Smoothies and Preggoness

So, I've not started juicing yet, but I have fully and totally and blissfully re-embraced my morning smoothie. I prefer simpler smoothies, so I make this every morning:

OJ (with vitamin C, calcium, and Vitamin D)
Spinach
Bananas

The Vitamin C helps me absorb the desperately essential iron in spinach, the Vitamin D helps me absorb the calcium. The orange juice is NOT raw, but it is simpler for me to buy Trader Joe's OJ with Vitamin D than juice oranges and add a liquid D supplement. I could definitely go outside and get my D from the sunshine, but the biting cold really hurts my skin and bones right now.

I have eating mostly vegan and significantly increasing my rawness (75ish%). I can already feel a MARKED improvement. Last night when I went potty, I piddled, wiped, washed my hands and realized that I hadn't even THOUGHT about doing it. For the past two months with the tumors pressing against my bladder, urinating was extremely painful to the point of tears. I would cry, pray, and say positive mantras just to go to the bathroom. Last night, I went like a 'normal' person - it didn't hurt at all and I didn't have to continuously repeat "I am a phoenix rising" just to stand from the toilet. HOW FRIGGIN' AWESOME!

I start my natural birthing class tonight! I decided that I was going to put my positive intentions fully into having Chase naturally instead of constantly planning for my tumors to grow, requiring me to need a c-section. I emailed a local center and, shockingly (or is it?), they had a class starting tomorrow (today!). Shockingly (OR IS IT?), she had one spot left, so Jeremy and I snatched it!

I am loving life as it is, but my future goals include juicing and having more days fully raw while maintaining a healthy caloric intake. Oo, and doing a little prenatal yoga. I need to start practicing my keigels!

Numnums in my Tumtum.

I had a very successful juice feast! I ended it a day early - 9 days, all juice, all awesome! Remember the lesson I learned? Listen.

On the 9th day, my body needed food. No, my body was DEMANDING food. I knew what cravings felt like, and this was not a craving. I broke my fast, and ate. And ate. And ate. Surprisingly, I didn't feel like the utter shit every single blog cautioned I would if I ate too much after breaking my fast.

You know why?

I was pregnant.

I am pregnant!

At first, I was completely freaked out because I was doing all the early no-no's of pregnancy: ingesting lemon and peppermint essential oil, drinking around 500 calories a day, eventually drinking wine, so on and so forth. I had missed a period but thought it normal with the stress of having my godson for two weeks, José coming to live with us, and Ester's adoption. I went to my OBGYN for regular scheduled maintenance and, SUPRISE! I'm pregnant.

I've had an interesting pregnancy so far, and I'm BIG. Holy moly. Right now, I am 18 weeks preggo. It took me a while to fully embrace the pregnancy after miscarrying my first child (more on that later), but I'm in full crazy happy mama mode now.

Anyways, yay!

Shhh. Listen.

I learned my most valuable lesson today: listen.

Overall, it was a bit of a crazed day. My precious neighbor, Hunter, was very sick and needed to be brought to the emergency. While I worked my little internet-based customer service job, I took care of his two little brothers, my daughter, and a neighborhood friend. It definitely tested my patience. I got a B.

I drank a romaine-cucumber-honeydew melon juice. It was super delicious, and FILLING. It's so odd, but drinking these juices make me feel so satisfied.

Generally, I like to drink my last juice around 4 in the evening so I empty my system of the fluids and get a solid night's rest. I just didn't feel like drinking it, though. I was still satisfied from my previous juice. Unfortunately, I didn't listen. I forced it.

I made a spinach-cucumber-apple juice. It was good and yummy, but I could feel that it just wasn't right. Soon enough, I felt nauseous. My husband came home shortly after, and he watched the kids so I could excuse myself for an enema.

(I swear enemas are the gift of God. More on this later.)

After I finished my enema, I instantly felt refreshed and centered. I'm still not sure why I forced that second juice. I am in the process of fasting; I should always listen to my body's guidance.

Lesson learned.

The Ease of Peas

Day Four.

If every day could be like day five, a juice fast would be easy peasy.

I woke up refreshed and excited for the new day. I had an overall feeling of calm entering the day, a feeling that never quite left me.

To start the day, I had a celery-honeydew melon juice. I really liked the blend of sweet and salty!

It was gorgeous outside! We went outside, enjoyed the company of the sun and each other. We came back in, and I started my chores. To my surprise, both Daeshaun and Ester pitched in and cleaned their rooms without my asking.

?!?!?WHEN DOES THIS HAPPEN?!?!??!

!!!!!!!!WAHOOO!!!!!!!

Holy Mother, Father, and Child. I could have cried from happiness. A few hours had passed, so I made celery-red chard-carrot juice. I set up my children with a movie, and took my bath. I liked this juice, but used too much carrot. (I used three. Whoops! I guess I was still a little nervous after my green juice disaster yesterday.) About halfway through the juice, I just didn't want anymore. I put the lid on my juice and set it aside. I ended up drinking the rest of the juice about two hours later and was completely satisfied through the entire day.

