personal – Page 4

Beckett’s Birth Story, An Introduction

May 8, 2017 by Asharae 4 Comments

I’ve been debating whether or not I wanted to share Beckett’s birth story, and how I wanted to share it if I did. I’ve gone back and forth on how I felt about it – not sure if I wanted to keep it to myself, as a story for just our family, or if it’s one I wanted to share to somehow encourage other moms-to-be.

So many of the birth stories I’ve heard or read are difficult ones. They’re often told with an undertone of disappointment because things didn’t happen as planned. Even many of my friends have really difficult pregnancy and birth stories, ones that didn’t turn out the way they expected or hoped. I know those aren’t the only stories out there (in fact, just this weekend I heard a very joy-filled birth story!), but the difficult stories are often the ones that stand out the most.

I’ve hesitated to tell my story – Beckett’s story – because it’s not one of those. My pregnancy went as smoothly as it could have, and labor and delivery was an incredible experience. I look back at his birth day with so much joy.

That’s not to say the process of bringing him into this world wasn’t painful, or that everything happened exactly as I expected it to, or even that there aren’t a couple things I wish could have been different. But overall, that afternoon, night, and morning that I was in labor are some of my favorite hours of my life. I’ve never felt more present to a life experience before. Never felt more in-the-moment, or more alive. I know that’s a weird thing to think, and I assure you it’s an even weirder one to try and put into words.

Birth stories are a funny thing – they’re deeply personal, told with pride, terror, or some combination thereof, and sometimes they’re told with entirely too many details. When I was pregnant, I felt like every birth story I heard was meant to scare me. Anyone that saw my round belly suddenly felt inclined to share with me how their aunt’s half-sister’s friend’s cousin was in labor for 30-someodd hours, or how the mom that was hellbent on having a natural birth ended up with a C-section (spoken, of course, like a curse word), or the mom who needed three epidurals because the first two didn’t work, or any number of stories involving words like foreceps, vacuum extraction, tearing, and stitches. YALL. STOP. These are NOT the stories a soon-to-be-mom needs to hear!

We need to stop telling birth stories like 13-year-old boys at camp telling scar stories, each trying to one-up the last one. I should pause here to say – if it’s your own birth story, you have every right to share it. Please share your story with someone. And while you’re at it, write it down so you always remember your own story – it’s amazing how quickly the details fade if you don’t put words to paper. But please please please, think before you blurt out the worst details of other mom’s stories, or even the worst details of your own story to an expecting mom. It’s not kind and it’s certainly not helpful. Once she’s had her baby, or if she asks specifically, by all means, share all the details if she’d really like to know them. If she’s anything like me though, she’ll want to be spared those details till after she’s experienced labor and delivery for herself.

Truthfully I’ve been afraid of sharing Beckett’s story at the risk of coming across like another scar story, or seeming like I’m wearing our story like a badge of honor. That’s not my intention at all. I know now that I needed a little time for myself to make sure I was in a good place to share our story of bringing him into the world.

I wrote the story of Beckett’s arrival in the weeks after he was born, mostly typing it on my phone while nursing him in the middle of the night, but I haven’t shared it till now. The past few weeks (okay, months – I’ve been stalling on posting this) I feel I’ve been hounded by the idea that sharing our own stories is important. So, in an effort to fully embrace my story, especially my birth story of bringing Beckett into the world, I’m sharing these words with you now. I hope my story can encourage even just one mom-to-be.

A note – If birth stories are a sore spot for you, feel free to skip on over these posts. If you’ve struggled to get pregnant or stay pregnant, I won’t be the least offended – nor will I know – if you choose not to read. I pray healing over you if that is your story. But if you’re in a spot where you need to hear a happy, encouraging birth story – especially if you’re an expecting mom – then read on.

You can find the next part of our story here.

And I’ll leave you with a photo of a very-pregnant me with our pups.

DIY Handlettering: A Behind the Scenes Look

November 30, 2016 by Asharae 2 Comments

You guys. I wrote a book. Well, technically I co-authored a book alongside the fabulous Melissa Averinos. It’s totally surreal to see our names on the cover of a stack of books currently sitting in my office. Even weirder that I can recognize my handwriting all over the covers of said books.

