Stalemate

I am content. 

I am content. 

I am content.

I repeat this to myself like a mantra as I scroll through my Facebook feed bursting at the seams with pregnancy photoshoots and various mom friends joyously announcing their pregnancies of baby number two. Someone’s going to be a big brother due in October! Staring at their ever growing bellies I begin to reminisce about my own pregnancy from over two years ago. I had never felt more beautiful and special in my life as I did when I was carrying my son in my womb. I allowed myself to stop and be present and get carried away in the amazingness that is the female body. I felt like a walking miracle and part of a club and secret world I had never known: Motherhood. Coming back to the reality of the present day I look down from the screen to my own semi flat belly, any minor protuberance can only be attributed to fat and flab, no baby.

“I can’t start over again” my husband’s own personal mantra whenever I feel brave enough to broach the subject for the twentieth time. “I just can’t. And I don’t think you really want to either.” Maybe he has a point. Adin was anything but an easy baby; endless months of colic and nonstop crying in the car whenever we would be forced to stop at a red light. It would be more than accurate and fair to say that my partner is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder occurred from the first year of our son’s life. Just mentioning babies causes Brad to have flashbacks of both his wife and son hysterically crying. I will not discount his emotional trauma, however as a stay at home, extended breastfeeding, bed sharing, attachment parenting mother I have to say that if I survived, I believe he can too. 

Beyond the social pressures, even in the abstract of social media, are our mothers. When are you going to have another baby already, is the tune sung in unison by our overbearing Jewish mothers, who never saw eye to eye on anything except our inherent need to continue procreating. My mother tells me that her and her Rabbi are in agreement that I should accidentally conceive with the belief that once I have the baby Brad will love him or her. Seriously?… I only become aware that my mother-in-law has been asking/demanding for baby number two when out of the blue my husband will randomly blurt out while watching Daniel Tiger with our son, I don’t understand how people have more than one kid, one is hard enough! The more he is pushed the farther and farther away he gets.

So, where does this leave me? 

I will not secretly get pregnant. 

I will not have a baby that is not completely wanted by both parties involved. 

My desire remains the same, I want to have another baby. 

Stalemate.

Sada's Story of Birth and Loss

I lost my mom when I needed her the most... There. I’ve finally admitted it. And this is the first time I have. I’ve lost count of how many drafts I’ve started to share my story but I think this will be the last one. The grieving process is such an indescribable journey and it’s a journey that I’ve chosen to navigate internally. Releasing what I can to God and no one else. I’ve made the decision to be strong...like my mother. People keep telling me I don’t have to be strong, but I want to be. My mother was the queen of telling me to “get it together” and I love being able to be a strong woman, standing tall in the midst of pain, just like my mother did during her battle with cancer. That strength that she had, is in me. And it makes me feel good to know that I’m strong like her. It keeps me connected. It’s what helps me get through each moment... and each day... right now. 

Not too many people knew that I was going through the happiest and saddest time of my life this year. In my opinion, I truly learned how beautiful life is and how fragile life is in the most personal way possible. I was blessed to have a life, my first child,  growing inside of my womb, all while watching the one who birthed me, fight for her life and transition from this earth. It was an experience and a season that I can’t find words to describe. But through the grace of God I’ve made it to a place of peace. And not only have I made it but I’m doing okay...

My mother passed away when I began my eighth month of pregnancy. And for the sake of my unborn child, I chose to “get it together.” I didn’t want my child to be to feel a great amount of sorrow and pain. I didn’t want my child to be born to a "sad mother."  I prayed that I didn’t experience postpartum depression and tapped into the power of supernatural strength and peace. I have a grip on it so tight and don’t plan on ever letting go. I’m able to embrace the beauty of motherhood... It makes me feel a connection with my mom.  Longing to make my mother proud, doing things that she did for me, keeps her light bright for me. Everything she taught me, Everything she showed me, I am now able to give to my son, and that makes me feel so much joy. My mother taught me that the Joy of the Lord is my strength and I’ve learned to enjoy my husband, my child, my family, my son and the memories of my mom. And because I stepped out on faith, giving myself permission to enjoy this life I’ve been blessed with, I’ve gained strength. Not only have I gained strength, but I’ve also gained Peace that passes all understanding.

