Landon's Legacy Activities

Here is more from Landon's Legacy...

Meeting and spending time with beautiful mamas from all over the world:

*spending time at the lake shore hanging out together, canoeing and kayaking

*Working on our personal growth by journaling, shouting our emotions to the world and celebrating together

 *we went on a hike to a spiritual area of Petroforms which are rock formations made by native Indigenous Peoples.  This was a very meaningful hike where we made medicine bundles that we offered to the spirits in honor of our babies.  We also met Ron, an elder that is the keeper of the grounds, who taught us a lot about this spiritual place just down the road from our resort.

Ron teaching us about this 4 sided rock/animal spirits

The Grandmother Rock

So emotional to connect with Millie's two great-grandmothers that she is named after via the Grandmother Rock

My medicine bundle that I made in honor of my sweet baby Millie Moo

We entered this sacred circle, walked around it in meditation and then performed a smudging before presenting our medicine bundles wherever we felt moved to provide our gift to the spirits

I found this horse mama watching over her baby pony and I felt moved to leave my baby's bundle here

My Millie Moo

Our group after this very meaningful trip to the Petroforms

*Hiking to beautiful waterfalls while racing the threatening weather

L to R: Savanna from Oregon, Krista from Saskatchewan, Kat from San Fransisco, Maria Elena from Yucatan, Mexico

Yoga Posing L to R: Kaiti from Manitoba, Me, Sai from Los Angeles

Emma from Vancouver and Julia from Frankfurt

Karin from Sweden and Jenna from Austin

Kaiti, Karin, Julia and Wardy from Texas

*Closing ceremony, honoring our beautiful babies, strong mamas and so much growth

My memento of Millie for our altar was a picture of my precious girl smiling.  She got so many sweet compliments from other mamas about her cute smile and it always warmed my heart!

The bittersweet moments watching the sun set as we prepare for our closing ceremony

Our beautiful altar to all 25 of our hearts in heaven

Writing our baby's names in the sand

Offering rose petals to travel the waters and winds

The entire group of mamas that were brought together by the loss of Landon and the loss of each precious baby.  We are part of a group that we never wanted to be a part of but a group that understands our rolls in this new life better than most.

Intro to Landon's Legacy Retreat

LANDON'S LEGACY RETREAT

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA

JUNE 14-19, 2015

I'm sorry this post is taking so long to write. I've actually been very busy with celebrating Father's Day and then getting ready for our two weeks of guests! 

As I packed and started traveling to Canada, I didn't exactly know what to expect from the retreat but I just put my trust and faith in the fact that it had to help somehow. 

This was only my second time traveling out of the country and I was a bit nervous about it.  Needless-to-say this is how my conversation went at customs (I forgot that they will ask questions):

                     Officer: What brings you to Winnipeg?

                     Me: A Yoga retreat

                     Officer: Where is it located?

                     Me: Ahhh a resort 2 hours away from Winnipeg...like Pine Something Resort   (duh, like he knows all the resorts in Mannitoba)  

                     Officer: How will you get to this resort?

                     Me: A van

                     Officer: Who will drive the van?

                     Me: The leader of the retreat.

                     Officer: Have you met her before?

                     Me: Um online...

                     Officer: Ok you can enter, please be safe while you're here.

Gheez! Who travels to another country with so little information on the top of your head about your travels!! Thank goodness he let me in!  So anyways, upon landing I was greeted by other mothers and then we piled into vans and started on our two hour journey to Whiteshell, Manitoba where the resort was (I finally figured out the city!). We all made light conversation as we got to know each other and put person to story as we have been connecting on Facebook prior to meeting in Canada. 

 

On Sunday evening we arrived at a beautiful log cabin resort set on a lake with stunning sunsets. We were assigned our rooms and roommates, quickly unpacked and then came together for our opening ceremony. We gathered in a circle with mementos of our babies. We were instructed to give our name, location, our babies name and dates and a brief summary of our baby's story. I was about the fifth person to go and had been rehearsing my statement in my mind til my turn but as soon as I opened my mouth the tears took over and I could barely get our names out. That pretty much opened the flood gates for most mamas continuing around the circle and at this time the heavens also opened up with heavy rains and thunder. Our babies were crying with us as we carefully unlocked the gates that have been protecting our hearts throughout our personal journeys of loss. We laid out our mementos and performed an 'elephant walk' where we went around the circle meeting each mama's baby. The tears kept flowing and the heavens kept weeping as we introduced our babies and our stories in this safe and protected place with women that know exactly how our hearts can feel pain, pride, love, anger, joy, faith, fear all at the exact same time and in varying degrees.  