I usually drink three juices in the day, but yesterday I only needed two. I was a little perplexed by this, but decided to honor my body's signals. I am really becoming in tune with my body and what it needs because of this juice fast.

Tonight was the dreaded night: I cooked dinner. It was a quick and easy dinner of spaghetti. I needed to shop to pick up more greens, so I planned to go shopping during dinner. I cooked, served my family, and left. I realized that I can and do spend special time with them, and it's not a horrible thing for me not to sit at the dinner table right now. It's something I need, and goshdarnitall, I can be selfish.

I went shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, came home, and enjoyed a wonderful evening with the family when I returned.

The only baddish part of the day came in the wee hours of the morning; 1:30, to be precise. I woke up and peered outside, which was slightly glowing due to the a light turned on by our entry door. I assumed it was the awakening sun, and got up and started bustling around.

For some reason, I got really anxious that I had woken up so early. I went back to bed as soon as I realized my error, but my heart was racing. I closed my eyes, settled into my favorite position and repeated, "I am ready and able to go to sleep." Soon enough, I did. Is that bad, really? I don't think so.

I am so surprised at the ease of day four. I've read that after the third day, your digestive system goes to sleep. I guess this is true!

Yay for the ease of peas! Give peas a chance! (I wonder if peas are good juiced!)

The Green Monster

Day three.

(Side note: one of my favorite bands, Gaelic Storm, named their third album Tree. Get it?! One, two, TREE?! Ha! Now every time I see or hear the word 'three', my head chimes, "One, two, tree!" The littlest things amuse me.)

I started the day with a spinach-watermelon-ginger-carrot-strawberry juice. It was pretty delicious, but if I'm being honest, I like the simpler combination of one fruit with one vegetable. This juice did NOT receive the HOLY MACKEREL distinction of juices.

It was a gorgeous day, so we spent most of it outside. I love watching Ester play. It is amazing to me how, even though she is not our birth daughter, I still feel this overwhelming sense of pride watching my kid. We have had her for three years; the adoption date is July 23rd. Still, it feels like she is an extension of my husband and I. I could not imagine loving her more if she was from my womb. Seriously. Anyways, she is just a really friggin' cool kid and I get geeked out watching her play with the other children in the neighborhood because she is kind, funny, fun, and engaging.

After an hour or two, I went inside and made a green juice. I made red chard-spinach-lime juice. My recent pattern has been to make my green juice around noon and take a relaxing bath while I sip my juice.

Little did I know while I took my bath, I would be joined by The Green Monster.



Holy Mother, that green juice was horrible. I don't know where I went wrong, but bless my soul, I never want to go there again. Stubbornly, I thought, "You're just not used to such powerful greens. Drink it. " That is likely true.

Again, "Drink it."

I whined at myself, "But I don't wanna."

"DRINK IT."

"Fine."

Ugh. I chugalugged it, and felt so nauseous. I thought it would pass, but it lingered with me for quite some time. Putting a few drops of peppermint on my tongue, I went back outside with Mp3 player in tow. I listened to the awesome that is Ray LaMontagne and Adele while the sun warmed and healed me. After an hour or so, I felt much, much better.

Lesson learned: it's okay to toss a juice.

My shiny, heroic husband made me a watermelon-ginger-red chard juice. He went really, really light on the chard by using only 3-4 stalks. He rocks. The juice was phenomenal, and the ginger helped soothe any remaining protests my stomach had to make.

Then, it was time for dinner. As a family, we are relatively informal during the day when we eat. If it's sunny, we sit outside and eat our breakfast. For me, it's juice. The kids are digging waffles right now, but Ester usually will eat fruit or cereal. Lunch is whatever we want, whenever we want. Supper, though, is our important meal.

The television goes off. We sit together. We talk. We enjoy.

Seriously, it's likely my favorite time of the day. I don't quite know how to handle suppertime right now. So far, I've been able to avoid it. On the 3rd, we were at the races, so the kids at crappy racetrack food. On the 4th, we were at my aunt's house. Last night, though, we mutually agreed that it was time to make my favorite meal.

Veggie Soft Tacos. Summer squash. Carrots. Red peppers. Onions. Mushrooms. All sauteed. In EVOO. Refried black beans. Fresh Guacamole. Fresh Tomatoes. All wrapped up in soft taco goodness. Oh. My. God. I love. This.

The smells, the memories - I almost broke. I wasn't hungry at all and, logically, I realized it. Still, I wanted to wrap all that yummy in a soft blanket of mmmgood and shove it in my mouth. I had intended to sit with the family, but I remained bolted to the couch. I was certain if I sat at the table, I would crumple into a mess of desperation and eat one of those tacos.

