I am sitting here with my heart beating a bit faster and feeling shaky, unsure and hearing voices screaming in my head.
I don’t think I have ever written a blog post this personal. I am trying to calm the voices that are screaming in protest just enough so I can write but they are quite persistent. I am reassuring them that this is being written in a draft, I am not posting anything yet but to be honest they aren’t really buying it. They know I want to share this. They know that I love to read blogs where the writer is authentically sharing herself and why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t any of us?
As a writer of all forms and genres getting honest and vulnerable is something I do not struggle with when putting pet to paper.
Finger to keyboard though…
There is something unnerving thinking about that person reading what you wrote. I feel the judgements being flown at me from the corners of my personal world but the truth is it’s all in my head. (and no one in my personal world reads my blog). See, I want to start sharing more of my life. Not just the creativity, the businesses or the garden. I want to share more about me. I want readers to feel like they know me just a bit more after reading and beyond that I really, really want my readers to be comforted just a bit by the fact that they aren’t alone.
So, in humility I am sharing what is for me a pretty vulnerable blog post in what I hope to be the start of a series of vulnerable blog posts.
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Today I made a purchase. Now, this isn’t unheard of for me but this was a purchase I have been really excited about and have been eyeing for probably a year or more now.
I purchased the Daysy Fertility Monitor. Now a little back story about me is that my husband and I waited 8 years before deciding to try for our first child. We wanted to be married for a while and then there were all sorts of practical things keeping us from taking the plunge. And, being completely honest, I was in no rush to have children and wasn’t entirely sure that was the path I wanted to take.
So we waited.
Until the day when out of the blue we thought, “let’s see what happens.”
Now, if you know me, you know I love research. I love finding things out and I tend to go full-on when I have a new interest. I research, read, make notes and generally get really annoying with the sharing of links and articles and such. So, I dove in like I do most things and started researching fertile times, charts and had myself some cute little printable calendars that projected my fertile times.
Now, these were really, really basic calendars and I was getting a ballpark fertility time at best. Regardless 3 months later I had to skip sushi for dinner that night because my little test told me I was pregnant.
It’s amazing to me the changes that can happen within. When we decided to try for a baby I went from being pretty vocal about not wanting children and being happy with just our dogs to wanting nothing more than a child. When my daughter was born that winter I remember being in my hospital room talking to my husband about baby #2. And just like that, I was a mom.
2 years later however we decided to try for baby #2 and I found that the ease in conception I experienced the first time around wasn’t to be duplicated. We tried for almost a year, had a very early miss in the first few months and I admit that it was affecting me. If you have been following me much you know I am spiritual and intuitive and talk regularly with angels and my spirit guides. I knew I would have another baby, I knew I would have a son and I was trying so hard to comfort the human part of myself that was feeling deflated. I was encouraging her to trust. To relax and let it be.
Still, it was hard.
One month I decided on a whim to buy an ovulation kit. What I learned was that I was in fact not ovulating when science said I should have been (is anyone?!). And I learned that my ovulation was actually not occurring on days 12-14 but rather just before my period was due.
That month I became pregnant and welcomed my beautiful little boy the following spring.
The doctor’s inability to accept that I became pregnant when I did was extremely infuriating to me and I could probably go on a tirade about the ignorance of the medical community when it comes to honoring a woman’s ability to know her body but I won’t. Instead I will say that I believe it was the start of me wanting to really know my own body and the wonder that came with it.
After birth and 15 months of breast-feeding my cycle was not even close to being predictable and I could feel that I was being called to learn more. Hormones, emotions and how they all intertwined not just personally but throughout history became of fascination for me. Once again in research mode I read Lisa Lister’s book Code Red and even studied with her further in one of her online writing classes. That was just the beginning of my journey and I can feel that the spirit within me is calling me to learn my own body and learn what she needs to thrive.
So you may wonder why it was so hard for me to write this post. You see I heard this on-going argument in my mind. The laughter of people who see my post about buying a fertility monitor followed up later with the announcement of baby #3. Snickering perhaps they would think “well that didn’t work.”
The alternative to that is sharing the truth which is that we are planning for a 3rd baby but that also seems really, really scary. I never share that sort of thing mainly because if it turned out not be in the cards for us I didn’t want people treat me as if I lost something or missed out or in truth, failed at something. Of course this is the girl who only told 1 person she was taking her driving test so that if I failed no one ever knew.
There are probably a lot of blog posts that can be written there….
So rather than beat around it all I will say that yes my husband and I are happy if a 3rd baby decides to join our family and if that is something not in the cards for us we are quite happy with the 2 totally awesome kids we already have.
As for me and the journey that will be beginning soon with my new Daysy monitor, I am excited. I am hoping to use it not just as a fertility tracker but also to offer insights into the connection between my spiritual self and my physical self. I will keep sharing with you all and would love to hear your thoughts on this post.
Until next time…
-Michele
**Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links. If you use the links the products do not cost you any more but I am compensated with some extra money that will most likely be spent on craft supplies and not food so full disclosure.