 

As we wrapped up that evening we placed our mementos on an altar in front of a picture window overlooking the lake and the most beautiful sunset. The clouds were clearing to open up room for the setting sun on this incredibly emotion evening just as our nervousness was fading and our hearts were working towards healing.

The following days each began with breakfast followed by a morning yoga session. Each day the yoga was based on a different Chakra that corresponded with our different emotions on this journey of healing. We worked on the Ground/Root Chakra (safety, security, survival, courage), Open/Sacral Chakra (passion, pleasure, sexuality, emotions, intimacy),Empower/Solar Plexus Chakra (self-confidence, self-esteem, personal power), and the Feel/Heart Chakra (love, compassion, joy, connection, kindness).  

Directly after each yoga session with poses based on the Chakra we laid on our mats journaling about different questions that pertained to that Chakra (ie how has your loss affected your sense of safety and security, when and why do you feel guilt, how has your loss affected your self-confidence, how has your loss affected your sense of safety or security). After journaling we paired up and spent one minute starring into the eyes of our partner mama without saying anything or touching each other. This was incredibly emotional--for a relative stranger to stare into your soul and to your heart because they know your heart without knowing your whole story. We then spoke for 5-10 minutes to our partner on the topic we journaled on. As the listener you could not touch, speak or respond during this event. It was so meaningful because as the speaker you just said what was in your heart, not just your mind, and revealed things to yourself that you maybe hadn't realized or admitted before. As the listener it was outrageously difficult to hear and see this mama's emotions without being able to offer comfort or understanding. But this helped open up deeper conversation and connection during our free time. 

I learned about so many mama's stories and the lives of their sweet babies. Some stories were like mine--they knew their baby was sick, they only had days with their living baby, they were first time mamas, they were recent losses, they had c-sections. But there were mamas whose stories were different than mine--their pregnancies were long and healthy, their babies were born still, they didn't get to see their babies move or breathe, they have other children, they are not with the father.  

A group of mamas (photo cred emma vandenbrink)

Either way I connected to them all. It was so, so, so, so, so, so (sooooooooooo) amazing to spend 6 whole days speaking freely about our babies and their stories. Never once feeling awkward and always feeling embraced by love and support. This KNOWING that exists at all times is absolutely the most incredible thing I felt during the retreat. For 6 days I felt like a mother again. I felt like I was actively mothering my daughter all over again by reliving all of my days with her with women that get it.  In the real world I know I am a mother by definition but I don't feel like a mother anymore. I see people with babies and yearn to hold mine again. I go to stores, and exercise, and to restaurants whenever the hell I want because I don't have a baby to be responsible for. I AM NOT MOTHERING. So I don't feel like a mother in the real world.

 I've had unbelievably, incredible, unheard of support from every aspect of my life since we have been on this journey with Millie. I have not had any negative or insensitive experiences from anyone that participates in our lives. We are lucky...I learned that at the retreat. Heath and I are so blessed to have so much undeniable love and support and understanding during a time in our lives that so few can possibly really understand. So thank every one of you for everything you do to remind us that you love us and care. Thank you for putting your uncomfortable feelings aside in order to reach out to us and show us that our family matters. Thank you for continuing to try and for continuing to remember our sweet, precious, beautiful baby girl; our heavenly angel ♡ MCK

My roommate Julia from Austria, living currently in Frankfurt

xoxo

Loving Myself

There is absolutely no doubt about how great and vast and wide my love for Millie is.

There is similarly no doubt about how great and vast and wide my love for my husband is.

There is, however, doubt about the love I have for myself--my body--to be exact.  This is not something new.  Since I hit the teenage years my mind and my body have been at odds with each other.  I have rarely been comfortable in my skin.  Luckily, as I've grown older, I have learned to try my hardest to accept my body as is while I continue to make efforts to improve upon it.  I learned at some point that I cannot let my frustrations with my body be the thing that prevents me from living and enjoying life.  Therefore, I put on my two piece and get in the pool even if I don't love my pudge.   

