Baby Wiggles McD

Growing. Growing. Growing! Not only my belly... but the beautiful, lush, verdant landscape all over our neighborhood in San Diego. While we can't get outside to all the places we would love to be (** ocean and beaches **), we are certainly spending as much time as we can outdoors... safely, of course. It's apropos on Earth Day to reflect on the miraculous and random luck for those of us to be alive on this beautiful planet. While the world certainly doesn't feel, or even look, the way we've grown accustomed to in this modern lifestyle; it is undeniably breathtakingly beautiful. I may even argue more beautiful now that industry and business and modernity and consumption have slowed down. Spring has sprung and it's simply glorious. I did my daily meditation practice in our neighborhood park today, and it felt sensational – the mixture of the cool, spring breeze and warm sunshine on my skin, birds chirping and singing a variety of melodies and songs, the pregnant...

Day 29 of shelter-in-place. Day 171 of pregnancy (24 weeks + 3 days). 1 month of consistently staying at home. And 6 months of growing new life. I never thought I'd be counting quarantined days alongside my pregnancy. Alas, life is full of surprises! Both pregnancy and staying inside are going quite well. They actually may even complement each other in some ways. I've been forced to slow down even further... I thought I had learned that lesson fully in 2019, but it turns out there are plenty of other ways I move too quickly! And it's nice not to be rushed from one thing to the next. I can enjoy each activity – a work conference call, making breakfast, walking the dog – to completion without hurrying up to "add more time" to the next activity or task. Sure, I still find myself "future-dreaming" about what else needs to be completed in the day or getting the itch to be more "productive" (i.e. busy); but instead of scratching that need with some...

We should have known things wouldn't go as expected in regards to our pregnancy. Getting pregnant was a 5-year rollercoaster ride of hope, fear, frustration, loss, grief, trauma... and above all, constant change! So, here we are (finally) pregnant – yahoo! – and the world no longer resembles what we'd grown accustomed to nor hoped for when we daydreamed about the second trimester of pregnancy. Scott and I are on Day 23 of lockdown. We're working from home, taking daily walks with Dad, Puppy and Mea... and simply doing the best we can to maintain our sanity and happiness. Like the rest of you, we're playing it by ear and establishing a new sense of normalcy. And what that looks like can vary from day to day... or hour to hour. If anything, our shared experience of infertility struggles and pregnancy during a pandemic, we've learned patience and the not-as-easy-as-it-sounds practice of letting go. Hopefully, these lessons will carry us through the rest of our l...