The Greatest Finish Line: Happy Mother's Day, Everyday

As someone who has competed in several events such as half marathons, century bike rides, a half ironman, and in bodybuilding, I like to look at life events as finish lines. Everyone has crossed one, whether that finish line be a graduation, a year without smoking, weight loss, marriage… life presents tons of finish lines. As we all know, finish lines are not actually the finish, but the beginning of a whole new something. When you finish high school, you’re actually beginning the rest of your adult life. When you cross that finish line of being single and marry your soul mate, you begin a whole new life as two people yoked together. The finish line of a marathon is the beginning of the realization that you can take on pretty much anything.

Having a child was my greatest finish line. People have argued whether having a child is an accomplishment or not. I actually argued in the beginning, that the simple act of having a child is not an accomplishment in and of itself, but I change that argument now. Having a child is a finish line where you finish your journey as a person unattached to another human, and the beginning of your new life where every first thought of every moment is about the good of another human being. Crossing the finish line of pregnancy and entering into motherhood made me a completely different person. I used to be selfish, with the only other person I really gave much thought to being my husband, and I really didn’t put as much thought into his well being as I had previously thought.

When I became a mother, I didn’t realize how incredibly rewarding that finish line would be. My eyes were opened to a completely different world than I had ever imagined. I now love another person more than I have ever loved myself or anyone else. I know what unconditional love is. Having a child has taught me to love my husband the way he deserves to be loved. I love and appreciate my parents more than I have ever loved them before. I see how good people have the ability to be in the way my child is incredibly sweet and good in every way.

So much happens when you enter the world of motherhood. You sacrifice your time, energy, freedom…everything. A mother deals with financial struggles, guilt, social anxieties, and so much more, knowing that she must make it work because she has no other option. She overcomes the challenge of birth only to find more challenges such as breastfeeding challenges, the taboo of formula feeding, the disgusted looks of onlookers while she nurses her child, the weight loss judgements, the sleepless nights, postpartum depression, post traumatic stress from birth... and the list goes on.

I was amazed at some poll numbers from an article regarding how moms view their mothers and their roles as a mother. I was blown away by the number of women who thought they are doing better jobs at being mothers than their own mother. God knows my mom is twice the mother I could ever be, simply because she (along with my husband) are the closest people to being Christ-like that I have ever known. Everything she does is for everyone else. I can try as hard as I will and will most likely never be as great of a woman as her. She always made sure I was home with someone such as my father or grandparents if she was at work. She always afforded my dance lessons, Girl Scout trips, band functions, soccer gear, and everything else, even if that meant taking on extra work hours (we jokingly called her shop where she made all of her draperies the sweat shop, but it wasn’t far from since she could be found in there at all hours of the night). She always, ALWAYS made sure food was on the table, and it was always healthy and affordable. She will still stop everything she is doing to prepare a meal if anyone in the house looks the least bit hungry. I was also amazed at the amount of women who said they believe it was easier to be a mother thirty years ago than it is today. Wow. What about all of the technology we have to simply look up recipes or what to feed our babies? We have so many books at our fingertips on how to sleep train our babies and how often to nurse them and what ingredients to look for in food to avoid. We can text our parents or e-mail doctors and ask about what to do for a fever or ear infection and have a prescription called in within minutes. If I were my mom thirty years ago, I would not even know where to start. Especially since I live twenty hours from her and wouldn’t be able to have her come over to help me with my kids. And even more mind-blowing, was that she raised my brother and I an ocean and a country away from her family. She raised us alone, with my Dad’s help of course, and without the ability to talk to her mom (or any of her family) at any waking moment.

Every woman who is a mother in ANY way, who has crossed that finish line of being the only person who depends on them into the world of caring for another, deserves so much love in return. Any woman who has adopted a child into their life, or steps in when a child’s biological mother can not be there, or a woman who has birthed their child by whatever means, deserves so much more than just a simple “Happy Mother’s Day” once a year. We should always recognize our mothers and their abundant sacrifices for us. Once a mother, you're always a mother. It is the lifelong achievement, and in my eyes, the greatest finish line I will ever have crossed. I cannot wait to cross that finish line yet again next month. Crossing it is not only the greatest feeling in the world the moment it happens, but provides the greatest rewards everyday that seem to just never stop getting better.

Paleo Spaghetti Squash simple pasta

I have been wanting to try this for a long time. Recently, many friends have been telling me to give it a go, that I would really like it. I'll admit, I'm still not a huge fan of the texture since I'm a big perfect pasta texture person, but this was really delicious all the same.

Ingredients:
2 spaghetti squash, cut into halves with seeds scooped out
2 T olive oil, 1 T butter from grass-fed cows
4 cloves garlic
salt and pepper and crushed red pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake the squash cut side down (after the seeds have been removed) for 30 minutes. While that is baking, saute the rest of the ingredients. Once baked, use a fork to scrap out the "pasta" and scoop into the sauce. Serve with salad and steak and enjoy!

