Many years ago, I quit going to a large church that began to put such a strong emphasis on worship, that it was very nearly all they did.
It wasn't as though that was my sole reason that I quit attending. I was in college at the time and exploring a myriad of churches in different denominations. I got married and--as husband & wife--we settled on a smaller church elsewhere.
We went back and attended that big church a few more times sporadically... but it really got solidified in my mind that we weren't meant to be there when the church began putting their primary emphasis on worship through music.
Their worship pastor had a brush with death when he very nearly committed suicide. I can't say for sure whether there was any connection between their "off" focus and the worship pastor coming close to suicide--it isn't uncommon for pastors wrestle with depression--but I do know that that church was confusing mission and worship.
They were drawing throngs of new people to their church, to say the least. All with the idea that we were placed on this Earth to worship.
Let me pause to clarify terms, here. Worship is expressing adoration to God. The word often gets muddled in modern Christianese to mean music and songs. What God laid out for us by the example and writings of early Christians is that we worship God in our hearts and by the lives we live, not just when we sing to Him.
Now, I do think singing and making joyful music unto the Lord are essential to the Christian life. What this large church was doing put so much focus on drawing crowds into a rock-concert-like Sunday service ...that they forgot what Christ commissioned us to do: make disciples. Our mission as believers is to share the Gospel with the world and continually help each other to become more Christlike in our daily lives.
In recent years, Facebook notifies me when someone in a group I'm in is looking for a recommendation for a church.
Nine times out of ten, they are asking for a church with "great worship" (read "uplifting music").
No one ever asks for help finding a church "that will really challenge me" or a church that is "reaching out to the community". I suspect it is because those things require a work mindset and not just a participant mindset.
I like great, uplifting music from a finely-tuned praise band along with gorgeous singing, lights, and a fog machine just as much as the next millennial. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not necessarily saying we should just get rid of that. What I am saying, is we should challenge weak or lukewarm Christianity that seeks only to be served rather than to serve.
P.S. I do also appreciate good old fashioned voices and acoustic instruments ;)
~
What do you think are the reasons modern Christians are always looking for a church with great worship?
In what ways do you think spending a lot of resources on music could be distracting us from learning essential tenets of our faith?
Does your church have community small groups, discipleship teams, or Sunday school classes that have challenged you to delve deeper into changing your heart? Are people radically changing their lives to look more like Christ?
Pray with me: I pray for that specific church which I haven't revisited in years has been focused on Jesus' great commission. You created us, and we were placed on this Earth to worship...making disciples and self-sacrificing love is our act of worship. I pray for authentic Christianity in the hearts of our new believers as well as those who've sought to walk with you for years. Refine us.
Amen
One Hope Left
To walk with God wherever he may lead me, and to show love of Christ to each person I encounter along the way. There are not many things in this life I am sure of, except for this: Christ is the only thing worth living and dying for. Everything in this world will let me down, so the hope that comes from Him is all I have left.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
My Interview with an Art Therapist
The creative way some mothers are healing from postpartum issues and processing the emotional journeys of pregnancy, birth, and even infant loss & miscarriage.
What is "art therapy" and why would a pregnant woman or a woman who had suffered the loss of a child seek out this kind of therapy? Is it making art? or is it a therapy session? These were the questions I had as mom and an artist myself.
This will be cross-posted on my other blog.
I sat down with Susan Jacobsen, a local Colorado Springs art therapist who holds a space for clients in the Cottonwood Center for the Arts. She answered my questions in the interview (full transcript below) and explains how her personal history drove her compassion for women seeking healing from trauma. Her work also helps those who are just looking to better their emotional wellness surrounding childbearing.
After struggling through fertility issues, Susan became pregnant. Sadly, she lost her baby when doctors failed to diagnose her with HELLP, syndrome which led to serious complications.
Susan later became pregnant again and gave birth to her second son.
"And so, as I was pregnant with Jens there was all of the angst and anxiety and fear about... Is it going to happen again? and...what's normal? ...and what's not normal?"
