Are you going to have more? How do you feed them? How do you do it? And the often-implied but never-spoken–why??? When people see us with our eight children, they are curious. For the past 6 weeks, I have been reading aloud a chapter at a time of my book, The Sacred Everyday, A Search…
Tag: pregnancy
Motherhood and Creative Fire (Podcast #15)
One of my greatest challenges as a mother has been finding the time and energy to tend to my creative life. In this episode, I am talking about creative fire–how it looks different in different seasons of motherhood and how important it is to nurture creative practice even in the blur of raising babies and…
Surrendering to a Season (Thoughts at the Beginning of My Ninth Pregnancy)
This morning I drank a cup of tea for the first time in six weeks. Rich Assam with a swirl of cream. The taste of it brought tears to my eyes. It is October, and nothing complements the first of the crimsons and golds like a steaming mug of fragrant tea. I am just rounding…
Marking a Season
I miscarried nine days before our 15th anniversary. There we sat, across the table at a little cafe, drinking coffee together. Our six living children were home with a friend who gave us the day together to celebrate our marriage. The week before, Randy and I had privately laid the whisper of a body down…
Singing Out a Baby, the Birth Story of Rune O’Carolan Chester
“I am walking into this labor differently than I ever have before. I am walking into it with a spirit of fight. Not just trying to keep my peace, not just trying to stay calm, not just surviving and getting to the other side. I am walking into this labor with the desire to put…
The Poetry of This Morning (On the Day Before My Due Date)
The poetry of this particular morning is not lost on me. May 15. The day before my due date. I woke early this morning after a night of mild, sporadic contractions, wondering if today will be the day that we will meet our son. It could happen at any moment. The waves of contractions reminded…
Living with Vision
I am up early this morning, before the little ones. In my closet-office (where I sit in a corner at a small desk, typing this under a rack of hanging clothes), I am armed with a steaming mug of Darjeeling tea, a couple of Cinnamon-Orange-Almond-Spelt muffins, and the promise of a glorious uninterrupted hour of…
Are You Going to Have More?
People are always asking me if we are going to have more children. The tiniest bit of smalltalk can tease this question out of a complete and utter stranger. We go from eye contact, to a silent head count of my six kids, to are all these yours and are you going to have more……
Heidi Wren Chester: A Birth Story
I am so grateful to this little sweet baby for what she has done for me. This is the story of how Heidi Wren came into our world five weeks ago. We rearranged the house most of the day, except for when Randy took Rosie and Paloma to Babyland General for a birthday party to see a…
Waiting
Groundhog Day is probably the funniest day of the year to have as your official due date. There are lots of hilarious jokes that can be made about the baby seeing its shadow, six more weeks of being pregnant, and of course lots of references to the Groundhog Day movie. I can’t think of another holiday…
The Last Few Days of Pregnancy
I am in the last week or so of pregnancy. I can feel my heart and my mind being pulled in so many different directions. There is part of me that wants to sit down and enjoy the last few days of normal sleeping patterns, two free hands, the freedom to be away for more…
Room for You (New Song)
I am two weeks away from my due date. I can hardly believe that any day we will see this new little face and our lives will be forever changed. It feels so surreal. In preparation for Heidi’s arrival, I’ve been rearranging, organizing, constantly cleaning and decluttering this tiny house. All of my creative energy…