Paleo Coconut Pancakes

There are so many recipes for protein pancakes or "clean eating" pancakes out there that people swear by. I've tried several of them, and I don't see how anyone can get them past the tip of their tongue, much less say how delicious they are. A friend asked me to try out a recipe she found, and although skeptical at first, these turned out to be the most perfect healthy pancake I've ever tried. They are toddler approved by my son, but then again he will eat pretty much anything so long as it's not a prune. These really are healthy too, with all the coconut fiber and several eggs that make up a large protein content. We enjoyed them with a drizzle of honey and they were perfect!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup coconut flour
3 T coconut sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 large eggs, beaten
1/4 cup butter from grass-fed cows
1 cup almond milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
oil for pan

In a large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, powder, and salt. In a smaller bowl add all liquid ingredients. Mix the liquid into the dry with a whisk and heat a large skillet to medium-high heat. Add 1 T oil to pan, then ladle in large scoops of batter. Once it begins to cook half-way through, flip and cook through on other side. Serve with honey or maple syrup!

Crockpot Coconut Curry Shrimp

Here's an easy dish for a week night meal that is super healthy! Without the rice, it would be paleo :)

Ingredients:
2 T curry powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp ginger
3 cloves garlic
1 cup bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow onion, sliced
1 can coconut milk
1 cup chicken broth
1 lb shrimp
2 cups brown basmati rice

Mix all ingredients except for rice in the crockpot, and stir. Cook on high for about 3 hours. Serve over rice and enjoy!

Chicken and Brussel Sprouts - serious goodness

I HATE brussel sprouts. I have experimented with them several times and always hated them. I've even made them with bacon because bacon makes everything better, and still was quite disgusted. I think I hate the texture and the bitterness doesn't do it much good either. However, I made this dish and I was so pleased we might just have it every single week in this house. It was that good!

Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts
a bunch of brussel sprouts
2 T soy sauce or liquid amines
1 T honey
2 T red wine vinegar
2 T olive oil
1 T sesame oil
4 shallots
4 cloves garlic
pinch of ginger
salt and black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375. In a large baking dish, mix the marinade, then toss with chicken and sprouts. Bake for 30 minutes, then flip chicken and bake for another 20 minutes, or until chicken is done. Go have some mind-blowing chicken and brussel sprouts!!

Fried Quinoa

I have been looking for something to replace fried rice for a while now. I tried the riced cauliflower, but it's just not the same. I decided to use quinoa last night, and it was super easy and just as delicious as fried rice! I simply made the quinoa in the rice cooker (1 1/2 cups quinoa and 3 cups water) and added it to the other ingredients once cooked.

Ingredients:
Quinoa (1 1/2 cup uncooked), 3 cups water

1 T olive oil
3 eggs
3 uncured nitrate/nitrite free beef sausages, chopped
2 cups spinach
1 small yellow onion, chopped
3 T liquid aminos or gf soy sauce
1 T sesame oil
black pepper, to taste

For the eggs, I beat them in a bowl with black pepper. In a heated pan with olive oil or cooking spray, pour the eggs like you would pancakes. Once cooked, chop them up on a cutting board. Set them aside. Saute the beef with the onion in the skillet, then add spinach, eggs, and rice. Stir in the liquid aminos and the rest of the ingredients. You may need to add more or less liquid aminos, depending on how you like your salt content. Enjoy!

The Right to Give Birth

Women’s rights. What does that mean anyway? Voting rights, equal pay, reproductive rights, equal opportunity…. What about the right to have your baby however you damn well choose? How can a doctor make one decision that affects the rest of you and your baby’s or babies’ futures?

My husband and I planned our pregnancy. We had to due to “infertility”. We went down this road knowing how unpredictable babies can be. However, we thought we could plan our birth regarding who would be there, what interventions I would refuse, how much time I would be given to give birth, and how the baby would be cared for once he arrived.

From the beginning of my appointments, my doctor told me there is no reason for me to have a C-section unless something went terribly wrong. From the looks of it, my pelvic structure was perfectly normal, I was in great physical shape, and the baby was healthy.  I went over my birth plan with him several times to assure he understood how important it would be to me, not to have any kind of intervention, especially any kind of medication.

Why did I not have a home birth in the first place? I thought they were unsafe because gut tells you that being in a hospital in case something went wrong would give you access to the quickest medical help that could save you and your baby’s lives, right? Wrong. Home births attended by midwives are actually proven to be safer for both mom and baby. Hospitals can actually reduce the chances of a woman going into labor spontaneously due to being around unfamiliar equipment, and the medical interventions can cause unfavorable outcomes in otherwise healthy women (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1694364/pdf/amjph00540-0124.pdf)

I trusted my doctor, and thought I was educated enough to know when and how to refuse any interventions. I did know that if something were to happen, I would have to have a C-section. I was perfectly open to that if it were to save my child’s life. I told my doctor that in that case I would want to have a VBAC next time and he assured me there would be no reason in most cases why I couldn’t have that.