She also says that many women find they need to place importance on paying attention to their own emotional wellness when they become pregnant. The way women are feeling about their pregnancies, their birth team, and their lives affects their birth.
"I really wasn't trying to be obnoxious about it, but I thought, I'm not overriding my intuition just to not make a doctor upset."
Susan had a complicated time with her pregnancies, but she works with women going through all different types of unique experiences.
"But, all of that had kind of led me here
To
be able to make a difference for people...women...for MOMMIES! Yes,
mommies are so important. Yes, they are." says Susan.
Susan studied art therapy before becoming a mother, and maintains licensure as a professional counselor in Colorado. Susan's studio space allows clients to play with a wide variety of art materials while working alongside her as the therapist.
Today, she continues the work, but has added another dimension to her business including
If you're interested in attending sessions with Susan, find her online at Henry's Heart Art Therapy.
The staircase inside Cottonwood Center for the Arts |
Some artwork in the therapy space |
A light fixture in the therapy space |
Susan Jacobsen |
An album made using mixed media |
M: What was your reason for starting this business? What was your background?
S:
I've been an art therapist for a long time. I got married kind of
late--I was 35--but shortly after, I got pregnant. I had a really
normal pregnancy until...I didn't. Our first baby was stillborn due
to something called HELLP syndrome. I don't know if you already know
what that is or not?
M:
I've heard of it, but don't remember what it stands for.
S:
HELPP Syndrome is not super-common. They've gone back and forth on
whether it is related to pre-eclampsia or not. It has similar
symptoms, but probably a different cause. The acronym stands for
Hemolysis Elevated Liver enzymes
Low Platelet count.
M:
That's probably why I don't remember what it stands for.
S:
And it's not super-common, which is probably why they missed the
diagnosis with me. My son was stillborn at 37 1/2 weeks. And then, I
became very ill because part of what happens with HELLP Syndrome is
your liver starts to attack the placenta. I became very sick. When
your liver starts to do all of that stuff, it affects your platelet
count which is what allows your blood to make blood clots...so then
all those little chunks of blood cells clog up your kidneys. So, I
went into kidney failure. They had to transfuse me before I could
deliver. Uh, there's a whole raft
of health issues that came up for me. I was in the hospital for 17-18
days, and I was in ICU on dialysis. All these kinds of things. So,
that was hard.
His
name was Henry, which is where I got the name Henry's Heart Art
Therapy. So, it was really hard; there was the loss and the
questioning... Some of what really helped me through that was my
artwork. Being a therapist and being able to understand some of
that--at times--was helpful and being able to understand it all.
Then, we had two other miscarriages after that. We went back and
forth about fertility stuff. I ended up going to a holistic kind of
retreat.
Four years after losing Henry I
got pregnant with my second son, Jens,
who is now seven. I
got pregnant a month after the retreat, following their
recommendation.
After losing Henry, and everything that I had to do personally to
come back from that, I think it made me stronger. And I think it made
me a different kind of mom than I probably would have been otherwise.
M:
Absolutely.
S:
And so, as I was pregnant with Jens
there was all of the angst and anxiety and fear about... Is
it going to happen again? and...what's normal? ...and what's not
normal? ...and so I really decided I am taking charge of anything I
can take charge of in this pregnancy. I hired a doula, and I did a
lot of research on what's what, and what are the symptoms of this and
that. But, at the same time trying to keep my anxiety in check and
doing things like yoga and really
putting a lot of things like that and guiding into my artwork...and
doing a lot of that kind of stuff just to keep myself in a good
place, because, as a therapist, I know that the anxiety of a pregnant
mom can affect your relationship with that baby, and I didn't want
that. I didn't want Henry's death and my problems to carry over and
be Jens'
problem. I didn't want to do that.
So,
I did a lot of that work for myself in that process
and then as Jens has gotten older--I wanted to start this business
for a long time--but you know as a mom you get torn between being a
mom and being there for your kids and trying to start a business...
