thoughts on childbirth.

i took these photos and wrote these words near asher’s first birthday. they have sat on my computer since then, but i love them and want to share, almost a year later ;)

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of course we mothers all say it and it is true now for me as well: i can’t believe a year has passed. it’s so funny and amazing for me to look back upon my life at all the separate seasons that i’ve gone through. roman’s birth changed me in a million ways. going through childbirth for the first time was fascinating and life altering. i remember for the longest time i would just think back to his birth in wonder.

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having roman introduced me to a million ideas and interests that i never knew i’d have. i literally fell in love with breastfeeding. i fell in love with the family bed. i became enamored with baby wearing. and then my interest in natural childbirth was born. there are really several reasons that I became interested in natural childbirth. 1. i found out during roman’s birth that i have scoliosis which apparently made it difficult for me to correctly receive the epidural. related to that, i had a tough recovery from his birth and i hoped to just avoid both of those problems right off the bat. 2. roman’s birth was a textbook picture perfect birth. my ob even thanked me for such a great birth. i remember feeling like God would bless me with a lovely birth because my pregnancy was absolutely horrifying. 3. the challenge. and 4. i purely just totally head over heels fell in love with the idea of natural childbirth.

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natural childbirth in the end doesn’t change a thing. birth is birth and motherhood is what truly matters. but for me, i just wanted it so much. i don’t know how else to explain it. it was just a natural extension of all the things that make my heartbeat. i read anything i could get my hands on about birth. i planned and hoped and dreamed. i struggle intensely with fear, so of course I was terrified of natural childbirth. but i was also obsessed. thinking about pulling my baby out of the water and into my arms and feeling that euphoria of doing it my own way just made me feel real.

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and after laboring all through the evening, night and morning at home, laboring in the car on the hour long country drive, laboring at wendy’s and laboring at the hospital for about four hours, i really did it. it was different than what i had read. it was perfect in a lot of ways. except the pain of course. does that even make sense? no, no of course it doesn’t. but birth really doesn’t make any sense at all. in whatever context you give birth, it is magical and wonderful and horrible and painful and blissful and perfect all wrapped into one. it doesn’t make sense and yet it makes more sense than anything in the world. i think that is why i love it so much. i guess i felt like by doing it natural, maybe i could get closer to it. and maybe, just maybe, by touching birth, i could hold onto its magic a little longer, and carry it with me a little stronger in my soul. oh there are literally a hundred things I could say about natural childbirth. i am so totally passionate about it.

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alas, here i am over a year later. my thoughts about my birth with asher are a tangled web of different things. I have so many words and raw tender feelings. in the end, my birth was completely and utterly intervention free and it was amazing and went beautifully. it was a fleeting moment in my life. it doesn’t make me a better mother or a better person. at all. but it is part of my story. it is a dream and a hope fulfilled. which is also the way I would describe asher’s presence in my life. 

spring.

spring things:

new growth, babe in the bushes, boys picking flowers, soft evening light + hair in a bun.

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i always get this high when spring comes and it seems like life will take this drastic turn for the better in every way. and it always does at first. i turn into crazy productive mode and spend hours outside as the sunshine warms me inside and out. the flowers are intoxicating and i'm wearing flip flops again and feel like a million bucks. 

of course, the crazy always dies down a little, and i realize that spring is just another season. 

with it, there will be good days and bad.

we'll still have days where mama has been up all night with her little screetch owl baby boy, and we'll watch countless movies all day until daddy gets home.

and that's okay.

no season in life is perfect, but with the bad there is always good and man, these days of  spring.
 these days of family hikes in the woods,
holding hands with my husband and looking at our two little boys wearing baseball caps and running ahead - they are good ;)

my birthday.

(may 5, 2013)

roman and i in our dandelion field on my birthday. 

dandelions are my favorite flower. i love them and will never understand america and our perfectly manicured lawns + chemicals and such. roman and i saw a yard near our house filled with dandelions and he decided that it was our dream.
so we spend time out in our own little "dandelion field" and we blow all the "wishing flowers" while sending up prayers to heaven and hoping every morning that new weeds will be born. 

i'd say that our wish is coming along nicely. 

and when i asked roman what he prayed for, he told me that he prayed he would go to heaven and see jesus.

so i reckon that boy is coming along right nicely as well ;)

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i can't say that i've grown much wiser in this past year, but these are the wonderful moments that i am thankful for;

a refuge full of dandelions for me to lay in, and four tiny hands to pick them for me :)

    

i adore this photo that aaron got of ash ;)

21 months.

 

i'd imagined that these monthly photos would get easier when the weather got warmer, and i thought i would plan out the perfect photo shoot for these photos, but the truth is i never really got around to it. 

he happened to have this darling sweater on after our walk the other night, so i grabbed my camera 

to capture a few moments of my little boy exploring the yard.

21 months is just lovely - perfect round kisses + smooth  chubby baby arms soaking up sunshine.

 asher has a true love for birds, and walks in the neighborhood where he can practice his new found vocabulary.
 and he is learning, like us all,
that the sun and the moon and the stars certainly must  revolve around this little family of 4.

my dream boy.

some previous monthly photos:

twenty months

nineteen months

eighteen months

also, visit my spearmint baby post this week where i talk about the NICU. 

wonderful.

{ roman, a super grainy off-focus portrait. }

i'm all for getting the "perfect photograph". i'm all for natural light and the perfect match up of camera settings.

but don't you think that if we're always wrapped up in trying to find perfect,
we might miss out on wonderful?

this + that.

well, i'm super stressed right now. it's the end of the semester for school, and in true-gillian fashion i've left everything to the end. so i have 4 papers, 3 exams AND my honors art history presentation that i'm making this thursday looming over my head. oh my, help me.

just wanted to share a few other things in my life with you all. like these wedding photos i did last fall! i'd love for you all to take a peek and let me know what you think. photography is coming second to being a mom right now in my life, and that's the way i like it. but i've worked on putting together a few advertising things last week. it was so fulfilling to put together this blog post. i put so much work into editing client photos and it is so meaningful for me to put them all together and see the finished product. 

obviously, i work for my clients, 

but my photographs are also my work, 

and it is important to document them for myself as an artist as well. :)

also, my spearmint baby post from last week! i had so much fun putting this together, because oh my goodness spring is finally here and i couldn't be more thrilled!

happy earth day everyone, thanks for stopping by!

living room play.

i really don't take a lot of photos on the first floor of our home. we live in a little cabin of a house and the first floor is cozy and has a lot of wood. the second floor is a dream of natural light so clearly i love to photograph there.

these photos were taken in our living room and i'm glad because i truly love this house so so much. especially if we move this summer i will be glad to have documented a little of that room. 

asher is in such a darling stage right now. he loves to play and drags out his bucket of dinosaurs or lines up his little doggies and says "good job!" he is gathering more words everyday and one of his favorite things to do is take walks where he practices his new found vocabulary on the way.

"bye birrrrrd" "bye balllll" "teeee!" (tree) 

slowly he's finding his voice and it's just so so cute. this boy is a handful in every since of the word. he is extreme, and with that also comes his squeeze-you-around-the-leg kisses, and his every morning bright cheery smile to greet the day. :)