hugs and other ways to seek comfort

I've been struggling for a couple of weeks to begin "officially" writing about my personal experience with PPD. I'm contributing my story to a site that is intending to dispell myths about a plethera of topics, and this in particular happens to be one of my speciality. ha. Still, I feel the pressure to come up with the first sentence or two to draw the reader in, to say to her/him that this is not a pamplet on the signs of PPD but rather a very raw and real story of survival of a woman and her family. I've started the post about 37 times...all in my head, in the middle of the night, and not a pen or paper in sight. Thank gawd I'm only contributing once a month!

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I visit Nicole's "Bellies & Babies" blog about once a week. Which translates to me either fuming about some idiot taking away another mother's choice of natural birth based on the stupid hospital tight timelines or I'm getting all teary as I watch a fellow mom birth her child the way she wanted to. And that makes me think about my own daughter's birth...and how it didn't go the way we had planned, and that I haven't stopped grieving about it, and that I really need to get it out and write about it.

But the other day I was having a "I wish I could either relive my daughter's infancy (because I was so shattered by my PPD) or have another one and become the blissed-out mother I had envisioned I would be" moment and I crawled into the only safe place I know to go when I'm feeling like this:

he doesn't ask
he doesn't hesitate
he just opens his arms and heart and wraps himself wholly around me
he doesn't ask
he just waits
i can tell him why tears fall from my eyes
why my heart is cracked
or i don't have to
his hug is always just there for me to walk into

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I'm loving summer's last ditch efforts of heat and humidity. Aria and I have already had two more full-day adventureous play dates, and I can't seem to pack away my sarongs. Our tomatoe plants (whose only steroid was sun kisses and good nitrates) is still sprouting delicious red nuggets that all our kids can't get enough of.

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I'm tackling another bout of indigestion. My pregnancy brought on this discomfort but for the last 3 yrs it's resurrected itself whenever it damn well felt like it, or so it seemed. Tom's noticed that last 3 months that's it's coincided with my ovulation/mid cycle and I'm now on herbs to restore my liver to a healthier state (dandelion, artechoke and milk thistle) as well as my adrenals glands (licorice root). Of course I'm researching all other sorts of holistic reasons this is reoccurring and it's interesting some of the finds I'm coming up with ~ inability to "digest" the goings on of my life is a major one, but not one I'm fully exploring at the moment.

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Play-dates are awesome. Meeting new moms and finding out that it's because of our children that we were initially drawn, but now something more is blossoming between us is utterly divine.

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This post has taken about a week to write...so, I've written that PPD post (and posted it on my other blog), my indigestion is under control and my family once more breathes a sigh of sympathetic relief...and I'm into our fall projects of sprucing up the furniture with paint. NOt sure how much time I"ll spend in my own blog...but I'll be around to ya'll regardless.

One love,
Lil xo