So it seemed like a better time, now. You know, he's a first-grader,
(he’s
a 2nd
grader now) don’t know if that matters.
and he's into school now so I could relax a little bit.
M:
Oh, he's a first grader? My son is a first grader: Samson, he's
seven.
S:
So, you know I mean it's not that he doesn't need me anymore, but
he's got a place that he is in the mornings. I felt like this was the
right time to start that business, and really what it
was was
I
was wanting
to give back some of what I learned to other moms who are maybe going
through some of
the similar
things...or going through anything. You know, I think that when
you're pregnant you're hormonal, and you're emotional, and I think
it's important to take some time to work on your own stuff during
that time and let someone help you with that. When you have that
baby, then your life becomes about that baby, and you don't really
get the opportunity to kind of figure some of that stuff out. So that
was what sort of led me to doing some
of this
kind of work.
I
did prenatal yoga throughout my pregnancy with Jens,
and it was one of the best things that I did. And I thought, you know
you could provide some of that support through what I do. I'm not a
yoga teacher, I'm an art therapist, and I think it's a great fit.
M:
Tell me about art therapy...you would say you're primarily a
therapist, and then art is how you work through things or? Would you
say you're a mix of both artist and therapist?
S:
That's a tricky question. It's a common question, actually. There are
therapists who are therapists first and then they incorporate art
into their work but they're not really trained in art therapy per se.
Art therapy is kind of its own field.
M:
Yeah, I have a friend who's trained in art therapy, and I've never
really asked her this question. She works specifically with kids, so
I've asked her things like, " Here's this thing that my kid drew. Tell
me what this means." But I've never really asked her about [the work].
S:
Yeah, and I think that it is an identity thing that art therapists
struggle with all the time. I am licensed here in Colorado as a
professional counselor, because they don't have an art therapy
licensure. But I can be licensed as a counselor, because my
degree--though it's in art therapy--my program at
least was
very clinically-based, and we took a lot of the same things that the
psych folks took in addition to our art therapy coursework. We took
the testing classes and all of that kind of stuff and all the like
DSM diagnostic classes and
all that.
So, I can be licensed as a counselor which is helpful to be able
to...like if you want to bill an insurance company. Most of the
insurance companies are not going to accept just an
art therapy billing...be
able to ...so
if you're a licensed counselor, you can do that sort of billing. So,
it's sort of a benefit to being a licensed counselor. I currently
don't accept insurance here, just because it's a billing nightmare
quite frankly, when you accept insurance.
M:
So, if a client came in and wanted to talk to you about pricing
structure or all of that...how does that work?
S:
What I do is like for the pregnancy class--I call it Art of Expecting
Group--I charge $25
per
time, or they can buy a five-package...a five punch card kind of
package, and they up saving a little bit doing that. But that
includes materials. I try to set my fees low enough that people can
have it somewhat affordable. It's not as inexpensive as going to
prenatal yoga, for example, but I have a lot of overhead with
supplies and you don't have to bring your own supplies. So, I feel
like that's a good compromise for not taking insurance.
Plus,
for what I do with the pregnancy group, I don't feel like it is
therapy per se. It is more like supportive, expressive time, and not
so much like group therapy...if that makes sense. So, I don't
wanna...I mean group therapy fees for private pay can be $60 - $70 an
hour. So, I don't charge that, because I don't feel like it's that
kind of group.
I
also do a grief group for people who have lost babies, and that group
is um...I charge the same for that $20
per
time. So
A part of me feels like I shouldn't charge for that group, but at the
same time it is still professional input...it is still art materials,
and so I feel like I can't really afford to not charge for it. And so
that is something I do. But, in those groups I like to really help
people figure out good ways to memorialize their child to express
their feelings around that...to express their feelings about grief
like an anniversary dates
being difficult... and just sort of those kinds of things. And just
getting the support from each other.
and that kind of thing.
