BEING A MOTHER- PART TWO- MY 'ADVICE'

My Now Non-Stop 2 Year Old!

I love being a Mum. I did not know that I would be good at it. Which I am pretty sure I am! But you are bound to be good at anything you love doing! The best advice I can give you when you fall pregnant and when your little bundle of joy arrives is… TRUST YOURSELF. You are a Woman and Women have been giving birth and raising Children since the dawn of time! We are built for this! Do not let fear or what ‘other people say’ dictate a single thing. There are so so many statistics about so many different things when it comes to being pregnant, giving birth and raising a child. YOU ARE NOT A STATISTIC. YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING AND YOU MUST DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU! Let me say that again… DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU. Never in your life is it more important to learn to trust yourself, your body and your instincts than it is from the moment you fall pregnant.

The moment you break the news you are pregnant you will have people from all different directions informing you what you should do, what you shouldn’t do and how you should go about doing certain things. Don’t get me wrong, ‘they’ say these things because they have your best interest at heart, but you need to do what FEELS right to you. No one is you but YOU and you have to trust yourself and your motherly instincts because I assure you… those instincts are there! I read all the time about the media, other mothers and even family members disparaging a woman for a choice they have made. The peer pressure you receive as a mother is unbelievable! The statistics that come out about this and about that do not help either. As a Woman in this world who is built for giving birth and you are blessed with free will and a keen motherly instinct and you WILL know what to do. All you have to do is trust yourself.

Once you make a decision. You need to own that decision. If you want to give birth naturally do it. If you don’t… don’t! You will have women tell you how amazing giving birth naturally is (I am one of those :) and then you will have women who tell you how much easier it is to have a caesarean. Then you will read statistics for and against having a ceasar and you will read the media that disparage women who do and disparage women who don’t. Then you get to breast feeding and the debates about- should you, shouldn’t you, what is the best way to do it, how long for, can you do it in public? Then you get to- should you wrap your baby or not and then into different sleeping positions, bassinet or cot, and so and so forth. By all means, use the information out there as a guideline because it really does help but do what feels best for you!

 You and your baby have a special bond that no statistic can put a number to and you will know what he or she wants. Even if you don’t know straight away you will go through the steps of- is she cold, is he hungry, is she windy, etc and you will find out! The best thing I ever did was learn to be calm, patient and trust myself as a mother that I will do the right thing. And… I did and… I do!

Which brings me to… when you have done what is best for you and you have trusted your instincts and have done what works best for you and your baby, NEVER EVER disparage another mother if her way is different to yours. I would never dream of saying a woman was ‘not a real woman because she had a caesarean’ or that ‘breast feeding in public is disgusting’ or even ‘breast feeding is child abuse’ (yes, that one is out there) or even again ‘a woman is not a real woman unless she has had a baby’. It is none of your business what decisions other women make just as it is none of anyone’s business what decisions you make. Too often you see women ‘competing’ against each other or disparaging another woman for the certain way she does something. It has nothing to do with you.

Don’t worry. I am not forgetting my awful judgement about the woman who fell pregnant before me and how I agreed with a bunch of people in their early 20’s who had no children in their lives and were busy with idle gossip, getting drunk, and partying. I could not believe I believed them and that I allowed myself to judge someone else about something I had no clue about. Especially when, in all honesty, I knew better. I just hope that you can learn from my mistake because it is not a nice mistake to make in the first place. Judging other women because they do not do what you do is all too common and it should not happen. We need to show a healthy respect for each other and support each other rather than compete against each other or say 'my way is the right way' because as a Mum, you know there is not one way and the 'right way' is the way that feels right and works in your or your babies best interest at that time.

Having a child is the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my entire life. Every day Beau brings nothing but love, curiosity and adventure into my life! I am 100 times the person I was because, obviously, I learnt a lot and the strength you acquire because you will do anything for this little person is amazing! Children do not wreck your life, not even for a second! Phew! :) It can be overwhelming and incredibly trying, I am not going to deny that at all! There are times when it can be extremely hard! But in all honesty the times that I felt like it was really ‘HARD’ is when I was not right within myself. If you fail at any stage to look after yourself then you will find it HARD. If you do not get enough sleep, if your relationships with your partner and/or other people are in turmoil or if you do not do things to look after YOURSELF and ensure you have some degree of happiness then motherhood will be incredibly hard.

