#1 This is all still so new.

Yes I know this. And I have to remind myself—and my family!— everyday that I JUST had a baby. That she just got here. That all the changes and new rhythms are a growth and expansion process for all of us. That one precious baby was born, and 7 whole lives were transformed in our immediate family bubble. And all of us need time to feel, breathe, and be…

I am celebrating the tiny, immaterial moments that bind these sweet and raucous days together. The seconds that swiftly become minutes, the minutes that weave slowly and methodically into hours, the hours that collect and turn ever so gently, as effortlessly as our dear Earth, swelling as they will into days,..

I am moving around the world a bit more now, since consciously quieting my public space movements a month and a half before giving birth to Luminous Glory. It is a slow progression, a gentle stretching out beyond the safe and certain walls of home…

I have hemorrhoids, again. I am learning to heal myself, to be with the journey and its pain. Every elimination after having a baby is another birth, another labor of breathing through whatever it will be. Soften, open, release. There is no way around this truth. The body can’t survive without routinely letting go…

Bloom says I have to do today’s Wednesday’s Bloom because it’s Wednesday. When he says this to me I’m nursing the baby and my eyelids are growing heavier by the minute. It’s late, and 4 out of 5 munchkins are wide awake. I’m beyond tired because the accumulation of labors—over the day, the week, the month, the year, the years— has brought me to this specific level of exhaustion. I tell him it will be a very short post. He says he will read it in the morning…

#1 The memory of being loved is not the same thing as feeling loved.

My older children are all trying to find their new way of connecting one-on-one with Mommy. These early weeks have been a whirlwind of vibrant feelings in every direction. Joy, disappointment, sadness, loneliness, excitement, happiness, eagerness, anxiety, anger, despair, hope, gratitude. They have all said multiple times, that their new baby sister is getting all the attention…

When your first, earth-born child reaches his 10th birthday, you will have been a visible, birthing mother for well over 500 weeks. I started counting the weeks when Bloom was 8 weeks old, and I have been counting ever since. All of my calendars note the number of weeks each munchkin is on their respective day of the week. So far I have given birth on a Wednesday, a Friday, a Saturday, a Monday, and most recently, a Sunday…

Two months before giving birth to my 5th baby, I stumbled across some heartbreaking news. A childhood friend of mine had passed away suddenly from complications from childbirth. It was her 4th child. She had died two years before and I was only just now learning of it after a seemingly random search of her name online. I can’t tell you why she crossed my mind that day, but she did. I haven’t been able to look up anyone else from my past since…