In Honor of National Donut Day... 5 Things That Make Life Sweet

1. Family..
Family is everything. It looks different for everyone. It feels different. After my mother passed away, I found myself clinging to my immediate family. My husband... My children. They kept me grounded. Flooding me with love and support. 

2.Friends you can trust/ your village
There is nothing like a good friend. I don't take friendship lightly. Living in Los Angeles, without blood relatives is quite the task. There is no such thing as "to Grandmother's house we go". When we had our second kiddo, I was overwhelmed by the love and support from our village. I had such beautiful spirits surrounding me with love... Pushing me onward... Holding my hand... 

3. Good food
I love food!! Good food. Food that nourishes and pays honor to our magnificent bodies. I truly believe we are what we eat... Eat well.

4. Health/ peace of mind.. 
Being in good health and peace of mind is golden. I am a firm believe that we have one body, and it is beyond important to honor, cherish it, and thank it for serving us well. There are so many people who are suffering. Their bodies are failing. It is so important to be great-FULL.. Health and wellness is a gift.. Peace is a gift. 

5. Home
Home is not only where the heart is... It is where peace resides. Home is our sanctuary.  At home we are nourished.. Bathed in love..accepted... We guard our home as if it is our hearts... Because it is so very close to it.

 

Me, Myself, and I... Empowering My Conception

Is Shame Getting The Best Of Your Fertility? Are you worried about getting pregnant? Do you think all your eggs have gone bad? Are you mad at yourself or your partner for waiting too long to try for a baby?Did someone tell you that you are too old to get pregnant naturally?  These are the types of worries I hear about day in and day out in my clinic.  And, I wish it weren't the case, but it is: women are dealing with a tremendous amount of shame surrounding their age and their ability to get pregnant.  

As a women's health and fertility expert who got pregnant naturally at the age of 40 (after only a few months of trying!) I am here to quell your fears.  I have been helping women optimize their health and fertility for over a decade and what I see over and over again is that your ability to get pregnant has less to do with your age and more to do with your overall health.  You see, pregnancy is a physiological luxury—one that all women, up until their mid to late 40's—should be able to enjoy if they are in optimal health.  As I always say, when a women's body is in optimal health, getting pregnant comes naturally because that is what the female body is primed to do. However, when the body is under duress or is malnourished or sleep deprived or depressed it does not have the reserves to procreate.  Rather, it is in survival mode and creating another life and nourishing and nurturing it for ten months it is out of the question.  Think about it, how can a body that is barely surviving itself get pregnant?

On top of that, the hard data does not support the fact that fertility declines dramatically with age. Yes, fertility declines as we get older, but not nearly to the extent we are led to believe.  Most information out there on age and fertility tells us that one in three women (about 33%) over the age of 35 will NOT get pregnant naturally after one year of trying.  Yet, the science says something different: a women's odds of conceiving within one year of trying from age 35 to 40 is only about 7% to 8% less than that of a women aged 27 to 30 (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/how-long-can-you-wait-to-have-a-baby/309374/).  Furthermore, there is emerging scientific research that supports the fact that physiological age (meaning how old our cells are) plays a much greater role in fertility (and health) than does chronological age (how many years old we are) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3857638/)

What does all this mean to you?  Bottom line: you can shift your health and improve your fertility.  Yes, you can!  Even if you've been told you have low ovarian reserve, you can still improve the quality of the eggs you do have left.  You can always improve the quality of your overall health and it is from a place of abundant and flourishing health that life can be created.  My advice: focus less on your age and more on your health. 

36-24-36

Growing up in the south, I was surrounded by curvy black women. Well... I guess one could say that growing up black,  I was surrounded by curvy black women.  Being lanky, I dreamed about the day that I would get my "grown woman" body. This "grown woman" body would include full hips that I would supposedly get after having children... Thighs that would resemble that of a brick house...and the butt that Sir-Mix-Alot rapped about, way before Kim Kardashian became a household name, The magical "black woman" unicorn that I was supposed to transform into was mysterious and wonderful... It never came.  I remember returning home to visit and being met with the occasional, 'Are you eating?'...'You need to eat  some chicken, and put some meat on those bones'.  These comments were made by family friends and family,.. all meaning well... but totally unaware of the effects of their words. Their words made me feel as if MY body wasn't good enough... woman enough. I would become low key annoyed when I would hear the term, "real women" to describe women with curves. What did that mean for me? Was I not "real" ?   Was I some female, Pinnochio, begging with my maker to craft me into a "real woman" ? 

I remember returning home to my husband and asking if I was too thin? Or should I be more this? Or more of that? Totally, missing that HE loved everything about me, and that perhaps I should begin to do the same. The truth is, the same people who were picking apart my body, were the same people who also picked it apart when I gained "the freshmen 15" many years prior.  I quickly began to realize that the more I allowed people to have a say in the way that I viewed my body, my womanhood,  the more I would begin (and had begun) to lose my power. It was up to me to take it back.