This is another lesson that there is no more critical time to learn. I always tell people that there is no way you can prepare yourself for having a baby- other than starting on the path to learning to love yourself. It is THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT of having a baby. When you love yourself and have a healthy respect for yourself then you will do things to ensure your happiness which in turn makes you a better mother. If you look after yourself then you will be patient, you will be more alert and you will be more likely to trust your instincts. If you don’t look after yourself you run the risk of not enjoying motherhood, of ‘losing it’, of being a lazy parent and worst of all not being the best person you can be for yourself.

Believe it or not I truly believe that that is the only aspect which will make you a good mother or a not so good mother. The evidence of it is all around us. It is so important that we get to know ourselves and learn to love ourselves. If you want the best life possible for yourself and your family, there is nothing more important. There are a number of ways to start on the path that don’t even cost a dime and I personally think the best way to start this is to examine yourself, get to know you. What do you want from life? What do you enjoy doing? If you need any help doing this I have a brilliant questionnaire that helps you get to know YOU so feel free to email me and ask me for it if you like! Casey.lee.evans@gmail.com

I hope this blog has helped you in any shape or form. The main things I hope people take away from this is:

1:Go easy on yourself! Don’t do what I did because I missed out on the amazing experience being pregnant can be!

2:Do what is BEST FOR YOU.

3:Trust yourself, your body and your instincts!

4:When you make a decision OWN IT and never mind what ‘they say’ or what the ‘statistics are’.

5:Be patient and calm otherwise you will allow yourself to get overwhelmed and to help you be patient and calm you need to…

6:LOVE YOURSELF. Why wouldn’t you? You're amazing.

Stay fabulous!

CLE

BEING A MOTHER- PART ONE- MY STORY

My Brand New Bundle of Joy- Beau

I have been meaning to write this blog for a while. This is probably my tenth attempt. There is so so so much to being a Mum that it really is unbelievable until you experience it! But I will start at the beginning and be %100 honest in this blog, well, I am in all my blogs but I just want to say that so you know I am giving you my 100%, ‘raw’, ‘unedited’ version of my experience.

It was 2009 and I was 22. I had just finished all my studies and ready to jump into the work force! I was in such a great place as I was finally on the road to having something I always wanted… financial independence! I seem to associate being an adult with financial independence! No more student centre link payments and having to ask Mum and Dad to help me pay my rent! I had learnt so much through my life coaching and was in the process of surrounding myself with wonderful people and ‘letting go’ of the people who were not on the same positive and growth orientated path as me! That also included my boyfriend at the time. We were different. Very different. So we parted ways and all was going great!

Then out of the blue I got sick. Really sick. I couldn’t eat or drink because my body would just reject it. I spent a lot of time in hospital while they were trying to figure out what was wrong with me and having fluids pumped into my veins as anything that went into my mouth would not be accepted into my body. ‘Are you pregnant Casey?’ the doctors kept asking and each time my answer was a resounding ‘NO’. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘YES’. Apparently I was wrong! I had no idea that would happen. It came out of nowhere. I knew I had been a little slack with my pill before my boyfriend and I broke up but I had done that before and got away with it so I just assumed I would get away with it again. But no, not this time.

They couldn’t find what was wrong with me so they sent me home for the fourth time with packets full of anti-emetics (drugs that stop you from vomiting), not that they worked, and I thought I had better buy a pregnancy home testing kit just to make sure. When it came up positive I was mortified.

“What have I done??? How could I be so stupid! How irresponsible of me! What was I thinking?! I am such an idiot! Here I was thinking I was a smart girl and then I go and get myself pregnant!?”

They were the awful thoughts running through my head. Those thoughts debilitated me and I sat on my bathroom floor crying for hours before I could bring myself to call my mother and tell her my news. My Mother was of course amazing. Calming me down and telling me it will be alright “It is YOUR decision Casey, no matter what you do I will be behind you 100%” she said. I can’t imagine the different thoughts and emotions that were going through my Mother’s head at that time. So I sat down and thought about it and thought about it and thought about it. Not once did I give myself a break. I was an ‘an idiot’, ‘a stupid irresponsible woman’, I called myself every name under the sun.

There was a girl that I knew and she had announced that she was pregnant just a few months before and people said such awful things. ‘Why is she keeping it’, ‘she is too young’, ‘kids ruin your life’, ‘if she is not having an abortion she must have done it on purpose’. I hate to admit this but… from my place of bitchy judgemental ignorance… I silently agreed. So I thought that if I ever accidently fell pregnant I would have an abortion and that would be that. It was all supposed to be easy. I was a 100% pro-choice, and still am, so I pushed all of my feelings aside and called up the clinic and booked myself in. They are very smart at the clinics. You call up and book in and you have to call back in two days to confirm your decision. After I booked in, all the feelings I had pushed aside were now back with a vengeance. I had a little person growing inside of me. You cannot escape the feelings associated with the little bundle of cells dividing and growing inside of you.

