Becoming Human Again

To All MOMS EVERYWHERE...you are so blessed. Blessed to be a mom. Blessed to expecting. Blessed to be adopting. Motherhood is definitely the highlight of my life. Every day a challenge-pushing me to be better, and to be a problem solver which has generated more knowledge than I was really ever hoping to acquire.

Mackenzie made this "card" for me. She is twelve, and her creativity stuns me. She wants to learn the guitar, so she picked up Daddy's guitar and found a youtube lesson, and...there she is...playing...singing...developing into the person God made her to be. I am so blessed.

Recently, I started righting a memoir and did a whole chapter on birth since the book is about my family, and my mom home birthed me. The chapter is pretty raw. I haven't even proofread it, but I can either write it again, or link it for those interested. I love the story because my mom is required to home birth by my Dad, and she is petrified.  Let's link to it.

I was looking at this blog, and there have been tons of comments and I never got them, so I read them today. Ugh. I am such a bad blogger. I need to read a book on how to blog or something....in all of my spare time. Please forgive me if I did not respond to anyone-well, everyone. I kind of wrote this blog as a way to honor pregnancy, natural birth, and squeezing out watermelons in the hot tub, but once I had Miley, well...things got sort of busy. 

I'm not sure why, but when you have your last child, and yes, I did say last. I think I'm too vain for a 15 passenger van...you go into a funky land-and it takes awhile to get back. I think I was in funky land for five years, and I 'm just beginning to feel human again. Maybe its' the only insurance God and my husband have against me having five more??? I liked birthing, and the whole process, but every person has to acknowledge their magic number, and I think mine is five.

Now, if I start blogging another pregnancy-tomorrow, don't judge. 

Our family talks ourselves out of pregnancy almost every day. And the more time goes by; the more I feel human, the more attractive another baby sounds-actually, when I write it like that I realize now I'm really struggling with a mental problem. I have taken FIVE YEARS to recover my fifth birth, and yet, I am PINING over having another child? 

Maybe I should go to Pregnancy Addicts Anonymous-or maybe I should start one. I know of several ladies from our church I could sign up, well, actually just one. I think she's on number nine-We could chat about our sicko addiction, and then talk each other into having another baby, and then get all excited that we are pregnant at the same time and have ladies church baby showers for each other, and co-write a blog.  Nope. I need to keep my addiction to myself and keep crooning over my five year old baby and begging her not to grow up. And also, to convince her to STOP CUTTING HER OWN HAIR after I've paid for a designer cut.

Well. All of that to say that I have just run a half marathon. Yes. You can clap for me now. 

I am having a 13.1 charm engraved for myself to put on my own charm bracelet and hope that someone standing in line at Target sees when I jingle the bracelet just right. Yes. I know you are jealous...although...Mark and I signed up for the next to slowest time available. They almost had to open the roads back up and let us just finish on the sidewalk.  Wow. There's a lot of fast people in Nashville.  30,000 to be exact. And, although it feels like cheating, we run 2.5 minutes, then walk 1 minute. Maybe that's why we are so slow.

Anyway. I have ten extra pounds on my body. I think its' all in my midsection, definitely nowhere near my boobs. I think I lose weight starting at my toes-they look more like little thin frail things once I'm at my goal weight, and of course, my face is one of the first to go-edging me to closer to a Mick Jagger look-super fun. Slowly, weight creeps off my body until FINALLY, the grand finale two pounds come off and I have a flat stomach again. And then, it's time to get pregnant again. JK. Ugh. So when Mark and I started training for this half marathon-in January-I felt like Fat Albert running down the road. 

My feet thudded heavily on the pavement and my backside wiggled and jiggled to the music piping through my headphones. I was sure I was dying, and I've always been a fit person, so nearness of death or passing out add insult to injury. 

Thankfully, I got that one minute walk after the two minute run, and it was my carrot that kept me running. When we ran the race, Mark seemed to suddenly think we were running the whole thing, and I just wouldn't do it. I did not sign up for a race. I signed up for a test of "survival". I just wanted to finish-isn't that the American dream?  Every time we passed an ambulance, I was thankful I was not being peeled off the pavement by the nice EMS person inside.

At the running expo, someone gave me some sort of jelly beans that make you keep going. Sports beans. I at a bean a mile. I hope they weren't laced with something because they sure helped. Thirteen beans later, I wasn't really even sweating that badly. Too bad I didn't know about the beans a long time ago!! A case of beans would have been helpful in January.

So, after we ran this morning-I realized I didn't feel like fat Albert anymore. I have only lost a couple of pounds, but I feel strong. Stronger than I have in a long time, and that's when it hit me, I'm becoming human again. Really, a better reward than a 13.1 charm. Although, I'm still getting the charm.

When I was pregnant, I was always pretty anemic. Postpartum, I still dealt with feelings of exhaustion-and lethargy. I read about getting vitamin B shots and those helped A LOT!! In fact. I was able to order them online, and Mark gave me the shots. They lasted about six days, and then I felt draggy again, so the seventh day was perfect timing for another shot. If you have pregnancy mask that has not gone away-take some B12 sublingual drops and it will go away in 4 weeks or less. For some reason, when we are pregnant all of the b12 leaves us...which is a feel good vitamin....

Another trick was Floradix Iron plus herbs. I was super tired last summer and one of my friends said she takes it every day and it helps her energy levels so much. I ordered the super sized bottle-and oila! what a big difference it made. I hope this helps all of those who feel like they could lie down on the sidewalk and take a nap right this second.