Why am I writing this? The purpose is not to be self deprecating or to lump body image into all that is wrong with the world... or to become one of those people who say "#AllBodiesMatter", because I definitely see the need to celebrate curves in a media driven by skinny airbrushed foolishness and body shaming. Curves Definitely Matter!  This post is simply to say, You never know what your sister is wrestling with when she looks in the mirror. Be aware of your words... be kind. 

ALL of our bodies are beautiful. They are different. They are all perfect in their imperfection.  I may never be shaped like Serena Williams. I may never have a body that is deemed a brick house. Beyonce may never call me to appear in her newest work of art, to simply "look back at it" ..However, my body is mine. Even as a wife and mother...My body is mine.  I embrace every dimple in my average sized booty... every stretch mark in my boyish chocolate frame. MY body is sexy... because I say so. My body is no longer up for discussion... unless I want it to be. 

Birth Of A Midwife

On October 28th, 2013 I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. It was not a joyous discovery but more so it was followed by rejection from the father along with verbal and emotional abuse. I wrestled with major depression during my pregnancy while battling if I should keep my daughter or not. But I was grateful to be surrounded by people that cared. On June 17th I had my daughter and the road has not been easy. Currently, her father is still not present in her life. And I had to eventually let go of the idea of him being present in her life as she approaches her 2nd birthday next month. I grieved a lot through this especially because he is fully involved in the life of his other kids. But I had to hold myself responsible for my part as well. And this had me thinking about other sisters that may be dealing with the same thing. Within  the Black community we have generational curse of broken families. And I grapple with what can be the resolution to begin to mend this. We enter relationships in hopes resolving issues that were created from childhood thinking another party can help to resolve it, But if we are not willing to do the self-work to gain the healing and take responsibility on our own part then how can we truly heal?

On March 25th, 2015 I shared my full story with matermea.com (http://www.matermea.com/blog/2015/3/24/how-having-my-daughter-saved-my-life). I did not share my experience for you to hate him but hope you see that his actions came from his immature child mind state that never dealt with his own issues emotionally, mentally and spiritually. He came from a broken home as well, where he met his father for the first time at the age of twenty-two. He didn’t have a normal upbringing. I’m not making excuses for him. But more so realizing we must take special inventory of the state we are in individually and why we do the things we do. Family composition may not be normal but we are still able to create a safe space for the people involved and children. To make this possible as long we are willing to take responsibility for our actions and willing to do the work towards our own healing for the betterment of the structure of the family, no matter how that may look like because what is a normal family now a days. I also learned, ladies, we cannot think we can go into relationships thinking we can save someone, but most importantly we must see circumstances and people for what and who they are and not what we want them to be. Two sick people cannot know how to love one another. As nurturers, women have a natural tendency to nurture the best out of a person, but what if that person is not ready for that vision you see for them? Will you continue to live off a delusion or accept the situation for what it truly is and being honest with yourself? Will you continue to be emotionally, mentally, and spiritually abused?

You see I knew my daughter's father since the age of 18. I did not know or more so realize he was emotionally abusive until the discovery of my pregnancy. The abuse of any form is never okay. Growing up I watched my mother being physically abused for 7 years by her boyfriend and vowed that would never happen to me. Little did I know I was allowing myself to be abused emotionally by him for so many years and I didn't realize it until I was carrying our daughter. I ignored the signs because I wanted to believe he would change in order for us to be together but that never happened. So on the Fall of 2013 we decided to part ways but 2 weeks later I found out I was pregnant. There were endless days of arguments, verbal disrespect, blaming me for everything, crying myself to sleep and even drinking during my pregnancy while battling if I should I keep my daughter or not because I feared raising my daughter by myself. I was deeply depressed and had irregular eating. I would go through the process of grieving everything I felt I was losing and will lose because of my “mistake”. It was a very rough transition but with support of my Christian family in Boston and Philadelphia I would of never had made it through. God's grace and mercy displayed through His people is what kept me even when I questioned my own faith. God showed me that He still loved me even though I was being rejected by the one I wanted to finally love me.

Most of all we must be careful who we allow to plant in our gardens and plant spiritual, mental, emotional, verbal, and/or physical seeds because having to uproot those weeds is not easy. The Bible says “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life,” (Proverbs 4:23) and this rings to be so true. All intentions of a person comes from a person’s heart and when the heart is damaged it is very hard for it to come back from.

