06/52

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“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, for 2014”

Emet: Laughing at his something his sister said.
Jade: Watching her brother’s baseball practice.

I have a confession to make: I have been pretty lazy these last couple of weeks where this portrait series is concerned. Sure, I take photos (not really), but do I bother to transfer them to the computer in a timely fashion? After a just a few days of Maternity Leave, however, I’m all caught up and, dare I say it, a bit ahead. I might even share next week’s portraits on time!

05/52

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“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014”

Emet: He loves to laugh.
Jade: Waiting for mama to help with the tangles.

I’m finding it hard to do anything after getting home from school other than put my feet up. These two are trying their best to help me stay relaxed, and are patient with me as I begin to slow down. I’m well aware that our entire rhythm is about to shift, so I’m trying to take it all in stride, but I’m also trying to spend as much quality time with them as possible.

04/52

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“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, for 2014”

Emet: The best big brother.
Jade: Sweet sleepy girl.

Between long days at school, various playdates and sleepovers, and a lot of time spent preparing for baby, it was difficult for me to find time to shoot this week’s portraits. My original intention when I started this project was to shoot exclusively with the fancy camera in natural light, and when the entire weekend vanished without me taking single picture, I knew I was going to have to shoot inside our poorly lit house.

I made two different attempts, and neither of them resulted in any exceptional photos, but I shared several priceless moments with both of my kids and really, that is what this project is all about.

In other news, January has been an incredible month for our family. February is shaping up to be equally as exciting, and March. Well, March is when things get really good. 2014, I just knew you were going to be fantastic.

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We built the baby’s cradle tonight. We are getting ready, folks!

I had a follow up appointment for my foot and the good news is that I’m healing, but not very quickly, because my body is growing things other than my bones. So relax, says the good doctor. And stay off my feet, which is pretty much the hardest thing for me to do. Hello, swollen ankles.

Things have come together rather quickly over the last week, meaning that we went from not having anything for the baby to having a place for our tiny one to sleep. And a car seat! There are baby socks, and they are so small. I look at Emet’s sock, which happens to be the same size at Babe’s, and it’s just crazy how fast it all goes. Really.

There is still quite a lot left to do before this baby arrives, and not that much pregnancy left to do it. This darn foot of mine is not helping, but it is forcing me to go slower, which in itself is a good thing? At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

I’ve been waiting for months to read the first book Ina May Gaskin ever wrote, intentionally saving it for this last stretch before the home birth….

I can’t believe we’re less than 50 days away from having a baby right here in our house.

03/52

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“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, for 2014”

Emet: Carefully considering his next move.
Jade: This girl is obsessed with doing flips on the bars.

A lot of healing happened this week, in ways that I hadn’t expected. A walking cast magically appeared at school with my name on it, courtesy of a sweet and generous parent, and what a difference it has made in my ability to get around. Crutches are such a pain! My foot is slowly but steadily recovering, and I’m feeling confident that I’ll be good as new in plenty of time to prepare for birth. Thank goodness.

Over the weekend, I took a quick 24-hour solo trip to Los Angeles in order to attend my grandfather’s memorial service. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to go until the absolute last second, but it all came together thanks to my sweet mister. Heavens, how I love that man.

The trip was perfection. I love a good train ride, and this particular journey was exceptionally lovely, with the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean just so. Getting to spend some quality time with my dad — actually, getting to spend some quality time with my whole family, something we’ve never really done before — was tremendously satisfying and just so much fun! I look forward to more visits with them in the very near future.

The best part of it all, though, was coming home to those two sweet faces. And of course, the handsomest face of all, which happened to surprise me with a shave and a haircut, and yes, I did bury my face in his neck the moment that I saw him.

This life of mine, man. It sure is fantastic.

02/52

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“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, for 2014”

Emet: We talk about staying focused a lot these days.
Jade: Rapper’s delight.

In another exciting edition of this week’s technical difficulties, the charger was nowhere to be found until after the sun went down, which means that I managed to fire off all of six shots before losing the camera to a dead battery. And my plans of taking the kids to the park for our first “location shoot” were waylaid by this broken foot of mine, so we settled for our front entryway. Again.

