Here We Grow Again

Three years ago, almost to the day, I left my job in corporate healthcare in order to work for myself, full time, in my own wellness company, One Touch Wellness, Inc. All year, I had prayed for the strength, finances, discipline, faith, and favor to abandon my comfy direct deposit, health insurance, and 401K, to pursue a desire that had been burning within me since I was in college, 10 years earlier. My fiance', at the time, encouraged me, almost daily, to take the leap. After a month long yoga retreat in Costa Rica, I finally did.

Over the next week, I went on an organizing, workout, cleansing, and cleaning spree. By the end of the week, I was exhausted... I was also nauseous, emotional, and "tender". So, before beginning another week in that condition, on Mother's Day 2012, I took a pregnancy test, and passed with flying colors- pink, to be exact. It turns out that the strength, stability, discipline, faith, and favor needed was not for my business, but for my child and my family.

I had just begun teaching sunrise yoga at a fitness bootcamp. I continued teaching through my 32nd week. I also continued to hike up Stone Mountain and practice Bikram yoga. In my second trimester, I started taking pregnancy yoga, pilates, and water aerobics. I also quickly found another job and moved our planned December wedding, to August. My entire life was spinning out of my control. My everything was revolving around my child's embryonic development, as well as her future.

My daughter was healthy and so was I, but I had an unmanageable and constant nausea throughout the entire pregnancy, known as hyperemesis gravidarum. I also had a new husband who was living 3 states away, who was not privy to much of my misery. At the beginning of my third trimester, I moved to be with my husband, left my home, left my mother, and ultimately, left my business. 

I loved being with my husband and I loved caring for and nursing my child. My adjustment to a new space, new routine, new financial status, little support, and little social outlet was a lot to handle at once. I declare that my success with breastfeeding, after a challenging pregnancy is the major reason that I did not fall into the throws of postpartum depression.

My overall experience with pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding is what has driven me to create Blossom Health and Maternal Wellness.

I believe that I am purposed to help women to create a greater life for themselves than they are currently living. However, 2 years into motherhood, I found myself living a fraction of the life that I had been called to live. My life is more than 3 minute showers, skipped lunches, workout excuses, and 3 pair of yoga pants to last all week... without any yoga. I was not meant to study women's anatomy, physiology, and mental health, only to keep the information between random Facebook posts and me. It was becoming painful to not be doing more... saying more, teaching and helping more.  

Women have children every day, but each life is truly a miracle, and each mother needs to and deserves to be supported in each pregnancy. That need for support should not be discounted by family, friends, physicians, or the mothers, themselves, simply because everyday is someone's BIRTH day. The fitness, nutrition, education, and rehabilitation that we provide helps to support new and expectant mothers, so that they can spend more positive energy caring for their child. 

While I was in the initial stages of creating Blossom, there was all kinds of confirmation that this was to be. From phone calls to friends sharing news of their pregnancy to pictures of me nursing my daughter being plastered all over the city, the time is definitely now. In church, on Mother's Day 2015, three years after discovering my "YES", my pastor talked about women living in and believing in their own destiny. I am doing that through Blossom Health and Maternal Wellness, starting now, with your help. 

Happy Mother's Day, today and every day!

and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to BLOSSOM. ~ anais nin