This is just the beginning for me and I am excited about others I may help by sharing my story. Part of my healing is by helping others and sharing my experience, which lessens my fears and shame little by little. I truly believe my experiences, which I take full responsibility for, were truly blessings to empower me and force me to grow. So in all that I have gone through I express gratitude because I am able to see the mercy, grace and glory in it all from start to finish and it’s far from over. After the birth of my daughter I finally pursued a dream I had since 2000 which is to become a Counseling Midwife. On May 7th, the day before Mother's Day I graduated to receive my diploma and this the best gift a mother can ever have; to achieve a huge accomplishment with my daughter watching. Moving forward we will be relocating to Dallas, Texas so I can become a Certified Professional Midwife as I work as a Doula at the North Dallas Doula Associates www.northdallasdoulas.com. Through everything I see God's redemption through everything. He saved. Is saving me. And will continue to save me by His love for me. I am excited about my daughter's and I future. You ready to take on the world Glorious-Zoelle?

13 Beautiful, Wise, and Strange Life Lessons That I Learned From My Mother...

Mother's Day... A Holiday that is set aside where we honor the super amazing women that we call Mama... a Holiday that resonates differently with each individual. To many it is a day of celebration. To others who have suffered loss of a mother, it can be an annual day of grieving. It really just depends. Its been almost four years since I lost my mother. She was an amazing woman. And to be completely truthful, I'm not just saying that because she was my mother, but simply because she was just that... amazing. In all transparency, typing out the word "was" is not easy. I'm not sure if it ever will be. Although my mother was with me only a short while, (passing away a little under two weeks before my 30th birthday), there are many lessons that she passed along to my sister, myself, and everyone else that met her. Some lessons were brilliant and beautiful... others were just plain out weird. Nevertheless...

Here are 13 lessons that I learned from my mother..

1. Always wear a pop of color. My mother was not a fan of the color, BLACK or GREY....by itself. If she wore black, she would add "a pop of color". She would often times nag me to do the same (FYI: I love the colors black AND grey) 

2. Sometimes you have to pat yourself on the back. In High School, I remember having an extremely overwhelming week and going on a major rant regarding how much I had accomplished that week, with little to no recognition (cue Family Matters background music). My mother's response..."Brandi, sometimes you have to pat yourself on the back. There will be times where your efforts, abilities, and YOU may go unnoticed. When that happens...pat YOURSELF on the back." In other words, YOU be your best cheerleader. 

3. Forgive quickly. My mother often stressed the importance of forgiving and letting go quickly. When she was "done" she was "done". She would say, "Its not worth it...Forgive quickly."

4. Take care of yourself. Go get dressed. My mother was no slouch. She took great pride in getting dolled up. She took even greater pride in getting "her girls" ready. Saturday nights were filled with hair washing rituals and hair rollers. Sunday dresses were picked out the night before and ironed. 

5. Wash up AND Wash Down...Pretty self explanatory

6. For the first time having sex, use Baby Oragel to relieve pain. (I told you that some of these are weird. But hey). Her thoughts were, if its safe to give to a baby, then it must be safe to put inside your vagina....Yeah, I DID NOT follow that lesson. She also recommended peanut oil. I DID however, try that.. It didn't help. 

7.  Cats hate babies and children. The truth is, my mom just hated cats. 

8. Stick and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you. In kindergarten, I was teased. Why? Because in the late 80's kiddos were not encouraged to practice mindfulness, and I was 1 of the 2 black kids in my then mostly white elementary school. I would come home crying telling my mom about my day, and how a kid was chasing me around with worms, and simply not being nice. She would make me say, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

9. Its ok to have a good cry... Again, self explanatory

10. My mother taught that my spouse and I come first... even before the children. Now, I know that this may seem a bit backwards or off in today's society, but it makes perfect sense now that I am an adult... married 10+ years...with two kiddos. Allow me to explain... After years of physical and verbal abuse, my mother finally left my biological dad and remarried when I was eleven years old to the man who I now call my father. He was/ and still is a pretty dope dude. Moving forward...My mother's thoughts in "parents coming first" were that if the parental units are a hot mess, a wreck, dysfunctional... to put it simply, so goes the rest of the home... the children will follow. Peace, tranquility, love ALL flow from the top down. What did this look like growing up for me? My parents (my mom and dad/ step-dad) would often take trips WITHOUT my sister and I to re-connect/ connect. They would come back after their adventures (with gifts in hand of course), beaming with joy. Love was all around. 

11. Be the best Brandi that you can be. My mother stressed to my sister and I that there is and will NEVER be another Brandi or Cecili(my sister). We are it. Be great. My mother encouraged our individuality and taught us to embrace all of who we were.

12. You can buy almost anything from the Dollar Store. My mother was super creative. She had the unique ability to make the cheapest meal and table settings look like a feast ripped from the pages of Martha Stewart Living. Growing up, there were moments that we had money, and moments when we were on super budget. In those moments, no one knew the latter. 

13. My mother loved her body. Up until my sister and I hit the age of bringing friends over, one could easily find our mother walking around in her full woman glory pre-shower, post-shower, pre-bed...basically whenever she felt like it. She loved and appreciated the skin she was in. My sister, Cecili could often get her to "drop it like it was hot"... and my mother kindly obliged.