The documentary, “The Business of Being Born” depicted my birth so perfectly it is frightening. So many women have the same thing happen and are scared into C-sections, which is why I want more women to understand why it is so essential for them to do research and speak up. My water released at 7:50 PM Monday night, I had some small contractions throughout the night after going to the hospital right away (dumb move #1), and nothing really changed by 8  AM. The nurses kept telling me I need to start Pitocin since it will help me to contract effectively, which is stupid because the baby hadn’t even dropped and I hadn’t dilated more than 1 cm). At 9:15 I agreed to allow my doctor to start the Pitocin (dumb move #2). As the day went on, they would increase the dose of Pitocin, and my contractions would grow stronger. I walked around and got into numerous positions to help the baby to drop. The nurses continued to ask me if I wanted to go ahead and have a c-section since chances are that nothing would change. At 8:15 PM, the on-call doctor told me that my heavy contractions could be hurting the baby, but still aren’t helping me to dilate and the baby was still high. She told me that chances are, my baby will get stressed from the contractions and the outcome could be devastating. My doctor had apparently been waiting in the operating room ready for me to make a decision and get cut open. At 8:45 I agreed to the C-section since the doctor and nurses kept scaring me telling me my baby could die. At 8:50 they inserted the epidural and at 8:55 my baby was “born”.

None of this would be traumatic had I actually needed the Pitocin in the first place, and had my baby really had the big chance of dying, and had I not ben completely paralyzed from the epidural from my face down and able to do nothing other than vomit and shake so I couldn’t hold my newborn who I’d been more excited and overjoyed to meet than anything I’d ever wanted in my life. You see, this is where you need to learn the reasons for and effects of medical interventions before going to a hospital to give birth, be that your choice. If your baby has dropped and you are stuck at say, 6 cm dilation or whatever, sure Pitocin might help you. However, if your baby has not dropped and you haven’t dilated, Pitocin will do nothing but stop your body from continuing labor and simply give you false contractions and give your body the signal to rely on that medical intervention to keep you going. Had I not had the Pitocin, my body could have most likely gone into second stage labor eventually, even if it would take a day or two. The baby could have been perfectly fine without the induced stress on my uterus squeezing the crap out of him getting him nowhere. Many first time moms take a while to go into active labor, and I was one of those.

I tried to deal with it, thinking the C-section saved my baby’s life, and that I’ll just have a VBAC (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean) next time. At 6 weeks postpartum, I was already scouring doctors via the internet and phone calls trying to find who would be the most VBAC supportive. To be supportive is one thing, to actually be committed to helping you with your VBAC is a completely different story. I looked at success rates. I found a doctor I was set on who had a 99% success rate at her hospital. When I found out I was pregnant again, I called her immediately to schedule an appointment. Everything was great until she asked for my operative report, only to find that the doctor who cut me open gave me a single-layer suture, instead of a double-layer suture. Her hospital policy would not allow her to attend my birth because of that one problem. By the way, there is no evidence that a VBAC on a woman with either suture would make any difference. There are arguments in both cases.

In my 24^th week of pregnancy, I had no one to attend my birth. I called several VBAC friendly doctors to ask who would help me with a VBAC though I have a single-layer suture. Some said they wouldn’t, and others said they might, while others wouldn’t even answer my question. “Might” is not good enough. I will NOT be cut open again. The success rate of VBACs is incredibly low in the first place in a hospital setting, simply due to the calls made by the doctors who just want to get home in time for dinner and don’t want to risk a medical malpractice suit. I called the only home birthing midwifery in the state and the founder would not allow any of her midwives to help me. She said she would be putting the practice of midwifery in danger. Midwives in bordering states have been crossing the state line for years to help women like me in need. However, these women get cease and desist letters and put their practice at risk every time. So basically, the law is trying to force me to give birth in a hospital, ultimately forcing me to have a repeat C-section, which will put me at greater risk of uterine rupture in the future and decrease the amount of children I can safely have. The law is trying to decide my future. Will I let that happen? Absolutely not. Can the law take away my God-given right to birth my child in the safest way possible? Not at all.

It’s funny, I asked a midwife if I could just go to a doctor who says they “might” give me a VBAC and be armed with all of my information. I asked if I could have a similar outcome at home as I would at the hospital if I simply refused all interventions and wouldn’t allow anyone to do any cervical checks or give me a time limit or anything. She said she’s been at births where women were slipped Pitocin via IV against their wishes, among other things. Out goes that compromise.

Sure, it’s great we have the fall back of having a C-section to save our baby and our life if something were to go very wrong. However, just because our baby is positioned a little differently than optimal for a quick delivery, or our pelvis is just a little small for a smooth slide out, or our labor takes a long time due to whatever does not mean we need to jeopardize our futures or our babies’ futures by cutting them out so quickly. We all need to look into the dangers of C-sections and the advantages of Vaginal Births. There are so many reasons babies should be born the way they were designed. From breastfeeding, advantageous intestinal bacteria, and brain and lung function to an array of other things, babies need the chance to be born naturally. No one should be able to choose for us, how or where we give birth. Until more women understand the importance of standing up for their right, there will be many of us left to struggle our way through something that should just be natural.

I mean really, why is it so hard for me to just give birth???