Welcome to the World, Baby Girl

Published on Thu, 14 May 2009

With my nephew, Beckett, last March

I’m 31 (and a half); and, yes, my biological clock is ticking. Everyday I peruse photos of my friends’ babes on facebook or hear news that so-and-so is pregnant. My older sister, who had her first baby a year ago and is expecting her second this summer, recently asked me if this made me jealous or upset. Actually, it doesn’t. I can honestly say that I feel happy for my friends and more of a sense of longing than anything else. Through their photos, I can almost feeling a baby’s soft skin on my chest, her curious fingers wrapping around mine, the blissful cacophony of having one’s entire life and identity turned upside down.

Several years ago I would have told you that I didn’t care to have children. Adopting a child from a faraway land appealed to me (it still does in some ways). Then, one day about four years ago while walking in northern Thailand’s early morning mist, my body, out of the blue, told me in her quiet language of longing that she wanted to have babies. Suddenly, everywhere I looked I saw them: expectant mamas with ripe bellies, doting fathers pushing strollers, the knowing sparkle in a newborn’s eyes.

And this is how it’s been ever since.

Until recently.

In January I began a 12-week creative recovery program with The Artist’s Way . Since then I have started this blog, a book proposal, and a new business identity. I went on a one-week vacation to the beach in Mexico (no yoga teaching involved!) and did a 30-day cleanse. I’m taking dance classes, went on a picnic the other week, and filled my home with plants. I subscribed to magazines like Real Simple and Martha Stewart Living (a fellow Barnard alumna), better organized my finances, started a women’s yoga group and goals group, and set up a “creative corner” in my apartment. I write in my journal each morning and take one “artist” date every week.

As I look back, I can’t believe it. I now somehow feel more, well, “me”; and all of this came organically from desire, rather than ambitious pushing.

My itch to have a baby RIGHT NOW has subsided. This process, this creation, this offering to you, feels like my baby. This is her birth announcement, her official welcome to the world. And I feel like a proud, and slightly exhausted, new mother.

What are your creative longings, rituals, and triumphs? What phase of “motherhood” are you in?

This entry was posted in Books, Creativity, Inspiration, Writing and tagged Barnard College, facebook, Martha Stewart, Mexico, motherhood, pregnancy, Thailand, The Artist's Way. Bookmark the permalink.

brian

Hi Sara,

How did you do a month long cleanse on a week vacation? I want to do that cleanse.

Best to you.

Brain
http://www.imaginationsoup.net Melissa Taylor

Congratulations on a wonderful new journey! Your blog looks fabulous. I will link to you on my blogroll.

Melissa

http://www.bing.com/ Bucky

With the bases loaded you struck us out with that aesnwr!
http://www.bing.com/ Doughboy

Wonderful eplxanaiton of facts available here.

http://www.peachfriedman.com Peach Friedman

Congratulations, Sara, on your beautiful baby! Having birthed a little human girl myself recently, I am a bit envious that your little one doesn’t spit up on your shirt every hour. Funny, I just posted a blog entry about embracing motherhood myself…we are all learning what it means to be a woman as it constantly evolves! I will pass your new website on to many friends.
http://robynmwood09.blogspot.com/ Michelle Wood

Sara, I empathize completely. While I did actually have a son, who will be 24 in June of 09, I did not raise him due to financial reasons and also manipulations by others and lack of confidence in myself. So I have never raised a child. By the time I was mature enough to know what to do, my health was an issue and a detriment to having another, as I am on my own save my 87 year old aunt I live with. But I longingly look at babies and expectant mothers. And like you, no jealousy there, just joy at the few moments they let me play with their wee ones. Nothing, and I really mean nothing, will make my soul sing and my heart feel elated as when I see a baby smile and laugh. And to hold one against my chest is a blessing I cannot do justice explaining to others. Now that I have surrendered to the fact that I will more than likely not have another of my own, I do look forward to being a grandmother. I also “adopt” friends and family members little ones to spoil. I am glad I have “met” someone or someones who understand the longing and the “desperation” we go thru when that clock ticks so very loud.
Sara

thanks for sharing!

and, brian, yes the 30-day cleanse during a 1-week vacation is one that you need supernatural powers to pull off…
http://www.BinspiredWellness.com Bonni

