C’est La Vie

A week after completing the PCT I was stretching my arms above my head and promptly gave myself an incarcerated umbilical hernia. It needed a quick little surgery. My post-PCT plan of a month of yoga to heal my body from hiking didn’t quite happen. The surgery went well. Followed by 6 months of fighting with the insurance company to pay for it. C’est la vie.

Baxter and I both had our jobs available for us when we got home. I went to work and promptly had a panic attack. 5 months of hiking had softened me a bit and I felt I could no longer work full time with the chronically mentally ill. With the support of Ben (who included me on his insurance plan) and my parents (who was letting us stay with them rent-free) I decided to only work per diem and pursue other career options. I started a wellness coach training program. I completed the course work and am now working towards certification. I have two part time recreation therapy jobs and it’s all going fairly well.

And then this happened the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

One of the most effective forms of birth control a girl could have FAILED. I don’t want wide spread panic to ensue. Most IUDs are hanging out in the right place creating a hostile environment so that a little fertilized egg won’t implant in the uterus. Mine was not. It was not where it was suppose to be, thus creating a lovely, inviting environment for a fertilized egg to hang out…and grow.  Here’s our first ultrasound at 6 weeks. There was a heart beat and everything. It was in the perfect spot. And it hasn’t stopped growing. This was a Friday.

This was the next morning…in a haze of absolute grief and sadness I blogged about this.

Later that afternoon a friend messaged me about a house that went up for sale across the street and on Sunday morning, we looked at and put on offer on it. We moved in on January 3, 2014.

All the while planning for this…March 22, 2014.

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YES! We did it!

C’est La Vie.

And so what? And so everything. I think about how we hiked the PCT last summer ALL THE TIME. It pops up in small ways like a golden thread in this amazing quilt of our lives. A year ago today we were hiking one of the many passes of the high Sierras and fighting off mosquitos. The patience. The endurance. The beauty. All of these things I practiced on the PCT helps me today.

Some of it is really hard. It’s interesting being in the best shape of your life and then less than a year later…pregnant. My body has changed so much from pre-PCT to PCT to post-PCT to, um, now. I look at my body and am reminded of what an amazing machine it is. It comes and operates in different shapes and sizes that correlates to what it’s suppose to be doing. Last summer, my body transformed into this lean, mean hiking machine. And now it has grown into this voluptuous, curvy baby making machine. Our bodies are so amazing at adapting.

I know this post is getting a bit on the long side but there is something else I want to share. While hiking on the trail, Baxter and I had so much time to talk about, brainstorm, think, dream, visualize what we wanted, hoped, dreamed for in our life. And we talked and talked and talked about it. Not to get all “The Secret” on ya’ll, but time and time again I have found that when I put an intention out into the universe, it sure as hell listens. And listens hard. I remember hiking through the San Jacintos and we were talking about what neighborhood we wanted to live in, our budget, and the kind of house we wanted. Baxter wanted more of a fixer-upper. I wanted something a little more livable since I knew we would want to get pregnant soon and I didn’t want to be taking care of infant in a construction zone. I said, “Babe, ideally, I’d like to live on Lake St between 900 S and 1300 S. We need 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. We need a decent yard for Luna and a space for your studio.” And BAM!!! Our house is exactly on that street. It’s really only 2 bedroom and one bath with an attic that the previous owners started to kinda finish, where we’ll be able to add another bedroom and and bathroom (fixer-upper). The space is totally livable, although Baxter gave the kitchen a little face-lift as soon as we moved in (fixer-upper). And we (and by “we”, I mean Baxter) tore down two nearly 100 year-old garages where we will build a new garage and studio for Baxter hopefully by fall.

I told the universe that we wanted to get pregnant in April 2014. It responded with, “You’ll get pregnant when I want you to.” Which was last November. Side note: Fall of 2012, I told Baxter, “No babies until we hike the PCT.” Maybe that was the message the universe heard.

And I have that creepy feeling that I don’t want to push my luck, but I keep whispering little things out to the universe and it keeps listening. In its own time line, of course.

I miss the trail, but this post-trail life has been so busy and full of new adventures and surprises that I keep my eyes open for that little golden thread so I remember all of the lessons I learned on the trail,  practice them in this urban life, and always remember to get back out into the mountains or the desert because c’est la vie. And how lucky we are.