I
also offer an open studio time where people can just come in and do
artwork about whatever, and that doesn't have to be a pregnancy
issue. I charge $10 an hour, or if you stay for the whole three
hours, then it's $25 so you save a little if you stay the whole time,
but...so come play for an hour with the art materials. Give me your
ten bucks, and I
mean it's not...I
don't provide as much guidance or input that way either but it's a
time to come in and see how...if you wanna test different materials
and see if you wanna try them out.
M:
So, do you have like a lot of mixed media stuff, primarily painting,
like what are people primarily choosing to do when they come in?
S:
Yeah, I do--I have a lot of stuff available. I'm an oil painter. The
paintings up here are ones that I have done, and I've done a little
bit of acrylic work, but I have oil pastels, I have collage materials
for people who can do collage. It can sometimes be a great material
for people who feel like they aren't very creative or don't feel like
they can do art per se. It's a good place to start, because
collage--I love doing collage, actually--I think it's fun. I think
it's expressive, and you may or may not come away with something that
you want to hang on your wall, but that's not really the point. You
know for that kind of group, it's more about expression and that kind
of thing. Like this book...
M:
Well, spending time dealing with some things, huh? That's the
important part.
S:
Yeah, this was a book I did that was part of a -- I also have a
trauma certificate, which is part of the art therapy training that we
talked about sort of picking an issue...courage was sort of something
they suggested because of the trauma issue.
M:
Um, so tell me about our credentials.
S:
ATR is that I am a registered art therapist with the Art Therapy
Credentials Board which is a national board that credentials art
therapists only, and then BC is the board certification through them
which requires testing with them. The registration is simply you
finish your grad school work, you do a period of supervised hours,
and then you're registered with the Art Therapy Credentials Board as
a registered art therapist. But then, if you wanted to become
board-certified you have to take the lengthy exam with them, and then
LPC is Licensed Professional Counselor through
the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.
M:
Is this Jens on the photo? With the little bucket hat? My son has a
little bucket has like that, too.
S:
Yeah, my husband gave me that for Christmas. And that's him when
he was a baby. Tiny Peanut. He was five pounds and six ounces when he
was born, so that was a couple weeks after he was born.
M:
[Conan] was a little guy when was born; the first two were nearly
eight-and-a-half pounds, and so then he was like this little
six-pound-something guy, and I was like, "What?! You're lying.
Weigh him again!" And then it seemed like I blinked my eyes and
went to a midwife visit, and she was like, "He's ten
pounds even." And I was like, "No, he's not. Weight
him again."
Susan
(to Conan): You must've been a good little eater.
M:
Yeah. I'll take a photo of that (brochure), if that's okay with you.
S:
This is the brochure that explains some of that.
M:
Oh, it has a photo. Is there...is all of this on your website, or...?
Is it the facebook page primarily or both?
S:
I do have a website. I have both.
M:
I didn't even look. Some journalist I am to not even look that up.
You should research before, Marcia.
S:
That has the website on the back; I think it's in my brochure, too,
but...
M:
But, like I said, I've never interviewed anybody. I'm not a
journalist. You know when you do those...like assessments that tell
you what career you could be good at in high school or whatever?
Journalist was always one that came up for me, and I feel like
there's no way I could ever do that. And I think that because in the
back of my mind I have so much social anxiety, I'm afraid of people.
But, I've worked through all of that now--I mean for the most
part--I'm a lot further than I was when I was in high school, anyway.
If I could've worked through some of that I could've been a great
journalist. So, I went to college for art and my emphasis was graphic
design. Our school was a liberal arts school, so we had to study all
of the things. But that was a really awesome experience, and I don't
really...I'm not a graphic designer now, but I really feel like I use
everything that I learned. And then, I worked at the School of
Psychology at Fuller Seminary for a couple of years and I found out
about some cool stuff there like, ah therapy is not anything to be
ashamed about! It's awesome! And then I had a few kids and I was
like, "I'm gonna become a childbirth educator!" Well,
actually after my second baby was when I decided to pursue it. So,
that's why I'm like, "Oooh, your thing sounds interesting. I
wanna know about that."