I’m not claiming to have things figured out. I’m not claiming that I don’t have quiet days or moments of tears. The journey is unpredictable... I just take things one day at a time. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this new normal, and I know it will take a lifetime. But as I grow, I’m learning about who I am as a daughter, as a sister, as a wife and as a mother. I am my mother’s legacy and I will dedicate my journey of motherhood and womanhood to her. My mother, Ileana Watson, was a bright light that brightened up many lives. And I am forever thankful that I was blessed to be her daughter. 

Zzaj And Keenan's Journey To Baby

In May 2011, after only 3 short months of marriage my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child. THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN! 

We vowed to each other that since we got married at such a young age (I was only 21 when we got married) that children were a minimum of 3 years out. God has a funny way about him... we made it 3 months. We both had very interesting ways of processing this news. 

How it all started. I noticed for a couple of weeks that my breast were extremely sore and the pain was increasing everyday. I'd never had this feeling before so of course I looked on Web MD and came to the conclusion that I probably had breast cancer. After complaining to my husband for a few days, his response was, "babe, maybe you should take a pregnancy test." 

I was baffled. Pregnancy. You're nuts. A few more days passed and I found myself indulging in my favorite steak banh mi sandwich along with an iced Vietnamese coffee for lunch. On my drive home I was so nauseous (again, never felt like this before) However, I knew for sure that the condensed milk in my coffee just didn't sit right that day. As I told my husband about lunch he insisted again, "please, would you just take a pregnancy test, like a normal woman?" So finally I gave in. I picked up a test on my way home and of course... we were pregnant. Let's just say this evening ended with a trip to Urgent Care to verify that the store bought test was wrong... because how was I supposed to sleep that night if I didn't speak with a real doctor?

When we arrived at Urgent Care the nurse asked what my symptoms were... Let's just say there was absolutely no mention of the test we took at home. I didn't want to give the doctors any crazy ideas. After about 36 seconds of expressing my symptoms the doctor requested we take a pregnancy test and you would never believe it... YES, WE WERE PREGNANT! In all of my crazy I looked over at my extremely confused husband with a huge smile on my face and tears in my eyes and said "babe, we're going to have a baby!!" His response... "Zzaj, you're nuts, you knew this before we got here..."

So that's how our journey began. We would spend the next 9 months in what felt like hell. I was sick all 9 months of my pregnancy... literally throwing up about 10 times a day, a torn esophagus, sciatic nerve issues, weekly IV treatments, hundreds of dollars wasted on ER trips and continuous melt downs to name a few. We decided that our beautiful Kennedy Grace would be our only child because there was no way we would ever sign up for 9 months of hard time again. 

These crazy memories finally were far enough in the past by Summer 2015. We decided this time, WE'RE READY for baby #2. It didn't take long for us to get pregnant again, we were so excited. We couldn't wait to tell our family the news. There was no way we were waiting 13 weeks to share the news. We were happy and healthy and everyone needed to know. We found out mid August and around 7/8 weeks things got strange. We went in ready to hear a heartbeat and instead we were faced with the news that there wasn't one. We remained hopeful for another 2 weeks. Maybe we were just earlier than we thought, that's all... right? After the longest 2 weeks of our lives we were told that we had a miscarriage. We were left with this feeling of extreme confusion because "we were ready this time..." 

The medical procedure to remove the baby consisted of me holding my husbands hand, playing worship music and trying to make sense of why God didn't realize how ready we were for this. What just happened to us? We didn't talk much to each other about it. We prayed a lot. We decided that it was well with our souls even though it wasn't how we pictured this all playing out. Then we also decided that we were definitely done having children because we would never go through that experience again. 