Since college I have enjoyed running as my primary form of exercise.  Other than the times I have trained for my half marathons, my weight and exerted effort come in spurts of 3-4 month rounds.  Winter rolls around, it's dark by the time I get off work so I'm lucky if I run 2x per week.  It's winter so of course there is holiday over-eating and within a couple months I realize that all those Christmas cookies actually love my hips as much as I love them.  So spring rolls around and I start kicking it in gear to exercise more and try to eat better by the time summer comes knocking.  I finally skim some weight off and feel a bit better about putting on a swim suit so I inevitably start letting my eating habits get worse and I let summer activities get in the way of exercising and before I know it I can barely button my jeans come fall and crossing my legs is no longer possible.  

This has been the story of my life but when Heath and I were trying to get pregnant with Millie I made an extra effort to exercise regularly and get my body in good shape before I got pregnant, that way I could safely keep exercising through my pregnancy.  As a physical therapist I knew how important it was to be active and try to stay strong to help with my tolerance for delivery and to speed up my recovery afterwards.  Once that little pink plus line showed up I immediately improved my diet.  I not only avoided all the risky foods (i.e. alcohol, coffee, lunch meats, unpasteurized foods, etc) but I started working on consuming primarily "power" foods, the ones that would help with my baby's bone and brain growth.  I ate regularly and in perfectly proportioned increments.  I was able to keep running into my 7th month of pregnancy.  I even completed a 6 mile trail run while 6 months pregnant.  I remember being so freaking proud of my body for what it could do and how easily my body was managing growing another human being.  It also struck me as crazy that it was so easy to eat well for my baby's sake but I wasn't so concerned about the processed, high sodium, genetically altered foods when it was just me I was nourishing.  I made a little vow to myself that I would continue to stay on this healthier eating track after my baby was born.  I had never been more in love with my body than I was while I was carrying Millie.  My image of my body didn't matter anymore, so long as I was keeping my baby healthy.

But then we learned that Millie was sick and I was no longer allowed to exercise like I had.  I was able to keep up basic yoga and walking but it just didn't feel the same and I wasn't as motivated.  Besides, all those doctors visits made it difficult to find time to exercise.  I also started eating a lot more chocolate fudge ice cream in that last month of pregnancy.   Once we had Millie many people told me how well I was doing physically for just having had a c-section but I didn't notice.  Being with Millie and caring for her was all that mattered.  It also meant eating super sporadically and such awful, awful cafeteria food.  Whenever I got to eat homemade food that someone generously brought to our house, I devoured it.  Out to eat, the day of Millie's baptism, I ordered a monster Royale with Cheese that was the most delicious hunk of ground beef I think I had every had.  I realized that my body was craving protein and I needed to keep my food consumption up in order to get my milk supply up so I wasn't discriminative about the types of food I ate.

Initially after Millie was born I lost the obligatory 6-10 lbs that was associated with her and didn't pay attention to my actual weight for about a month.  Life was overwhelming for awhile and then I finally got the clear from my doctor to start exercising and began running right away.  I worked really hard and started getting a little more conscious about my food choices.  I finally decided to check my weight and to my surprise I was back up to FULL pregnancy weight!  I mean come on WTF!  I was disappointed but I dug my heels in and upped my efforts.  I started waking up early before work to add weight training and yoga to my exercise program.  But I still wasn't seeing or feeling any changes in the way my clothes (didn't) fit.  I finally broke down crying at a restaurant when Heath and I were out to eat.  I was eating the most pathetic tossed salad (roughly chopped iceberg lettuce with 4 cherry tomatoes and a few slivers of carrot shavings) and Heath was eating a cheeseburger with fries.  His meal smelt lip smacking delicious and I was stuck eating this crappy, bland salad for what?!  I desperately wanted to lose weight by the time I left for my yoga retreat so that I would feel comfortable in my skin again but it just wasn't going to happen.  I have tried so hard to be "gentle" with myself and "kind" to myself and I feel like I have in other areas but my weight just had me so frustrated beyond belief.  