S:
I want to do more networking with the childbirth people in the area.
I don't want people to think I'm trying to take the place of
childbirth classes...
M:
Like a bereavement doula, or...?
S:
Yeah, I don't want people to think I am trying to move in on their
market. I just want to be part of the team.
M:
You just do what you're gonna do, and that's great.
S:
When I'm doing art in here, I usually turn the overhead lights on,
because it's a little dark. It's pretty dim with just those. I think
it's a nice um...
M:
Can I take a picture of you with your credentials on the wall?
S:
Sure! And the painting that's on the front of the brochure is the
painting that's usually hanging on the wall here. They're doing a
Madonna and Child artwork show here in March. It's going to be all
artwork that's about moms and babies. It's going to be a juried show.
So, I don't know for sure if the painting will be in, but I entered
that painting in that show. (Update:
the painting was
not shown)
I'm not like celiac, but I have to watch how much gluten I eat, that
was something I learned at the holistic retreat. The
diet was no wheat, no dairy, no
processed sugars, alcohol, and caffeine.
M:
I would love to go off of processed sugars, but I'm not that brave.
S:
It's hard to figure out at first, "Well, what can I eat?"
because so much of that stuff is in everything.
M:
I switched to my primary chocolate is just bars of dark chocolate,
and I will break of just like a square. And that's so much more
satisfying than like anything else, and I really feel like, "Wow,
I've really had my chocolate satiated. And I don't feel like, "Om
nom nom nom, I need to eat more," like you do if you eat a milk
chocolate or... "
S:
Yeah, sugar is weird, because I feel like it does have kind of that
additive affect like you want to eat more of it.
M:
Like you eat carbs, and then you want to eat all of the carbs.
S:
Yeah, and I'm bad about that like, it's probably not a really good
thing I found out now they have gluten-free bread. So, I'm like, Oh
now, I can eat toast.
M:
Over at Nemo's coffee -- have you ever been there? -- NO? Well, you
have to go. Well, they have a drive-thru so you don't even have to go
inside, but they have like a circular vegan and gluten-free bar
--which I'm not vegan and gluten-free, but I tried them one day--and
they're so delicious. I don't know if they're super-healthy, but
they're vegan and gluten-free! You have to try them.
S:
Yeah, so many things have a lot of sugar, a lot of salt.
M:
I firmly believe that fat is not inherently bad for you. I think
there's healthy fat and you should have healthy fat. Like, I told my
class that I taught I told them, "Just eat the whole egg!
Eggs are good for you!" They're like Really?!
S:
You don't have to eat eight of them. You don't have to eat the whole
carton...
M:
I am very blessed to have three kids. So, we had Samson seven years
ago. Then we had a miscarriage. And then, after that, I was like okay
so not only did I have a horrible birth with him and then I had this
early miscarriage when I was really expecting that God was going to
give us another baby right now. Then, I was in the early part of my
next pregnancy with my daughter, and it was a LOT to work through.
And it was so much prayer and working through so many fears and
things, and then the birth ended up being so amazing. It was like
that day and then the couple weeks following was the best time of my
whole entire life. And I was like, this is so wonderful! Like,
God answered SO many things for me! And I was just overwhelmed
with...the whole world became so vivid. And after that it was just
wonderful. I contemplated it and contemplated it for months after. I
was just like God answered all of these prayers. So, then after that
I was just like I want women to know, I can help you be not afraid,
because there are so many fears.
S:
Yeah, I had one lady asking me about what I did. And, she was like,
"Well, why on Earth would pregnant women need therapy?"
I
thought, "Are you not a mom?" There's all kinds of reasons
that pregnant women need to be able to talk about things and
process.
M:
It affects the birth!
S: It
does, it affects the birth.
