weeks of my son’s life, these would also be some of the last times I would let someone else set the rules for what I was comfortable with.  Once we left the hospital, I felt myself fading into the background as loved ones excitedly came to meet our new arrival. They were excited to see me, but could they hold the baby? I needed to nurse, but could I just do it there or wait a little while longer so they could hang out with the baby? They knew I was tired, but could they just stay and visit a bit longer?  After a few weeks (or days that felt like weeks) of observing these shifts around me, I felt a change within me. How could others give me what I needed if I never shared what it was? If I never established the boundary? I couldn’t expect them to magically know what felt comfortable and uncomfortable.  A powerful and amazing thing began to happen for me in the first weeks of being a new mama. A ferocity, a direct-ness, and a power emerged that I had never felt before and that I didn’t know I was even capable of.  Years of struggling to say what I needed, years of me working on speaking up and “living my truth” as a friend so often reminded me, melted away, because now it wasn’t just about me. It was also about my son.  It’s evolutionary: the need to protect and put the child first. The need to be close. The literal strings we may feel those first times we are separated.A new identity as a mama bear started to emerge. And it felt awesome.  And I began to wonder:  with all of that emotion; all of this love and protectiveness and fierceness, how do I stay me?   How DO we as mothers stay true to ourselves and our passions and not LOSE that spark that was so easy to hold before becoming a parent? Not lose ourselves entirely in the new role of fierce mama while also still embracing it?  And how do we do that when it’s a societal norm to also push the parent to the background a bit and focus so much on the child?  For me, finding time that is MY time has been so important. It’s finding 20 minutes to exercise (which started out as a way to reclaim my body but has become a huge source of calm and sanity to me!). It’s finding time to meditate for two minutes. It’s finding time to SHOWER. Yes, last week I realized I only got a shower in two days out of seven. (sorry not sorry.) But getting showered and dressed before my partner heads off to work makes me feel like a HUMAN being.  Getting sweaty for twenty minutes a day helps me clear the fog of my brain and see things a bit more clearly.  These moments were harder to come by at first, and it took some serious effort to stay consistent in creating space and time for me. The early days postpartum of finding mama solo time may be literally three minutes and then running back in the nursery to scoop up a crying baby. Eventually it may be ten minutes. Eventually naps (MIGHT) happen and it could be twenty.  I am learning the constant evolution of being a mama and still being me. The two are connected. They will continue to shift and grow. I am a mama. And I am who I was before I became one. Other dear mama friends and I are constantly in the conversation of boundary setting, learning when we fail to do so, and then circling back to try again. Just when we think we’ve got it, the baby or child changes, we change, the circumstances change, and we find something new to work through. We are in it together. And it doesn’t have to be perfect. That’s the evolution of it all.