Who says you can't have a blast during pregnancy?

Wow! I can not believe it's been more then a month since my last post.  I have had a super exciting month thus far full of parties, beach trips, dinners, lunches, etc and all of this in my 7th and 8th month of pregnancy.  Who says you can not have a great time during pregnancy? Take that pessimists!!!

So now we are going to go back in time to April.   One of the most exciting months of my pregnancy.

The first exciting news of the month was finding out the sex of the baby!  Hubby and I had a name picked out for either sex and for some reason we both thought that baby would be a girl.  I had been taking all of these courses with so many women and the Goddess was such a prominent word in my life, it seemed only natural.  Also B had a dream about a little girl in pig tails which was so vivid he was convinced baby would be a girl.

Life however is full of surprises and on our appointment day: April 1st, Fools Day:  We saw on the sonogram that baby was clearly a BOY!!! I hope he one day does not kill me for posting this picture of him so exposed.  

His name would be SEBASTIAN and the universe was very wise in giving us a boy.  I could not be happier to know that we would be guiding his little life towards being the happiest and best man he came to this physical world to be. 

View From top of the House

Mid - Month came an amazing week long getaway with Sierra Bender in her Goddess Bootcamp Level 1 coure in Rincon, Puerto Rico.  This was an incredible week with 30 other magnificent women from the Island and beyond.  We did everything from Yoga, Tantric Exercises, Beach Hiking, Drum circles, Sage Ceremonies, Picking your goddess card, dressing up like your goddess night, wild woman dance, sharing, sweat lodge, not to mention delicious food made for us especially every morning, noon and night by a local Goddess Chef Rebecca with nothing but local and super fresh ingredients.  Furthermore we stayed on the most amazing house on the beach with the incredible Rincon Sun greeting us every morning.

Because I was a bit scared of the changes my body would be going thru the intention I set for myself prior to the Bootcamp was to connect with my body.  I was on my 5th month or week 20 and so far I did not really have a very noticeable belly however everyone kept telling me that I would be popping very soon.

Crazy thing is that when I arrived to Rincon on saturday I was not big and by the time I left the beach my belly literally popped.  This picture is of me celebrating my belly for Goddess dress up night.  The goddess that came to me faced down chosen with my left hand of intuition was Sheela Nag-Gig, the goddess of Fertility, how fitting.  That night I let go of all of the exterior fears and embraced the sacred changes my body was going thru to make space for the growth of a little human life.  After I felt happy, lighter and amazing. 

Every single woman there was on their own journey and we all took such amazing care of each other like nothing I had ever experienced before.  The outcome of this week long journey was total acceptance of the changes to come.  I was at the right place at the right time.  My timing is perfect and elegant.  All worked out to perfection.  Thank you all for being part of such an amazing experience.  

How lucky am I?!

Now do not even think that my month of fun and excitement is over! After I returned to NY from PR I had another amazing trip planned.  This time it was for my Mastery Weekend # 3 in South Beach Miami. This was the trip i was feeling most skeptical about since SoBe is a party beach and I would be over 5 months pregnant. To my amazing surprise I too had a BLAST!  

I was surrounded by amazing friends and/or sister goddesses every single day that completely took care of me.  In the green dress is the amazing Leslie Turner which just happens to be a midwife.  In the white dress is the incredible Tina Farrell which just happens to be a Doctor and in the stripped dress is the delicious Monique Marco, Yoga Instructor and Nutrition Guru.  Could I be surrounded by any more genius???? Hello????  It makes me realize just how blessed I really have been....


I felt completely safe every day not to mention being blessed with phenomenal weather, the perfect Hotel "Raleigh", Mama Genas wisdom in the convention center by day and fun by night.  I was surprised and impressed by my stamina, my health and completely debunked again all of the negative things I had heard about pregnancy.

This month was a perfect example of all of the negative information we are fed about pregnancy and how completely the exact opposite it can be.

All I needed was a bit of courage to go through the fear of what I had heard could be and come out the winner on the other side with nothing but amazing experiences, memories and happiness.  All of these days directly contribute to the development of Sebastian.  I am sure that he can feel his Mama feeling happy and all of the chemicals my body was producing where going directly into his blood stream.   HERE'S TO BAKING A HAPPY BABY!!!!