Rewind. About two years ago I got an email from a lady at Adams Media, a publishing company based in Massachusetts. She asked if I’d be interested in co-authoring a handlettering book as an “artist author” who would create all the lettering styles for the book. Obviously I said yes.

I had a great time creating different lettering styles and the variations on each one to give our readers some inspiration to take each style and make it their own. I decided we needed a little something extra for the book, so I created several pages of doodles, flourishes, banners, and floral wreaths, and wrote the instructions to go along with the lettering styles and the doodles. My co-author Melissa is the “craft author” and she took the styles and doodles I created and made a ton of crafts with them – she’s a crafting genius.

The book turned out to be a great mix of craft projects and inspiration to take what you see and make it your own. My hope is that you see the handlettering styles I’ve created and put your own spin on them, experiment and add your own personality, and end up creating something entirely your own.

I would be absolutely delighted if you guys bought my book! Buy it for yourself, for your grandma, for your roommate, for your coffee table, or even for your dog. Christmas is just around the corner after all!

You can buy DIY Handlettering over here on Amazon!

(That’s an affiliate link ya’ll! That means if you click on it and make any purchase through Amazon, I make a small commission off your order, at no additional cost to you. Thanks for helping me keep food on the table here at This Wild Season!)

The entire process of seeing a book from idea to print was a lot of fun. It’s funny to have a lot of the publishing process demystified in a way. The company that published our book does things quite a bit differently from other companies in that they seek out authors to write about topics that are popular in the moment. I confess I thought it was a scam when I first got the email! I’d never heard of a company that does things like Adams Media.

I truly learned a ton through the whole process. It was great to have the creative freedom to create additional lettering styles and fun embellishments for our readers to incorporate into their projects. And it was such a sweet surprise to see my doodles incorporated throughout the book as well! Toward the end of last year when we submitted our final draft, it just looked like a strangely formatted Word document. It was hard to imagine how it would turn out in the end. A couple months passed and we finally got to see what they’d done with all our hard work. Overall they designed it beautifully – and even the practice pages were a sweet surprise we weren’t expecting!

It’s so fun to look at it now and think back to all the hard work that went into it. Some of the nature doodles were inspired by our trip to Oregon last summer, scribbled in my notebook while we sat on the cliffs overlooking Cannon Beach. I remember sitting in the Seattle airport, typing away on my laptop to make one of our deadlines before our red-eye flight that night. Other styles I created while sitting on the floor in our family room, a football game or something else on in the background. A few lettering styles I created didn’t make it into the book, and others took their place instead. And the cover – oh the cover. We had some discussions about that one. But for now we’ll just file it away in the “you live and you learn” folder.

I loved working with my co-author Melissa. She’s written a couple books with Adams before, so even though we never met in person, I felt like she was guiding me along through the process, letting me know how everything works. We’d text each other late at night – ack! Have you met the latest deadline? How are the crafts going? What do you think of this lettering style? It’s so wild to create a book with someone even though hundreds of miles separate us. Oh technology.

The sweet part of all of this is that writing this book has opened up some incredible new opportunities for me. Since the book came out I’ve started teaching handlettering classes locally with SkillPop here in Charlotte. It’s an amazing start-up that is providing awesome in-person classes on a whole range of topics. If you’re local to Charlotte or Raleigh be sure to sign up for the newsletter and check out all the classes that are currently offered. Handlettering always sells out, so you’ve got to be quick to sign up if you’re interested in taking one of the classes!

And now, congratulations if you made it to the bottom of this post! Be sure to check out my Instagram page for an opportunity to win two signed copies of my book – one for you and one for a friend!

On the Edge of Motherhood

July 5, 2016 by Asharae 2 Comments

I sit here in our nursery on the edge of our biggest life transition yet. Just under a week to go till our due date, our hospital bags are packed, the bassinet is setup, baby clothes are washed, and our car seat is installed, and yet I feel so utterly unprepared. Not in a bad way – just in the way that I know everything is about to be different and I know there’s no possible way I could truly prepare myself for it.

No amount of reading books and asking friends and Googling my questions can prepare me for this next step of our adventure. I have a feeling that learning what it looks like to welcome a child into this world and into our family has to be experienced to be learned. And I kinda love that.