The meal itself is not bad, but the eating of it would have been. My digestive system is going into rest and glutting on that amount of solids would have been a horrible shock. While I am only planning on doing a ten day fast, it will take an additional four or five days to slowly ease my tummy-tum awake. Your digestive system needs to hit the snooze button about 409649 times before it is fully awake after a fast.

I withstood gobbling tacos. Go me!

In accordance with the rules of our house, Jeremy left the dishes for me. Yanno, one person cooks, the other person cleans kind of thing. I take away his rockstar status until homeboy starts cleaning my juicer after I 'cook' for myself. Mutter.

The night went well, and sleep wasn't so elusive.

All in all, day tree (I crack myself up) was a success. I learned a lot. My emotions were relatively stable. Day four, it's on.

Like Donkey Kong.

Heck yeah.

Chewin' my nails.

..well, not really. I'm not a nail biter. But I feel like chewing them into little agitated stubs. My thoughts are racing and it would be so nice to focus on something else, if just for two minutes.

Last night, to be honest, was pretty fucking terrible. I do not swear often, but when I do, it's with intention. I really, really intend all over that 'fuck.' I snapped at my husband for being ten minutes 'late' for bed. I couldn't settle into my nighttime relaxation routine.

I thought to myself, "Self. Just go to friggin' sleep."

"Fine."

So, I attempted sleep but it escaped me like a bratty little child. My thoughts sped around, flitting from one stressful topic to the other. Could I keep up this juice thing? Am I being stupid? God. This is definitely stupid. Am I even going to lose weight? Will I gain all the weight back after I start eating solids? I hear all the time that people gain a few pounds back after they stop juicing. Well, if I only lose a few pounds, will I gain those back and all this crap will be for nothing? I'm going to be fat forever. Some people were just supposed to be fat, and I'm one of them.

Nice loop, huh? I told myself this all night. When I finally fell asleep, I had a dream that I traveled to a hotel to see my geeky friends. I went up in an elevator, but the whole time I was freaking out, stressed, panicked, and looking in the mirrored walls and saying how fat I was and I didn't want to go because it was too embarrassing. But, when I entered the room with my friends, they all applauded and cheered that I had come!

So, I'm a big believer in dream symbolism. I have a few books and website I rely on for translation, and working through the emotions and symbols in this dream just blew me away. In fact, I laughed.

Traveling signifies moving towards your life goals.
A hotel signifies a new state of mind or a shift in consciousness.
Moving up in an elevator signifies rising to a higher state of conscious.

WOW.

My emotions throughout the entire dream were very anxious, but the symbolism is clear: change is happening.

I used to medicate my anxiety with Lexapro, but I have been pharmaceutical free since November '08. Episodes like last night might have sent me back to the doctor's office, begging for a new prescription. I am humbled by my subconscious' nudging that this CHANGE IS HAPPENING and I will reach the end; it will be joyous.

I have read in many blogs that juicing will invoke a wild ride of emotions. I knew to expect this, but was still surprised at the intensity. I am grateful for my new focus: change. is. happening.

Happy Independence (from solids) Day!

So, day two.

Let me be really honest: I am so shocked I made it this far. (Again with my preconceptions! Whee!)

Last night, I somehow managed to fight off temptation and ignore the tantalizing wafts of french fries tickling my nose. I had fun at the car races, but mostly because my family had fun. I am not totally digging the whole watching cars go in a circle thing. But hey, it's all about being with your peeps.

This morning, I woke up bright and early at 6 AM. I got up, checked my Facebook, checked my email, and went right back to bed. I fully blame my husband and his amazing snuggleableness. I sincerely believe that man would sleep 18 hours of the day.

We lounged in bed until a bit after 8 when the children finally started rousing after their big night. I made watermelon-nectarine-strawberry juice, which earned the HOLY MACKEREL stamp of approval. Then, I went shopping.

(WARNING: THIS MAY BE KINDA GROSS.)

At Trader Joe's, I realized I needed a bathroom now. No, not in a bit. Now. What came out of my behind was pretty foul smelling, although watery. I courtesy flushed, don't worry.

I came home, did a few chores, then took my bath while I enjoyed a romaine-red leaf lettuce-lime juice. This was good. I find greens to be very centering. Where I chug-a-lug my fruit juices, I sip my green juices slowly.

Then, it was time. (Cue ominous music.) We got ready to go my Aunt's house for a barbeque. I made plum-nectarine-watermelon juice, brought my water, grabbed the pies (not for me!) and joined the fun of the Fourth. The company was fantastic and I got to enjoy the foods through my husband, who dutifully described each to me.

My mood was pretty stable today but, around seven, I became very tired and lethargic. This could have everything to do with my lack of sleep the night before, but it is worth noting.

Around 9, I was still tired and getting a bit of a headache. I rubbed peppermint oil on my hands and inhaled while my husband rubbed my shoulders, and the headache subsided. I have a history of migraines, so I need to nip it in the bud quickly!

It's 10, and I'm feeling very tired but PROUD. Two days! That is so amazing!