  

   

Mama Gena intro and signing up to Mastery

From a previous post you read about the School of Womanly Arts and my incredible weekend in the Miami Sister Goddess Reunion.  I am sure by now you know it did not end there.  How could it? How could I pass the opportunity of getting a taste of what all of these women had?  This course was held in NYC. This is where I live, could it be any easier?  So on January 20th I went to the Mama Gena Mastery Introduction.

The Intro was called a "Life Unbound" and it was fun, exciting and filled with NY woman who were as curious as I was to see what the course was all about.  I spoke to my dear friend Monique about it and she also came with to check it out.  The excitement after the Intro was undeniable and everyone was walking towards the back room to sign up for this incredible adventure.  I also wanted to sign up but my only concern was that the course would begin in March and go all the way through Mid-June and I was a bit skeptical at the thought of doing this while I was pregnant.  Only one person would be able to answer this question so I waited to speak to Mama Gena about her thoughts on the matter.  As soon as I asked she said that it would be absolutely perfect for me to take the course for I would be surrounded by woman that had gone through the same thing and would love and support me through it.


Also a very important documentary that I watched affected me tremendously by learning that a babies life starts in uteral and the environment the mother places her self in is particularly important during her pregnancy.  This sounded like the perfect ingredient.

My girlfriend Monique signed up, Tina, Line and Merry had already signed up and my dear friend Inna would be in Team Pleasure which are the people that assist through out the course.
I said F* it, signed up and followed my intuition once again.  I am starting to see how following ones gut makes life so much more fun.

My adventure with Mama Gena started on March 05, 2011 and that first weekend was mind blowing and incredible.  Over 200 woman from all over the world signed up and came.  The furthest one out came from Katar. Others traveled from Denmark as well as Canada and from all around the US.  There were woman from all backgrounds, ages, sizes and personalities.  I can not really give too much away but it was transformational for many including myself and this was the first weekend!

I heard and saw things that I have never seen before.  It's an interesting fact that in our society there is not much real education on honest female related topics that really explaining our history, our struggles, our truths & our previous limitations.  We have all of these ideas of how a woman should live their life however they are built and based on sad conditioning from previous rules, laws, regulations of ideas meant to keep us down, bound & controlled.  This is a forum which allows woman to explore everything that being a woman is, was and can be.  I truly believe that this type of education is necessary for every woman in the world.  My 200 sisters and I were now part of it.

  

The first three months

The first three months of my pregnancy incredibly enough were like any other day.  I was blessed to never have felt any of the typical symptoms of pregnancy which is why a lot of the time I temporarily forgot I was pregnant.  I had tons of energy, no nausea, no moodiness, no vomiting, no pain, not much weight gain or body changes but the total and complete opposite.   Of course no drinking alcohol, very small amounts of caffeine, lots of fruits, no spicy food, goats milk, no lifting heavy things, pre-natal vitamins and overall healthy living.  Even after my first sonogram where you get to see the first glimpse of life (which is insane) with the little heart beating shown by a flash of light going in an out, it was still very surreal.  

Around this time I was beginning to have all kinds of crazy thoughts and feelings.  On one hand I was feeling a bit paranoid since my very old and old school OBGYN insisted on my high risk of miscarriage because of my age on the first three months and on the other hand the idea of being pregnant freaked me out beyond belief and I felt so wrong for feeling that way.   I think there are three types of reactions to this news from women:  1) is immediate joy 2) is first insanity, insecurity, and then joy 3) all of these at the same time. I am here to tell you that either reaction is completely normal so do not beat your self up for any feelings that come up.  IT'S A HUGE DEAL.  Of course you are going to have a huge reaction to it.  

I do believe that having a close, loving group of friends and family is very important during this time so you can release all of your mind junk out for clarity.  I will be for ever grateful to Marisol & Ursula for listening to my craziness during that time since they both have kids and they each guided me out of my madness with many loving conversations.  I will also like to thank Monique and Inna for listening to me without judgement.  Thank God(dess) for great friends.

I would also like to note that signing up to Baby Center and receiving an e-mail about how my baby and  body is changing is what worked best for me.  I purchased many books and I attempted to read them to get informed however as soon as I read something negative, I closed the book and put it away.  

There was a time where woman just had babies and trusted their bodies fully to take them thru the process.  That is what I am attempting to do.  So far it has worked fantastic!

The final ingredient

This was the final ingredient that created just the perfect amount of excitement for me to dance with the idea of making a baby.  It all started with my girlfriend Cristina and her baby shower in South Beach.    Flight was booked and off i went.  I had a great time seeing her again, met her husband, friends and saw her beautiful family. My reservation was till tuesday so we all had dinner, went out with her friends, managed to have a very important client visit from a side project I was working on and even snuck in an Empowered Woman's Summit held in the City of Miami.