After a few months of grieving in our own ways our beautiful baby girl begin to ask the question... "why do we only have 3 people in our family?" and slowly but surely we were "ready" again. 

Today, we're 35 weeks pregnant. We're doing 9 months of hard time. I've been extremely blessed to have another pregnancy full of extreme vomiting from start and we couldn't be more thrilled to meet our rainbow baby this January. 

To be young, gifted, and black....

I voted for the 1st time in my entire life this year…

A little back-story: I was raised very conservative Christian growing up, I was a preacher/minister and voting was seen as not trusting in God and His plans. So, I didn’t vote, I didn’t voice a political opinion, and I remained neutral every election. 

My revolutionary spirit was always present, always showing up throughout my life. I was the kid that would “take the spanking to do what I wanted”. Becoming a midwife was a revolutionary act, choosing to focus on the Black community and our reproductive health disparities was a revolutionary act. Choosing to give birth to my children at home was a revolutionary act. So I was always on my way to where I am now. 

So this year, WELL on the other side of divorce, single parenthood, birth center owner, and midwifery student preceptor, a major shift had taken place. It took work, an abundance of self love, sometimes therapy, meditation, lots of dancing and taking pride in a life I’ve created for myself and these three beautiful children I had given birth to.  

When this presidential election rolled around, to say I was concerned would be an understatement.  I quietly rooted for “The Bern”, and gave a little cheese to my homegirls that were fundraising for him. I even went to a couple fundraising dinners and events. When it became apparent that he wouldn’t be in the final running, I KNEW it was time…my ass HAD to VOTE! I wasn’t going to possibly face the WORST president in my lifetime and NOT have my say, I was gonna help keep him OUT of the white house!

I registered with a 68 year old Black woman named Doreen, in front of my local grocery store. She cried when I was finished and told me about getting spat on the first time she went to vote, and that she was proud of me. “We only have one option dear heart, so we have to support this woman we know and don’t trust.” 

I read articles about the propositions and measures; I used two media groups I respect to read about all the options. I made a list and went and did the damn thing, I voted. Where I was prepared for all of this to go any kind of way, I was not prepared for my children’s responses. 

The morning I had to tell my children that Trump had won the electoral votes and would more than likely be the president of the United States, it didn’t go well, at all. 

The youngest of my children is 5 years old, and she immediately started crying. “But Mama he’s a BAD BAD MAN, he touched peoples privates and says not nice things about my friends! He can’t be the president of the all the states!! Nooo MAMA!!”  

My middle son is 10 years old, he only knows Obama, that is his reality, his preference (for many reasons) and he is a child that does not like change. He came close and hugged me for what felt like an hour. Then he looked me dead in my eyes and asked, “Mama, is he gonna try and make us slaves again? Cause I would fight that”

My eldest is 12 years old, and he just quietly shook his head and asked if I would “do the sage before we go to school Mama?”

So I smudged them with sage, and I burned my sacred oils & resins. We sang along with Nina Simone’s “Young, Gifted, and Black” LOUD on the way to school with the windows rolled down. At a stop light on Crenshaw the cars next to us nodded, they understood and when I dropped them off we told each other how much we love each other and I told them “Be Brilliant!” I cried as soon as they were safely inside school.

I feel like my little pebble of a vote and my daily affirmations of empowerment to my children are making a difference. The presidential candidate I voted for didn’t “win”, and my children will continue to be Black children in America. A country full of people that show them every day they are of little to no value, and now a president elect that is supported by millions who will openly behave in such a way that will continue to support racism. 

Fortunately their mama is healer…with a machete, who will always FIGHT for their physical, emotional, spiritual well-being. They will ALWAYS KNOW they are #BlackExcellence and can be whatever they believe they want to be. 