Dearest Sara,

I congratulate you on your birth and love the journey you have been on! Now 35 years of age too birthing many different business reflections of myself, the longing to care for a being that I have jointly created has sparked my interest in the recent months of my life. Funny how my businesses have transformed due to this yearning..It seems so long ago when the corp fibers ran through my veins. I remember the morning the “onion” first peeled and I took off to India to work with children, then the “onion” peeled again & the birth of my last business Conscious Mothering.org, helping mothers, now again the “onion” peel with BinspiredWellness.com the simultaneous mission of teaching individuals and organizations to prevent the exhaustion of getting sick while at the same time pushing to get passed HR 676, and Act that would provide Basic Health Care for All so that I as a future mother I can be Assured that my children and their families would have what they need!! This journey is a reminder of my growing commitment to attempt to do the best I can to prepare myself as a future mother… TOO…. just getting my lab puppy Solomon, has given me some possible practical caring skills.. :) With love!
Lori

Greetings Sara,
I am a childless 47yo woman and I can empathize with you. I had one miscarriage and then due to health issues, I chose to get my tubes tied. It is still very difficult at times to know that I will never have children. All four of my sisters have at least 2.
Having said that, I have a full life and I believe I try and fill that motherly need in different ways just as you have described. At this time in my life I am going to try and travel more and learn more about myself as you have described, give birth to a new me.
I stumbled across your site looking for Yoga vacations. I am glad I found this site.

http://www.google.com/ Janesa

Kncoekd my socks off with knowledge!

http://www.christinemasonmiller.com Swirly

Just reading the list of things you got done is inspiring…sounds like all kinds of beauty is going to come from this birthing process. I’m excited to see where it goes!
http://www.awakeningwomen.wordpress.com Chameli Ardagh

congratulation with new baby, radiant goddess. I look forward to be inspired even more by you!
love, always
Chameli

http://www.bing.com/ Alexandra

That’s not just the best anwser. It’s the bestest answer!

Jessi

Perhaps it is Thailand, or travelling, and the openness one can experience while experiencing the country, that opens up the longing to become a mother? I travelled throughout Thailand in 2008 and it was there that I also “discovered” my biological clock, and the thought and yearning to become a mother was discovered! And similar to you, I began to notice every child, every pregnant woman, as well as parents and children in general! If there was a child, I was aware of their presence!
It was nice to read that others experience that “moment” when our bodies tell us when they are ready to embrace a new phase of life…

http://www.google.com/ Elric

I might be beating a dead horse, but thank you for postnig this!

Rachel

Sara,

Thank you.

Rachel

(Liz’s friend from Poly)
Karena

Hi Sara…

How beautiful.

I will be teaching a workshop at Golden Bridge Yoga NYC on June 14th called mommies and miracles. You can look it up on the Golden Bridge NYC website under events. This workshop is for women who are preparing for the gift of motherhood. We focus on conscious conception and connecting with divinity through yoga and meditation. It is a lovely experience, and I have seen miracle pregnancies and births! What a blessing.

Today is my son’s 6th birthday! Gabriella is already seven. Children are amazing souls in little bodies. They are with each and every one of us.

Look forward to connecting again soon.

With love,

Karena
Cody

Namaste Sara, I was 35 and living in Hawaii with a female companion when my biological clock went crazy. I had always thought that someday I would adopt from a foreign country as there are so many needy children in the world that it seemed selfish to birth another one. I moved back to NY and looked into adopting a girl from China. At that time, my lover and I split up and I put things on hold until I felt more emotionally and financially stable. While working as a waitress in a local restaurant I met a young man who worked there also. We began dating and things were going well. Lots of fun! I knew he had a son living in Key West but didn’t ask any questions as it seemed a sensitive subject. I went away to Kripalu for a Yoga Retreat and when I returned home and visited him there was a beautiful blonde 1 yr old boy sitting on the kitchen counter! He had been taken away from his mother by social services and my boyfriend was now fighting for full custody. He won, and now 15 yrs later we are still raising him together and he is most definitely my child. Moral of the story. Ask and thou shalt recieve….
Linda

Hi Sara,
Good luck with your new blog…so many wonderful, beautiful things you have done since January!