With all that being said, though, I love these pictures. And those sweet faces.

01/52

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“a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, for 2014”

Emet: This boy is the sweetest, kindest, most generous, and most noble ten year old on Earth.
Jade: Never a dull moment with this girl.

I have long admired the 52 Project, and have never managed to muster the courage (or the dedication, ahem) to commit to shooting a weekly portrait series. Since learning how to take photographs is high on my list of life aspirations, I figured I’d finally just give it a go.

And lo! For my first attempt, I’m rather pleased with these shots. Snapping a few pictures with my kids this afternoon was definitely the highlight of my weekend. I’m excited to see how this project unfolds, especially with the addition of a new little face in just a couple of months.

Oh 2014, I’m in love with you already.

BIRTH DAY: A STORY OF BECOMING

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The day Emet was born was the day I came alive.

I recall the details so exactly, so intensely, that it’s hard for me to believe ten years has passed since I first held him in my arms and felt like I had real purpose. More than any other event, nothing has so singularly changed me than bringing my first child into the world.

I’ve kept the story of his birth close to my heart, and have never written it down. As Emet’s tenth birthday began to approach, I became remarkably nostalgic. There’s something about a decade, you know? I decided what better place to share this story than here, where I’ve been collecting the things that make me happy.

Fair warning, though. This is a long one.

Emet was due on a Monday. When that day came and went without even a single contraction, my doctor ordered me to the hospital at 7:30 PM the following day for an induction. I had tried everything I could think of to get things going on my own to no success, and at 7 PM that Tuesday, Jesse – my husband at the time, father of Emet and Jade, and one of my forever best friends – drove us to Tarzana Regional Medical Center.

I had wanted a natural birth, a home birth even, but due to some lady problems I’d had before I became pregnant, I was not an ideal candidate. Then, throughout my pregnancy I had been afflicted with hyperemesis gravidarum, which meant that I didn’t gain much weight. I was small, while the baby was expected to be big. Going past 40 weeks was not an option according to my doctor, and I trusted him.

So we drove to the hospital. And I was prepared. I had read all the books, I had ten copies of a birth plan I’d written tucked away in my hospital bag to be given to attending nurses. I was ready.

Still, I was nervous. What did a contraction feel like? Up until this point, I hadn’t had a one, not even false labor or braxton hicks. I didn’t know what to expect. My instructions were to arrive at the hospital and tell the nurses that I thought I had gone into labor, so that they would hook me up to monitors and call my doctor, who would tell them to induce me. This was my doctor’s clever way around dealing with hospital scheduling.

Shortly after arriving at the hospital, I was hooked up to a fetal monitor and the nurses went to call my doctor. Just like he said they would. And that’s when the strangest thing happened.

I had a contraction.

It was small, but I felt it.

The time had come!

I was admitted, and moved to LDR, room 254. I gave my birth plan to the nurses, and tried to relax into the contractions that were starting to come on a little more intensely. Around 11 PM that night, while I was being hastily examined by my least favorite nurse, my water broke. So I called my friend Brianna, who was the girlfriend of Jesse’s brother, and who had become sort of my angel and my coach. She’s the one who insisted that I go to prenatal yoga, which became a central part of not only my pregnancy, but also put me on a path toward becoming a yoga teacher.

Brianna and Corey arrived around 3 AM, and I continued to breathe through contractions while Jesse and Brianna played soft music, turned off all the lights, and took turns keeping wet cloths on my back and forehead. Neither of them had attended to a woman in labor before, and each were so fluid, so calm and caring, that you’d think they’d done it hundreds of times before.

It is because of them that I was able to labor for 20 hours without any pain relief.

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Hour 20 is when my doctor came in, and informed that me that we were entering dangerous territory. That the baby had been without fluid for a long time, and that the hospital had been wanting to give me pitocin for hours which he had expressly forbade according to my wishes. But they weren’t willing to wait any longer.

Years later I would understand the significance of this give birth or get out mentality that is characteristic of the American Hospital System. At that time, though, I was scared and I trusted my doctor.