Luckily after my breakdown, Heath agreed to get kayaks to go out paddling with me, he has started getting up to do kettlebell exercises before work with me and he is joining me in making good food choices at every meal.  His efforts and my yoga retreat have been my ultimate motivation to stay on track despite my overwhelming frustrations.  Finally, over the past 2 weeks I can start to feel my body regain some of it's strength and that has helped me to start feeling whole again.  It makes me care a lot less about the weight when I can feel myself holding better posture and moving in ways I just simply couldn't do a few weeks prior.  Heath has also reminded me that my body is what protected Millie from her vascular malformation.  That the health of my body helped to diffuse all of her extra blood flow and protected her organs as long as I could keep her in me.  Because of this we were able to have a few extra weeks with our baby girl. 

I am really so grateful for this yoga trip as a destination in my future that has been motivating and inspiring.  I know that I would probably be dealing with depression and overcome by my emotions in a way that prevented physical effort if I didn't have this pivotal moment in the future to look forward to.  

I honestly cannot believe that I leave for Winnipeg, Manitoba bright and early Sunday morning.  I cannot believe that this much time has already passed.  I cannot believe that I am about to embark on such a meaningful moment in my healing process and in my life.  I am nervous about traveling alone.  I am scared about leaving the comforts of my home and husband and puppy.  I am anxious about the journey.  I am excited about the new relationships I am going to make, hopefully some lifelong friends.  I am overjoyed that my soul will be spending time in beautiful, northern wilderness.  I am encouraged by the transformation that I will go through.  I am blessed to be honoring my daughter by doing something so brave and so unlike me. 

Please pray for me and Heath as I make this journey physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Holidays

Holidays

 I think most people expect Mother's Day to be pretty awful for a bereaved mother and I'm sure for some it absolutely is.  I really wasn't sure what to expect as the weekend and day approached.  One thing I knew was to try not to get anxious about it since I've learned that the anxiety about an event is usually worse than the actual event.  So my sister, Laura, and her boyfriend, Woody, ended up coming down for a long weekend that weekend and it ended up being a wonderful vacation for all of us (even though Heath and I never left home)!  

Friday we celebrated our friend Tina's birthday by cruising around Lake Allatoona on a pontoon boat.

 

We of course enjoyed some time out to eat at various places...

And Mother's Day was spent with a church service, followed by brunch out to eat with our friends at our favorite breakfast joint, then a trip over to Alabama where we went to visit Millie.  After visiting Millie, the boys agreed to let us girls join them for 9 holes of golf.  Golf is how most Father's spend Father's Day but it's how this Mother spent Mother's Day and it was really fun!

 I also received many beautiful messages, cards, flowers and gifts from my loving family and friends which made me feel so special.  Of course, Mother's Day should have been spent with my new baby but I still felt special this day and know that I am a mother even though my baby is in heaven.











Now Memorial Day weekend was a whole other story.  For this holiday weekend, Heath and I ended up having 4 days off together.  We thought about going out of town but stayed around and ended up having a really enjoyable time together.  We had bought new kayaks the weekend prior so we decided to take them out for a spin Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

I love being on the water since traditionally we open the lake cottage on Memorial Day weekend.  It really made my heart happy (and my arms sore)!!

We spent the rest of the weekend working on training Coalie to hang out off the leash and she did awesome.  We spent time cooking out with our friends, the Gunnings, we worked on landscaping our yard and refinishing some furniture for the nursery.

Ultimately, I ended up feeling rather sad throughout the weekend because the reason for the weekend was not lost on me...we were celebrating the memory of those that had lost their lives serving for our country so that we may enjoy our freedoms and wonderful lifestyles.  So while I have been mourning the loss of my daughter, I remembered just how many young mothers were out there mourning the loss of their child's father or established mothers out there mourning the loss of their son or daughter, etc.  So while my loss is tremendous and unnatural there are many others out there dealing with tragic losses also.  But I was also saddened because I knew we wouldn't have been able to be on a lake enjoying kayaks if we had our four-month-old Millie still in our lives.  And I was sad because this would have been a relaxing, long weekend where Heath and I would have been so excited for the extra time to spend with our little lovebug.  So even though I was really relaxed and happy throughout the long weekend, I was also sad and terribly missing my baby girl.

Ultimately, it's crazy how I can walk through Mother's Day weekend feeling proud and happy for the life that Millie had and for her birth that gave me the title of Mother.  And it's crazy how a seemingly unsuspect holiday like Memorial Day could hit me so much harder than Mother's Day.