Like,
I know I was so determined with my pregnancy with Jens I'm going to
do the things I need to do, and if something doesn't feel right to
me... I mean with our first situation with was partly a malpractice
sort of thing. They should've caught the HELLP syndrome, and usually
with HELLP Syndrome if you deliver as soon as it is caught it will be
okay, because your body stops and
so--had they diagnosed it appropriately, and listened to me when I
was saying, "This is what I need," instead of saying, "No
no no, you're fine, it's your first pregnancy, you're just
worried."--so I was like, no no no. Second time around, if I
have a thing, you're gonna check it out and listen to me.
I
really wasn't trying to be obnoxious about it, but I thought, "I'm
not overriding my intuition just to not make a doctor upset.
Not
that I have anything against doctors, they're wonderful people and
they serve a wonderful purpose, but I was like, "No...I'm
not...you need to listen to me, " And I did have a doctor
initially that did not want, um, I mean she didn't...she...I don't
know what her deal was exactly, but I had my whole medical records
because I took them to court, and my attorney had our....MY
medical records which is and has all of the complications that
happened and why it happened and So, I took that to my OB when
I got pregnant with Jens and she was oh okay. She had it for three
months, and she never looked at it.
M:
Oh, yeah, [they don't] look at any of the
things that they...
S:
Finally, I was like, "You know I really wanna make sure that
what happened last time doesn't happen again." So, she said
-- Because I was 40 I think, when I was pregnant with Jans --
she said, "Well, you need to go to Maternal-fetal medicine
anyway, because they need to check you out because you're an older
mom."
M:
But advanced maternal age, in and of itself, is not an indicator of
anything
S:
Exactly, which I learned at the retreat that I went through that it
doesn't matter that much--your age--that if you're healthy and your
eating healthy...that younger women can have birth complications just
as often as older women. So, anyway, I was like, "Okay,
whatever." I was like, "Can they do any kind of tests that
indicate whether I was likely to have HELLP syndrome again?" She
was like, "Yeah, there's a couple things they can do." So,
I went over there and she never told them that part of my history.
So, I asked the doctor at maternal-fetal medicine: I said, "What
about the stuff that helps determine whether I might develop HELLP
syndrome again?" She's like, "What are you talking about?"
So, I tell her the whole story, and she's like, "That was not on
my referral sheet." She showed it to me. She was mad. I mean,
she was trying not to be mad, like trying not to throw this other
doctor under the bus. But, she was like, "They didn't ask me to
test for that. We can totally do that."
They did this doppler thing to test like a blood-flow-to-the-uterus kind of test. But since I fully recovered and didn't have any residual effects from the
They did this doppler thing to test like a blood-flow-to-the-uterus kind of test. But since I fully recovered and didn't have any residual effects from the
first
time, and since the results from this test, she was like, "You
have no greater chance of developing HELLP syndrome than the general
population at this point." Which was a HUGE relief to me, which
I'm thinking, "Why didn't this other bozo lady tell me that?"
I was so angry when I was like, you know I've spent three months
stressing about this when I would not have had to. And so, the
maternal-fetal medicine doctor was like, "If you would like to
see us, we could totally see you if you want to do that. Because
we're specialists, and we deal with high risk pregnancy." But
when I go back and tell my other doctor about that, she was like,
"Well, I don't know. They're pretty choosy about who they take
over there. And, I don't know. They would need a referral from me.
You can't just GO there.
And I'm like, "I'm telling you she TOLD me. The doctor over there told me."
And I'm like, "I'm telling you she TOLD me. The doctor over there told me."
M:
Well, some doctors have a bit of a complex.
S:
I guess. Well, she was sort of like saying "Why can't I handle
it? I can handle a high-risk pregnancy." But you obviously can't
because you had my medical records for three months, and you never
even read it. You don't know the severity of what happened to me the
first time. And so, finally, I just decided I don't care about how
she feels. I'm going to maternal-fetal medicine where they're
specialists. And every one of the their doctors read my medical
record. They were at Memorial [Hospital] at the time; now they're at
Penrose [Hospital], I think. But they all read my charts and they all
knew what happened to me before. They all knew a variety of different
tests that they could do. They monitored the crap out of me.