The epidural was awful, as terrible as I had imagined it would be. Worse.

I started to get a little emotional and the I did the only thing I could think of to keep from losing it. I started to breathe. Deeply. More deeply than I had ever breathed in my life.

For eight solid hours I closed my eyes and focused on my breath opening up my body. I repeated a matra to myself. I am strong. I am opening. I can do this.

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The hours between receiving the epidural and from when I began to push took me to a place deep within my soul where I had conversations with myself, and what seemed like other women. Mothers. They were cheering for me. You are strong. You are opening. You can do this.

My favorite nurse of the entire experience, an English woman named Julie, came to check on me. Her gasp is what brought me back to my body.

“Let’s get the Doctor. It’s time to push!”

Immediately I became aware of one startling fact. I couldn’t feel my toes. You could have cut off my leg and I wouldn’t have flinched. How was I supposed to push out a baby if I couldn’t even feel my muscles?

I panicked only a little, but was reassured that the epidural would be shut off and that I would be able to regain control of my muscles in a few minutes, but that the nurses would help me along through the contractions in the meantime.

Huh?

Basically, the monitor would tell them when I was contracting (because I still couldn’t feel anything) and then they would hold up my legs and I would push. Things went on like this for half an hour, when Julie finally shouted.

“Reach down and feel your baby’s head!”

That moment, the one when the head becomes visible is called crowning. As in the crown of the head. But I like to think of it this way.

For the nine months a woman is pregnant, she stands between two worlds: the world of a singular person and the world of motherhood. Labor is the ceremony ushering her forth to her new role as guardian of a human life, and that final stage is her coronation. Her crowning moment. Because henceforth and forever more, she is a mother.

At least, that’s how it felt for me.

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Feeling Emet leave my body, hearing him cry, receiving him with my arms. These were my first moments as a mother, his mother, and I loved him harder and deeper than I had ever loved anything or anyone before. I was overcome with joy. Yet I couldn’t shake this profound feeling of emptiness.

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It’s hard to explain. But for nine months you body changes to accommodate a growing human, and then in an instant you’re left with a hollow vacancy where there once was a baby. I missed having him so close to me, inside of me, where I could feel his every move. I wasn’t prepared to feel this way.

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I’ve had a long time to reflect upon what it all meant, something I wasn’t really able to at the time. How could I? It takes being a mother to understand the complexity of a mother’s love.

Boundless. Eternal. Transformative. Fierce. I have come to know the essence of these words only through loving my child. And I’ve come to understand those first few moments of motherhood only through experience.

Ten years later, I can say this. That feeling of emptiness? It’s a metaphor. You see, children leave. That is what they do. Slowly at first, and then increasingly as they grow, they leave a little bit more until they are gone. Bravely into the world they must go, it is their job to do so.

Our job is to hold on. To stay. To love them through it all.

So they always have a place to come back to.

ON BEING GRATEFUL

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At the beginning of June, I made a conscious decision to stop waiting for happiness to find me and to just go out and find it for myself. I started writing. I started riding my bike.

I let go of expectations about what I thought my life should be like, and instead embraced the life I have.

The result of making this simple shift in thinking (and doing) has been a tangible feeling of connectedness: to myself, my family, the Universe. I feel whole. Or, at least, a whole lot happier.

As we were driving home from our adventures at LegoLand yesterday, I had this moment where I realized that even though my life isn’t really all that different than it was a month ago, it’s better. It’s better because I’m thankful for it. All of it, even the bad days. Which, by the way, are rare these days and I can’t help but wonder if I really did manage to write my way to wellness?

Today I woke up flooded with gratitude for these last few years. They have taught me so much about myself, the depths of my sorrow and the heights of my joy, and more importantly, just how resilient I am. I can say that I have never been happier than I am at this moment, and for that, I am truly grateful.

In other news, not only did I find the pictures I was desperately searching for, I found along with them a veritable trove of treasures from when my sweet boy was young. Oh, what a glorious time in my life that was. Even still, I wouldn’t trade those days for the ones that are yet to come. All of this to say that I’ll be back tomorrow with something truly special.