In the midst of all of this my amazing friend Inna (Shapkina) and I revisited a conversation regarding something called "The World Wide Sister Goddess Reunion" for the School of Womanly Arts which was happening the following weekend in Miami.  Now Inna had mentioned this to me before but I was not sure that something called Sister Goddess Reunion would be my cup of tea.  Just because I adore Inna and fully trusted her judgement I considered it.  I then thought I was already in Miami and since I was not under any time constraint I extend my South Beach stay for another 4 days.  I sacrificed and stayed longer to meet up with my super fun friend Inna for yet another interesting experience.

So I needed a hotel room since she was already staying with a friend at the Raleigh.  She went on some SG website and got me the phone number of a girl named Tina that was looking to come and needed a roommate.  I called her up, we totally connected on the phone and voila......we confirmed our stay together at a hotel next door.   Everything was working out to perfection.  Friday morning came, I packed my bag and moved over to the next hotel.  Checked in and then walked over to the Raleigh to meet Inna and her friend Erin.  This is where the Mama Gena experience really started.  The Raleigh is the hub or home base for everything Mama Gena in Miami.  As soon as you walk in pink boas & hundreds of woman take over this hotel.  There is an air of fun and excitement beaming from ever face.  It is very difficult to describe the entire weekend since there was so much going on from the day class in the Convention Center, to beach days, night events, lunches, dinners, hotel pool parties and everything in between however one thing I can say is that it left me in a state of ecstasy.  Inna, Tina, Erin and myself had a blast all weekend long.  Along the way we met Line from Denmark and Merry from Pittsburg along with hundreds of other amazing woman.

Everyone had their own particular reasons for being there but one thing we all had in common was the feeling we all shared from such an amazing weekend.  The truth is that many woman do not support each other, and being surrounded by so many positive uplifting fun sexy women was unlike anything I had every experienced before and such a breath of fresh air.  It was wonderful to experience another magnificent side of the female persona and I was forever grateful for being given this gift by my incredibly wise sister Inna.
I left Miami with such a high from beginning to end.


I spent 10 extraordinary days with incredible woman and when I got home I was so excited and full of energy it was contagious.

Two weeks after these 10 ecstatic, incredibly fun days I went back to Miami with my husband and we made a baby.  I really believe that the high of the entire experience, the woman I met, the possibilities that opened up, the things I learned, had all to do with the energy generating in me at the time of conception.  INCREDIBLE!!!
More on SWA later :)

My two pregnancy inspirations

I can not continue to write this blog without mentioning two of my sisters from another mother that oh so inspired me during their amazing pregnancy not so long ago.  My two dear amazing girlfriends Cristina and Patricia.  They both became pregnant a couple of months apart last year and were very much a big part of my life during their pregnancy.  One lives in NY and the other in Miami.

PATRICIA

My lovely sister Patricia and I met while taking a Flamenco Class in NYC some years ago.  She is one of the loveliest women I know and we quickly developed a great, amazing friendship.

I adore her and her husband Julio as well as their beautiful new born  baby girl Emma.  They have one of the most amazing marriages I have ever seen and now they share that love with their adorable baby.  What a perfect love story.

CRISTINA

 My other lovely sister Cristina and I went to college together and over the years we lost each other as it happens in life and then found each other again thru Facebook as it happens in life.  Thank god. Reconnecting again was wonderful since we found out that even though time had passed we had many thing in common.  Months later she called me with the exciting news of being pregnant and on another day, that her baby shower would be at the end of Oct 2010 in Miami.  This was the perfect opportunity to see her again especially during such an amazing occasion.

To the left is her looking amazing in her baby shower and to the right is little precious baby Roman Parker Lloyd.  Thank you universe for bringing her back!

These two women were extremely instrumental in forming the very limited and dreadful ideas I had on pregnancy.  Both in their unique different ways showed me that pregnancy was as simple or complicated as you wanted it to be.  Now I am not claiming to be a medical anything and this is simply my opinion based on what I have seen and experience.  My thoughts are simple;  If you fill your head up with and expect the typical "supposable symptoms" of pregnancy such as being tired, nausea, vomiting, back pain, moodiness etc. then most likely that is what you will experience.  Both Cristina and Patricia suffered non of this and had smooth and amazing pregnancies which is an experience so few woman get to have.  I am sure by now you see why my two kick ass girls were so inspiring and at this point I wasn't even considering having a child and being pregnant.  Oh universe you are so wise and clever!