I called a help line, I don’t remember which one it was but it was the best thing I did. They ask you to weigh up the pros and cons. I had no pros. After you ‘weigh them up’ they say what do you feel? ‘I want to keep it’ were the words that flowed from my mouth without any thinking. I felt such a relief when I said that and I knew that was my decision. My heart of hearts decision. The lady then went through my relationship with the father- will I tell him, will I get back together with him and the lady told me that the most important question in regards to the father is- if the father and I got back together and the relationship did not end up working- could I do it on my own? The answer was a yes. I knew he wouldn’t do much anyway! He wasn’t much of a family man.

The decision brought me instant relief but I did not let up on myself. The stress that I put onto myself from beating myself up so much and the fear and doubt I let overtake my mind did not let me enjoy my pregnancy. It was awful. I didn’t even feel much love or anything to what was growing in my stomach. I just felt… nothing. I was too busy being afraid of what other people thought of me because I remember how harshly other people, including me, judged the other girl and those people said that kids ruin your life so my life must be over right?

The father and I got back together and the months flew by. I spent my time between reading the twilight books and every book on being a mother and giving birth I could possibly get my hands on. By the time I hit the eight and a half month mark I knew 3 things for sure: 1. I was having a boy. 2. His name would be Beau. And 3. I wanted a natural birth. I went to see my OBGYN and told him that I wanted a natural birth. He told me that Beau was such a big baby that he didn’t think it would be possible and that if he keeps growing at the rate he will want to do a C section. I protested that I did not want that. Beau was due on the 19th of April and my Doctor said that hopefully he comes early otherwise I should come in on the 3rd so he could give me check up and he would discuss inducing me.

I was so sick of being pregnant and so determined to have a natural birth that on the day before I had to go back to the Doctor I went and had acupuncture. I had read many papers on women who were in the same situation as me, or were well overdue and had gone to have acupuncture to induce them. I had never had acupuncture before and it was pretty cool! So I had the acupuncture and went to my OBGYN the next day and he said that I was 1cm dilated! I was not in labour but my cervix was certainly preparing me for it! So the Doctor sent me home and said he would give me 3 days to go into labour or he would induce me on the 7th. I sat at home for three days eagerly awaiting my first contraction! Every movement and every feeling in my body did not go unnoticed! But no labour pains. So on the morning of the 7th of April 2009 I packed my bag and went into Pindara Private Hospital.

My OBGYN greeted me, led me to my birthing suite and introduced me to my midwife. I laid down on my bed and I had no idea what inducing was. I was in such a rush to give birth that I forgot to ask! I had not thought about the actual act of giving birth or how much pain I was going to be in because I made sure I didn’t think about it. I didn’t want to add to the stress of being pregnant! But then my Doctor pulled out what looked like a crochet needle and told me to that he was going to break my water and it would be just like popping a balloon, it would be painless and all I will feel is some warm water run out of me so all I have to do is lay back and relax! Then it dawned on me… Holy sh*t! I was about to give birth! It went exactly as he said. I felt a little pressure but it was not painful at all and then the water. They had everything there to catch the water so there was no mess no fuss. They just took it away and then I was told to enjoy the calm and wait for my first contraction. The birthing suites at Pindara are brilliant. It was huge and had a couch, fridge and ensuite. My Mother, Father and Partner were there and they were brought food and drink while I was ‘labouring away’. Not that I noticed. I am not going to go into the gory details of the labour because there is not much to tell. Contractions, to me, just felt like… easiest was to explain it is- bad period pain x 10,000. My Mum had brought me a brilliant meditation CD a month earlier which takes you through a meditation to help you cope with the contractions. It tells you to imagine the contractions as waves, they build up slowly, peak and then slowly go away. It teaches you to breathe through these ‘waves’ and to go to your ‘happy place’ and imagine what you do there. My ‘happy place’ was in a rainforest clearing where there was a waterfall coming down into a waterhole where I went swimming and sun-baked on the rock next to it, feeling the warmth of the suns rays, and watched turtles and other sea life swim. It doesn’t sound like it would help but oh my goodness it did! If I left my happy place during a contraction I could not 'ride the wave' of a contraction! It felt like I was dumped by it! So I stayed silent and in my happy place! Not to say it didn’t hurt like hell! But it made the contractions manageable and MUCH less stressful.

