WELCOME

Thank you for visiting my blog. It is a place which will be dedicated to the things in my life that have become paramount since my first pregnancy 2 years and 39 weeks ago to this date. Discovering you are pregnant impacts one greatly. For me however, it shook the foundations of my being. I have never looked back.

For the majority of my life I felt like I have been searching for my calling. I dedicated myself wholeheartedly to my education, athletics and art. And while I excelled in all of these areas of my life, I never felt fulfilled. For years I had people telling me that I should be a scientist. I loved biology but there was a disconnect and lack of humanity that wasn't appealing. I had others telling me to pursue a fashion degree and my own self obsessed by the image agreed. Needless to say I entered university to study the broadest subject, Communications, with the potential for even more confusion, because anyone can complete the degree and any organization needs a communications specialist.

Three years later, my transcript was as colourful as the flavors at Baskin Robins: communications, PR, marketing, feminism, geography, English literature, psychology, and - uh? - witchcraft! I was top of my class (literally) with a degree in hand, but more confused than that first semester as an eighteen year old fresh out of highschool. I ended up spending the next 3 years hopping from job to job (real estate assistant, retail merchandiser, coffee shop worker, occasional party blogger, office administrator at a place that turned your DNA into art, graphic design assistant). Throughout my exploration of self I ended up working in a mailroom as pretty much a minion for legal assistants who were minions to lawyers. I liked to call it the Communications hub, but who was I kidding.

It was here however that I fell in love with a bike messenger who is presently my fiance and father to my two girls. Now I could continue and glamorize pregnancy and my connection to the baby and all the stuff that you want to hear that legitimizes my epiphany. But I won't because it didn't happen like that. The above story gives you a clear idea about my educational and "life purpose" pursuits, but it goes deeper than that. This confusion about life was largely manufactured by my past.

I take full responsibility for my actions as an adult but I believe that a lot of my life was shaped by my past. Firstly, I grew up in an abusive household where women were not valued but rather told verbally and by the fist that they were meaningless and useless. My mother was, undoubtedly, fearful of my biological father but each day of my life I was reminded that I was in fact useless. The emotional scars are buried so deep and can never be healed fully. Although I have a deep empathy for my mother I also harbour a deep resentment, which led me to make a vow to never bring my children up in such a way. To teach them love through example, respect, and respect for the earth is paramount to me.

This environment also was the breeding ground for a low self-esteem and lack of confidence. My body was praised for its beauty or ridiculed for lack there of. My breasts were just too big, sexual playthings to be embarassed of. I had no role model, no one to tell me about my body or explain the beauty of it.

When I began my pregnancy I was set on having a C-section and bottle feeding. This is what my own mother did. I didn't trust myself as a woman or mother. It was my husband (I call him that) who convinced me of that strength and mainly the first visit to an unwelcoming male OB-GYNs office that frightened me. Something from that first meeting seemed so unnatural. After discussion my husband convinced me to get on a waiting list to see a midwife. For me, as I am sure for most, the information surrounding midwifery was not readily available and I was definitely ignorant. But that first meeting was eye opening. I felt like a woman, a strong person who had the power to birth this baby. I was surrounded by warmth, acceptance, and support.

I decided to give birth at home and it was possible to as well because I was low risk. And on July 13th, 2008, I naturally gave birth to my daughter Charlotte Harlow Laine in her grandparents' home. She was amazing, my strength was amazing, breastfeeding was amazing! Immediately after giving birth I started to look into a potential career in supporting women through their birth experience. I became a postpartum trained doula with DONA 4 months after Charlotte's birth. I spend my free time researching all things to do with doula-ing, child development, veganism, and environment.

My ultimate goal is to become a midwife but in January we welcomed our daughter Harriet. And because it is our goal to have one parent at home with our children until the age of school entering and breastfeeding complete, my application submission into the program is a ways off. Until that time I plan on using this blog as a personal research project and a resource for pregnant and new mothers.

I also would love to support mothers in the Ottawa region through doula-ing and dream of creating a "MOTHER EARTH CHILD COLLECTIVE" that embraces mothers, their individual choices, and their children, and supports them in becoming the mothers they want to be.

Please follow me on my journey as I support you in yours.

Crystal