Final thought;  I wish there was more of this on TV, on movies, on the news, on books so us woman can embrace and celebrate this amazing, magical, miraculous gift we get to experience instead of fearing it and pushing it away, or depending so much on the opinion of books and/or doctors without trusting our amazing bodies that are so well equipped and innately trained to go through pregnancy.
Love Love Love - C.

Claiming my space in the world as a divine goddess

Now that you know how this baby was conceived I must share the story of how this very active nyc chick opened up to the idea of having a child.  I am pretty sure many women can relate to putting having a family in the back burner for a long time since our lives are so full of activities, the excitement that city living brings as well as our endless hunger for success.

On May 14th, 2010 I left the interior design world & my very cozy, secure, well paying job for the unknown, to search for myself, to find bigger and better things to do with my life.....in other words "I quit".  When that persistent thought pulls at you and you get to the point which you can no longer ignore it, action is the only logical following step.  Luckily my husband was very much in agreement with my decision which made things much easier.  Also a brilliant move on my part was coming to an agreement with my soon to be former employer where we would work together in the happy separation of my clients for a comfy severance package.

So there I went, my initial idea was to travel the world, go to my birth country Uruguay, see my family, take lots of classes, spend much time at the beach, hang out with friends, redo my apt and be open to receive my new direction.  One gift giving to me by the universe completely changed my world.
I remember this day as if it were yesterday:
After many months of not working & playing I was in my apartment completely freaking out when an intense desire of wanting to get out of the city came about me.  It was wednesday and luckily for me the previous tenant subscribed to the Kripalu Catalog and every month I would receive it in the mail.  That day I received the new one and opened it up to find out it was the perfect place to go to for rest and relaxation.  I went on the website and booked the first weekend seminar I saw which I could not even tell you right now what it was,  I just needed out and anything would do.  I reserved a spot on the shuttle that takes you from Manhattan to the Center and off I went.  This place is 4 hours away and having never been there before it was very exhilarating and relaxing at the same time.

On the shuttle which I completely recommend to anyone going that way I listened to music and with every mile that passed I let go of stress.  During music breaks I would be in silence and by coincidence heard the other woman on the bus comment on a weekend course they were about to take called Goddess Boot-camp with a woman named Sierra Bender.  They got my attention and I turned to inquire about it.  They explained how it was only for woman and how empowering it was supposed to be.  Interesting I thought.  As soon as we got to the center off the shuttle we went and to my left was a tall, gorgeous woman with long dark hair, chiseled cheeks and lots of presence.  Once I got inside to the front desk and inquired about the goddess boot-camp I realized that the woman by the front entrance was Sierra Bender.  I thought to myself, I want what she's got and quickly changed my weekend plans to take her course instead.  This is how it started;  It was 45 women and we did lots of yoga, breathing exercises, hiking, archery, sharing & readings from her book "Goddess to the Core" which contains much valid information on the history of women in the world and the transition from the Worshipped Goddess to the women we are today.
The core of this course is the exercises however the SOUL of the course is the shift that happens inside as you expose yourself to so much information about women.  No other place or class ever spoke to me in this way about the real ME.

This was my introduction to my Inner Goddess.  To a much deeper place of feminine essence all woman  posses.  That connection to the devine, to our bodies, to our sensual feminine side, to our female power, to mother earth and father sky - body and spirit.  That weekend I claimed my space in the world as a sensual, sexual, powerful, sacred, divine Goddess and I was never going back.
I am incredibly grateful that this was placed in my path and now looking back it is the only way that I would have opened myself up to the divine gift given to me by the universe of bringing a life into this world.   Everyone is touched by different experiences, this one experience shifted my paradigm and changed my life.
                                                      Thank you Universe & Sierra for your amazing work.
      