Five hours of labour later it was time to push! I was offered a mirror so I could watch as my little man entered the world but my answer was… No thank you! Ouch, I did not want to see that. I did not want the visions of that stuck in my head for the rest of my life and I do not regret saying no! Five minutes of pushing (I know! Only five minutes! Thank goodness!) and I had a baby boy placed on my chest. He came out quietly and as soon as I looked at his little face all of my stress, fears and doubts that had plagued my mind for the last 9 months melted away. Here he was. A vision of absolute perfection and love. The love that I felt was something that I cannot explain nor can you even grasp its power until it happens to you. It’s like all of a sudden you are in a world that is 100% safe and secure, where peace abounds, life is plentiful, and love is all you feel. It is a love void of jealousy, anger, fear and suspicion. It is the purest form of love and it sweeps you off your feet.


To read part two of this blog go HERE.

THINKING OF THOUGHTS

There is nothing in this world that is 'nothing'. The only reason we might consider something as 'nothing' is because we have not found a way to measure it yet. Simply put- anything in this world we can perceive with one of our 5 senses we have figured out a way to measure. For example- sound, which we perceive with our ears, can be measured a number of ways with devices that we employ and are expressed in units according to what we measure eg. a 'decibel' is the power or intensity of the sound or a 'sone' is a unit of perceived loudness. 

So, there is no such thing as nothing. Even when we wave our hand gently through the air, though we cannot perceive the air with any of our 5 senses, the air is not nothing, it is a combination of gasses made up of different chemical compounds. Every corner of this earth has something in it. Scientists have never even created a ‘perfect vacuum’, they have only ever managed a ‘partial vacuum’. However, even if every single atom and particle could be removed from a volume, it would still not be "empty" due to vacuum fluctuations, dark energy, and other phenomena in quantum physics.

Now we know that there is no such thing as ‘nothing’ if we look at what everything is made of… from the chair you are sitting on, to the computer you are reading this on, to the eyes you are using to read these words… it is all made of the exact same thing- atoms. That is right, your right hand, when broken down, is made of the exact same thing as the right leg of the chair you are sitting on. The difference between the atoms in the chair’s right leg and your right hand is its state of vibration.

Which brings me to the title of this note… ‘thinking of thoughts’. If there is no such thing as ‘nothing’ and every single ‘thing’ on this earth is composed of atoms at different vibrations then- what is a thought? A thought must be a ‘thing’. Something we can measure. Dr Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, spent a lot of time studying vibration and what he hypothesised was that thoughts can be measured and are at a state of vibration somewhere between sound and heat. Dr Bell says

“Suppose you have the power to make an iron rod vibrate with any desired frequency in a dark room. At first, when vibrating slowly, its movement will be indicated by only one sense, that of touch. As soon as the vibrations increase, a low sound will emanate from it and it will appeal to two senses.

At about 32,000 vibrations to the second the sound will be loud and shirll, but at 40,000 vibrations it will be silent and the movements of the rod will not be perceived by touch. Its movements will be perceived by no ordinary human sense.

From this point up to about 1,500,000 vibrations per second, we have no sense that can appreciate any effect of the intervening vibrations.

After that stage is reached, movement is then indicated first by the sense of temperature and then when the rod becomes red hot, by the sense of sight. At 3,000,000 it sheds violet light. Above that it sheds ultra-violet light rays and other invisible radiations, some of which can be perceived by instruments employed by us.”

Dr Bell goes on to say that the gap between sound and heat (40,000 vibrations per second to 1,500,000 vibrations per second) is so vast and considering there is no human sense that can recognise the vibration, there is something there that we are yet to discover just as we did not know that ultra-violet light was there until we found a way to measure it. Just as radio signals are broadcast through the air and we cannot hear them until we use our radio to tune into the frequency. Napoleon Hill, one of my all-time favourite Authors, believes that our thoughts vibrate even higher- well past ultra-violet light at 3,000,000 vibrations per second.

Thoughts are seemingly nothing that originate nowhere but we do know that that is not how the world works. Are thoughts the one and only exception or are thoughts things that have their own vibrations and electrical impulses that we send out into the world and when you delve even deeper what is the cause and effect of these thoughts? Do thoughts send out messages to our surrounding world through our brain, through our skull, into the gases and bring back to us what the equivalent of that thought and the power and rate behind the thought was thinking? That was a mouthful. After everything you have just read… what am I talking about? Yes, of course, you might know it as The Secret, The Law of Attraction, Karma, God, Allah, Good Things Happen To Good People, Like Attracts Like and so on and so forth.

Thinking about thinking took me all afternoon and had me read everything from how light is formed, to what electrons are composed of, to how light bulbs and batteries work and back to atoms! To think about thoughts from a scientific and measurable point of view was pretty cool so I thought I should share!