Turning Passion & Pain Into Purpose

My name is Siaba, i’m 28 years old and the founder of Boo.B.Smoothie. 
I first became pregnant at age 19 when I was in my second year of university. Mr B and I had been seeing each other on and off for about 8 months and then BAMM! I realized that I had not seen my period for a while (which was not strange because I had irregular periods.) So, just to be safe, I took a pregnancy test. He made it clear that he wasn’t ready to be a dad, and nor was I ready to be a mum. It still didn’t make the abortion any easier. Just before going into the operation room, I went on my knees and cried to God. I can’t even remember what I said. I just remember crying so hard and feeling so confused. I moaned for the baby  years after and was unable to come to terms with what happened. I fell into depression right after and gained a load of weight. Living away from home made it easy for my depression to go undetected. I guess I just grew out of it naturally.  After years of carrying the guilt around I went to see a therapist about the experience.  I Learned that I made a decision based on where I was and who I was at that time in my life and that it didn’t mean I would make the same decision again at a different time and age in my life. 

Fast forward to 2014, after a long term relationship some years earlier, I find myself in another casual relationship... This time with Mr D who I had been dating on and off for two years. On June 4th 2014, we found out I was pregnant. I was shocked but also excited. He was just shocked and depressed about the news. I didn’t understand why he was so unhappy about it. We were so close, almost like best friends (well so I thought ). Eventually he came around to the news by which point I was scared at the reality of becoming a mother but still excited.   That all changed when 3 days before I was due to give birth I found out he had been cheating on me the whole time we had dated. I’m talking from week 1!! My body went into shock due to the high level of stress I felt. I was 12 days over due with my son. The stress also affected my ability to make milk ( I found out later on from a lactation consultant). Nevertheless, I gave all that I could to adjusting to motherhood. Internally, however I was broken. BROKEN!!  As soon as I was alone I would cry, screamed into a pillow or just sleep hoping I would wake up and find out it was all just a bad dream. I just couldn’t make sense of it. The hurt consumed me, yet at the same time the joy of my son brought me peace. My feeling were so conflicted I felt like two different people. I kept my shit together when people were around because I didn’t want to worry my family and friends.   I felt tourn apart, but my innocent little baby didn’t know that. He just needed me to survive. Truth be told, I needed him even more.  I can honestly tell you that my son saved me. He gave me something to focus on, to wake up for and pull through each day. Adjusting to single parent life wasn’t difficult because I didn’t know anything else. It was just the way it was. 

The saying "every cloud has a silver lining" is definitely the case in this story. When I struggled to make breast milk my mum began feeding me certain African dishes and other foods that she had researched. Within a week of eating high volumes of the foods that my mum was feeding me, my milk supply picked up dramatically. I had so much milk I didn’t know what to do with it. It made me want to know more about the foods I had been eating and what made them so good for breastfeeding mothers. So my fascination grew the more I read and researched. It became a bit of an obsession, and it kept my mind away from the hurt and pain. Being able to breastfeed my son successfully built my confidence. It made me feel able and happy to see him grow so healthy and happy. I started using the ingredients known as Lactogenic ingredients to make smoothies because it was more convenient for me. When a friend of mine was experiencing low milk supply, I gave her a week supply of my lactation smoothies. After a week she called and said “what do you put in those smoothies? My boobs are engorged.  You should totally sell them to breastfeeding mothers”. The rest is history as they say. Boo.B.Smoothie is my second baby. I started this business with a £1000 tax rebate that came at the perfect time.

In one year,  i’ve gone from making and delivering fresh smoothies all over London, to now making and shipping powdered versions of the smoothies all over the world. My son and my business combined have given me all that I need to move on with my life. Am I still hurt? Yes!! Do I still cry at night? Not as much. Somehow I took all the hurt and pain of the last few years and channeled it into something good. I can’t explain the amazing feeling I feel when I receive messages and emails from women saying how the smoothies have helped them feed their babies and encouraged them to not give up. That’s the exact message I hope my story and Boo.B.Smoothie sends out. Don’t ever give up! Not on yourself or what you want.