Reasons for starting this blog

So ladies (and gentleman) out there in cyberland.......I have gotten many many requests and have had many conversations with mostly girlfriends on somehow voicing out to the world how A WOMAN CAN actually have a absolutely magnificent experience during PREGNANCY.  At first I was like yea right, you guys are my friends and you love me therefore you will say such things to make me feel good.
However after some time passing and meeting many more other woman astounded at my experience thus far I started hearing the same thing from them.  They expressed how great it was to hear a woman talk about how fun the pregnancy experience is instead of how painful, dreadful, sickening, tiring and limiting it is.  THAT IS WHY I AM HERE making my blogging debut.  I want to share my experiences and pictures proving it so with you so woman can get a different take of the creation of a life!!!
I will update my ladies on the incredible journey of pregnancy, childbirth and living a ridiculously fun life during it.  Here we go!

I am going to start by giving you a little 411 on me.  My name is Claudia, I live in Brooklyn NY and currently 38 years old.  I am married and this is our first child. I am 6 months pregnant.
To be totally honest we did not plan to get pregnant which is kind of unusual since most woman my age are at the point where it's kind of now or never.  I did not have that feeling but new that eventually I wanted to have a child.  I recall going to my OBGYN when I had just turned either 36 or 37 with my husband and asking the million dollar question of what are my chances?  Of course the answer was very grim, very clinical and full of statistics.
I must admit that hearing that my egg count starts dropping quite fast after 30 blah blah blah was not really what I wanted to hear but I always hold what I hear from doctors as interesting information but not the absolute and total truth.  I like to live my life more on the premiss that I create my own reality and my body did not really own the information provided by my very old, male french GYNO.

The reason why I am sharing this with you is do to the way which we conceived little baby Sebastian.  The entire thing started by me getting this very loud annoying feeling in my gut that kept telling me to for what ever reason: go to Miami's Art Basel Weekend on the 1st week of Dec 2010 with hubby.  Now keeping in mind that back in May 2010 I had left my very well paying and secure job for the unknown to find bigger and better things to do with my life.
Also keeping in mind that I had just returned from a 10 day Miami trip having had a blast and spending much of the money that i did not have, this feeling of going to Art Basel continued to persist.
I remember checking flights and hotels everyday hoping to find something with in our budget but if you are trying to stay at a 5 star fabulous hotel the word budget does not apply.
To make a short story even shorter I hesitated, hesitated, hesitated till I could not take it anymore and booked the flight and our stay at the Shore Club hotel for 3 days and 2 nights.

My husband god bless his heart is very good at dealing with my craziness, my spontaneous ways and my enthusiasm for it all!  So along we went to our very short trip to Art Basel Miami.

We had an absolutely amazing time but contradictory to the event we did not see much art. Instead we concentrated on the amazing weather, great food, lots of interesting people, shopping, beach, sand, sun and lots of Mojito pitchers while lounging in our beach chairs.

All of this fun and relaxation lead to my husband to suggesting after a couple of pitchers of mojitos, the following:  LET'S GO UP TO THE ROOM AND MAKE A BABY!
My first reaction was WHAT? My second reaction was ARE YOU CRAZY? .........After mentioning it again, it seemed that the location, the weather, the drinks, the letting go of the NY hustle and the crazy fun we were having lead me to agree with such a suggestion so we went off.

After our beautiful love making session in our hotel room, he packed his bag and left for the airport.  I stayed an extra day to actually see some ART BASEL and meet some friends.
Now the last thing I would like to note is the very loving and sacred conversation I had in the room by myself with the little spirit that was about to enter the non yet physical body of our soon to be baby.
Of course I had no idea if I actually had become pregnant but I went with my gut and welcomed her or him and communicated all of the love that he/she would receive from us.  Later that day/night I went to the show, had dinner and a great time with friends and kind of forgot about the entire thing.

The conception story ends on December 31st.  As we were preparing to go out to a friends New Years Eve Party, I communicated to my husband the infamous phrase "I am late".
He seemed to be ecstatic while I was kind of freaking out a bit inside.......He ran to the corner store and returned with an EPT test.  We quickly went into the bathroom and so went the first test.  The result was positive which of course I did not believe and needed further proof.  A second test was in order since of course I was about to turn 38 in a month and how could it be FROM ONE TRY that I would get pregnant?  It goes against all of the blah blah blah that doctors, articles, websites, books etc. predict would happen.  So 15 minutes later the second test proved to be positive and his time I was positively SHOCKED, SURPRISED, SPEECHLESS, HAPPY etc.  I had spent thus far almost 38 years of my life without any real responsibilities TILL NOW.....  

That New Years Eve party was unlike any other and if you note in the picture of us I would definitely say we were both secretly glowing!

Hope you liked it and STAY TUNNED FOR MORE!!

Claudia, Billy & Sebastian