M:
Because I don't want somebody attending me in labor that doesn't know
what I'm afraid of and my health history, and doesn't seem to care
about my health.
S:
So, I was like totally comfortable with whoever happened to be on
call when labor intensified. They all know what's going on with me,
and they were great about my birth plan. I had -- I don't know if you
know Randy Baggins she's not a doula anymore -- she's a nurse now, I
think. But she was great. She was telling me all of these things
like, "You can birth in your own clothes, if you want, even
though you're birthing in the hospital. Which was really empowering
for me, and she--you know--they...they were just wonderful. Because I
had my own birth plan, and I went over it with the doc...Doctor
Martin. She looked at my birth plan, and she said... I mean I was
like, "You know I'm not trying to be unreasonable, but I don't
want an epidural if I don't need one. Because I researched about the
epidural after the fir st time. I didn't want an epidural
again. She was like, "It's okay. You don't want pain meds, you
don't have to have 'em. You know, we'll totally work within all of
that. "
M:
yeah, yeah
S:
It's a way to go, really. And she wasn't even ... actually Randy
caught him.
M:
REALLY?! The doula caught the baby?!
S:
Becuase I was in labor, then my labor kind of stalled out, then it
started again. I had a little bit of pitocin to kinda get it started
again, and then she was there and the labor & delivery nurse was
there. And I was sort of stalled out.... I dilated really quickly at
the end, and I was like...I'm doing the squatty bar and all this
stuff, so
I pushed like three times and he was out, and she caught him and she
was like--later she told me--she was like, "Well, yeah, I really
probably wasn't supposed to because I don't work for the
hospital--but you know--it was like I was there and he was coming.
And the nurse wasn't in the right room
It
was just funny, because Dr. Martin comes in and was like, "Looks
like I missed the show. I came as soon as they called me. It was
fine. IT was all good. And he was born at 36 weeks. I had my water
broke, so I went into labor at 36 weeks, but it was fine. And he was
on the NICU for a couple of days, because ...
But
that was pretty...it was good to kind of be able to assert myself and
do it the way I wanted to do it for the most part. I mean, I was not
a candidate for a home birth, because of my other issues, that
was not ever really an option. And I'm not sure I ever really would
have chosen that anyway, because I think that I would have been too
anxious.
M:
If it would have been more stressful for you to have been at home
then... Then, that can be more stressful for you to be at home, too.
S:
Yeah, so I was sorta like you know for the most part you can leave me
alone during the labor, and I bounce on the ball and do everything I
need to do
We'll
let you do that, but we're going to hook you up to the monitors and
let you walk around, but you have to have the monitor on. Okay,
whatever. I can live with that. I really just want a healthy baby
when I'm done with this process.
But, all of that had kind of led me here
But, all of that had kind of led me here
To
be able to make a difference for people...women...for MOMMIES! Yes,
mommies are so important. Yes, they are.
M:
So, what was the retreat that you did? Was that here in Colorado?
S:
It wasn't. They did one in Colorado, but -- when Jens was 2, we
thought we were going to have another baby, but it wasn't in the
cards for us. But, it um it was called the "Fertile Soul"
M:
But, is it like a fertility thing primarily, or...?
S:
Um, yeah I'll show the book. Dr. Randine Lewis is her name. She, um,
did this book called "The Fertility Cure" after
her own experience with loss and infertility. She trained in Western
medicine and Traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. It is all
about getting your body back in balance through diet, energy work,
thoughts and emotions. It’s also about opening yourself up; being
receptive to what is, rather than being so caught in effort based
trying to “achieve pregnancy.” Effort based trying only makes you
more and more out of balance. You cannot force a miracle; you can
only be embrace it. It is simple and complicated at the same time,
but I know I have Jens because of just that kind of work.
this interview was conducted in March 2016
http://www.polyesterrobot.
etsy.com/
"The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turns his face toward you and give you peace." Num. 6:24-26 NIV
"The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turns his face toward you and give you peace." Num. 6:24-26 NIV
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