I am curious about your experience with The Artist’s Way as it seems to have supported you in discovering all the different, fabulous ways you can enrich your life. I will be getting the book and was wondering if you proceeded through the program yourself or were you involved in a group process?

Regarding the creation of a women’s group, have you heard of the book, Sacred Circles?

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

Peace,
Linda

Sara

Hi Linda,

Thanks for your message!

I did the book on my own, but I have also heard from friends who have done it with a group. I would like to do it that way again in the future, too. (Seems like this is a good process to do more than once).

I do have that book Sacred Circles, it’s great.

Love,

Sara
http://www.yahoo.com/ Parmelia

Hey, youre the goto expert. Thanks for haginng out here.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/susancoppageevans Susan Coppage Evans

Thanks for sharing this Sara. I am 48 and I have also enjoyed the birthing of several business and artistic endeavors. Last year I was a principle in creating the Eating Recovery Center, a psychiatric hospital for women and men with eating disorders (www.eatingrecoverycenter.com) and a few years before that I helped birth an organization that supports creation-centered spirituality (www.creationspirituality.info).

I have been working with a broader definition of birthing for nearly two decades since I struggled with infertility. Even now as I continue to celebrate the gift of birthing and feminine leadership, I am also reminded about the choice we have as women to give birth or adopt and parent – real children. I read an article a couple years ago about how society has sold the impression to women that we can do our education, live life, get established and then have children while that the truth of our limited fertile years has been minimized.

Perhaps this was part of the reason that I didn’t pursue infertility treatment more aggressively, that (professional success) and struggling with an ambivalent husband- allowed me to let the years drift away. I became focused on birthing healing opportunities through business. Now, happily re-married to a man 10 years my senior, I still look at the times I had decisions to make (adopting? Single-motherhood?) and didn’t choose to become a mother. At my stage in life now – I revisit my feelings of loss and disappointment periodically (when stepchildren remind me non-verbally that they are not biological children, when my cuddly dog eats deer scat and reminds me he is not a child, when I imagine my old age) and I know that this is all part of life – part of the blessings, part of what-is. I only write now as a reminder to other women that our innate womanhood does call out from time to time; we are so capable of birthing businesses, images, healing opportunities AND we can’t (and don’t need to) do it all – we can and have to make choices along the way. AHHH- the challenges and blessings of being capable women.

Ps. I think these conversations are so important to help forge a new, relevant, feminism.

Sara

Susan,

Thank you so much for sharing this. Sounds like we have a lot in common!
I would love to talk to you more about your work with eating disorders. This fall I am leading two yoga/body image workshops, along with another woman. One will be in Boulder, and one at Shambhala Mountain Center, called “Befriending Your Body.”
Looking forward to continuing the conversation on all things women-related!

Linda

Hello again Sara,

This discussion of ‘birthing’ goes right to the core of my woman’s soul. Although I had left a comment already, I have returned to this blog entry several times because it already feels like ‘home’.

I had dealt with body issues regarding infertility for many years. I am deeply grateful for the last two years and the gift of yoga; it has completely transformed the relationship that I have with my physical, emotional, and spiritual self. I believe that my journey has led me to where I’m exactly supposed to be and I am looking into the possibility of yoga teacher training this summer. My dream? I am a high school teacher who has seen many teenage girls who are unhappy and on a myriad of anti-depressants. The desperation and anxiety that I see at school everyday is overwhelming. Often times, coping skills are lacking Have medications become the first resort rather than the last? Medication is important when absolutely necessary, however could supportive therapies such as yoga and mentoring help to create a safe place for them? I am hopeful that there is a real opportunity to change the climate of how we support young women and help them to work through their anxiety and other challenging emotions.

At 49, I consider myself a ‘young yogini’ with much more to learn. I am excited and optimisitic that I can possibly share and help support these young teenage women on their journeys as I continue to travel on mine.

There are many opportunities for “birthing” and supporting each other as we grow into the essence of our true selves. Our 6th sense and deep inner intuitions are auspicious gifts of the feminine. How joyous and honorable it is to be a woman!

Looking forward to more conversations.
Linda

Sara

wow, thanks for sharing!
yes you are so right, working with young women, teaching them the skills to group up in integrity and empowerment is so important. to change the world we really need to target young women! they will be the mothers, the centers of their communities…sending you much support!

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