A topic has been chosen!

About 18 months ago I walked into my OBs office. I was 4 or 5 months pregnant and I confessed that I was feeling depressed. My OB laughed at me, said "You're pregnant", and walked out of the room. I was so upset by the treatment that I received that I searched for a new OB. I asked my neighborhood listserv and many women recommended a birth center with midwives. Craziness! I didn't even know midwives existed still (didn't they deliver babies during the Frontier Days?) I wanted the "safety" of a hospital birth. I wanted an Epidural. I wanted free formula samples. However, I was desperate and decided to check out the location.

During this same time in my life I went to Taco Bell once a week, I trusted doctors 100%, and I had never been inside of a Whole Foods. I was pretty healthy, exercised, and tried to eat a balanced diet. But, as one may guess, I was not a conscientious consumer. I really relied on the notion that industry was regulated, the medical field was well-trained in ALL areas, and anything suggesting otherwise was a crazy conspiracy story.

Some days I feel like I should write a Thank You note to that OB. If she had been kinder to me that day (or had called me back right away a few months earlier when I had heavy bleeding) I am not sure that I would have embarked on this journey towards holistic living.

Over the last 18 months, our family has slowly become more and more "crunchy". We cloth diaper, we practice Elimination Communication, we introduced solids using BLW (Baby Led Weaning), we practice Extended Breastfeeding (and I am working on becoming an LLL leader), we co-sleep, we have use an alternative vaccine schedule, we buy all of our meat, fruits, and veggies from a farm and get the rest at Yes!, I make my own cleaning supplies, and we are exploring homeopathy. We don't always do these perfectly, but we try our best. All of this started with the midwives educating me on the value of natural childbirth and breastfeeding. Once I realized how the system was sabataging the efforts of women who wanted to do both of these very natural, biological things, I began to look at other parts of life with that new lens. Projects that I hope to do soon include growing my own food, canning food, going shampoo free, and using Mama Cloth.

This blog is going to catalogue my journey. I will discuss my current projects and will probably discuss projects we have tackled over this last 18 months as well. I hope the give tips for people who are interested in these choices and I hope to include the reasons that I found compelling for the choice. I would like to say, though, that there is no judgement here. Holistic living is not a checklist of items that make a person "good enough". Holistic living is a framework. It is being open to new ideas and looking at data when making decisions. For me, it also means trying to pick the options that are as close to the biological norm as possible. My conclusions may be different than another person's. Something I think is crazy this week might be something I try in a year and it may be the same way for my reader. Please comment, ask questions, and even disagree but attacks or hurtful comments will be deleted.

I am excited to start this blog and share our journey (I know it sounds corny but it really is a journey complete with stops, starts, and backtracking!)

Saundra