When you’re pregnant everyone tells you, “Life will never be the same!” “Everything changes when you have kids!” And a particularly annoying one, “Get all the sleep you can now!” as if you could stockpile sleep. One quick sidenote – a nurse friend of mine framed this advice differently telling me to nap when I need to nap and get lots of rest leading up to delivery because I’d need the energy for labor. Now that I can get onboard with! I have felt a little more weary lately, so it’s helpful to think of resting to prepare for labor rather than simply to make deposits to this mythical sleep bank everyone else seems to be referring to.

I know everyone’s advice is well-meaning, and I know they’re right in saying that everything is about to change. But rather than make it sound like a doomsday prophesy, why not share all the ways life is about to get sweeter? Sure there will be sleepless nights and dirty diapers, but those are the things I know I signed up for.

What I’m more interested in is what’s around the corner that I don’t even realize yet. It might be baby snuggles and sweet baby smell, the discussions of whose baby photos our babe most resembles, the joy of watching this little one learn and grow, and an intense and overwhelming love for something so tiny. But what are the other things? The things I can’t even put words to yet? Those are the ones I’m most excited about.

Rejecting Fear in Favor of Trust

March 2, 2016 by Asharae 4 Comments

Since becoming pregnant, I’ve found that most mommy forums and blogs, pregnancy books, and even advice and stories from well-meaning friends all tend toward fear mongering. Every informational source seems determined to enlighten you on all the things that could possibly go wrong for you and your baby.

Forums tend to be full of strong opinions and terrible advice (if you know of any good pregnancy forums, send them my way!) Books like What to Expect contain every possible scenario of what could go wrong (I’ve only been reading the month-by-month updates while skipping over any headlines that sound like a scary diagnosis.) And well-meaning (usually kid-free) friends are quick to share their anecdotes, “Oh I know this girl who was in labor for 36 HOURS! Can you imagine??”

While most of this advice and storytelling truly doesn’t bother me personally, it just illustrates how much fear and worry surrounds pregnancy. There are so many things that can and maybe will go wrong. So much to worry about and stress over. Any twinge or tweak you feel could be your body growing as it should OR it could be something disastrous! I can’t imagine how much more stressful hearing these stories could be for women who are more prone to anxiety and worry than I am.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’m not discounting those stories where something truly does go wrong. Or even the pregnancies that do require close monitoring for various reasons. Those stories deserve their own conversation entirely. Here I’m talking about unfounded pregnancy fears – the ones that simply exist because we feel anxious or in need of more control over our own situation.)

I don’t think of myself as someone who worries a lot, but being pregnant definitely makes me feel like I should be worrying more. Maybe I don’t care enough if I’m not strictly avoiding all deli meats, soft cheeses, and caffeine. Am I hurting my baby by exercising? Or is it worse to sit on the couch all day? What medicine am I allowed to take for this headache or that queasy stomach? Should I call the doctor for that twinge? And heaven forbid I start Googling any of my pregnancy symptoms to make sure they’re normal.

I can’t even begin to express how much I want to reject the fear. Women have been having babies for thousands and thousands of years. Somehow it seems that maybe, just maybe, our bodies were meant to do this.

It’s incredible really.

And I have to choose to trust that my body knows what it’s doing, rather than fear that it doesn’t. It’s been an extraordinary experience to notice the changes in my body from the beginning. The soreness, the complete exhaustion, the tightness across my belly and the stretching sensations that indicate that my body is making space to grow a human being. All these little signals show that my body is doing something wild and beautiful that I have absolutely no control over. And I kind of love that. There’s something extraordinary to be learned in the letting go process of knowing I can’t control what my body is doing and rejoicing in that rather than fearing it.

Even now I’m imagining how much this thought process could bleed out into other areas of my life. What other things am I choosing to hold with fear rather than release with trust? What needs open hands rather than tight fists, grasping for some measure of control and understanding? What needs letting go?

If you’re pregnant or have children, I would love to hear your thoughts and experience with this. And even if you don’t, you’re welcome to the table! Are there things in your own life that need a similar measure of trust instead of fear?

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