Rosemerry and Eric decorate another room in their hearts
This is a guest post by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, a regular blogger on the Virtual Tea House. She's a little busy right now, so I'm posting this for her, to my blog. Four hours of labor...and a lifetime of preparation.
Congratulations to Rosemerry, Eric, Shawnee, Finn...and that lucky Orchard Girl Vivian!
Eric and Rosemerry with the 'let's get this thing done' expert, Vivian
Here she's a few moments old. July 15, 2008
From Rosemerry:
Dear Friends,
Meet our new orchard girl, Vivian (no middle name yet), born July 15 at 12:13 a.m. as the peaches were turning pink on the branches outside the window and the apricots were being harvested from the trees nearby. She came into the world like she wanted to be here … waiting till she was fully ready (her due date was the day before) and then entering the world licketysplitly, as Finn would say. She’s a hearty nurser and loves to be held.
I am feeling great, though as if transported to some kind of parallel universe. For two days I have wanted to write you all about it and send pictures and thank you for all your support.
The labor was around four hours, beginning while Finn and I were playing cars on the porch before I was going to take him to school. Instead, Shawnee, Eric’s daughter who is home for a while before going to DU for graduate school, took him while I called the midwife, Bill, to say I wouldn’t be arriving for my appointment later that morning. He sent his assistant, Marlene, who arrived around 10:30am. At that point I was still able to take her on a garden tour of eggplants and zucchini, sampling apricots from the bins along our way. But she soon called the midwife, Bill, and said, “You’d better come quick!”
Around 11, harder labor hit, and Eric held my head and hummed to me, even took a picture of me midway and said “Smile,” which I did, just to prove I could, before the next contraction hit. Shawnee returned and joined us for the end, and the midwife arrived around 12:10pm, just after Vivian’s head had come out. Perfect timing to deliver the rest of the body and take care of the newborn. Though they thought she looked dainty, she weighs 7 pounds 3 ounces, is 19 inches long, has dark brown hair, blue eyes and is in perfect health.
After getting the call that the baby would be here soon, my mother, who lives nearby in Montrose (Colorado), baked a birthday cake (carrot, my favorite) and arrived with it shortly after 2pm. Eric, in addition to helping deliver the baby, kept the orchard running … managed the apricot harvest, took the workers to town to the bank, and picked up Finn at daycare. Talk about a superman. Finn walked in from school to meet her and said, “She’s beauty,” and loves to pet her and kiss her and check on “Baby Sister.”
The only downside to the fast labor was that my best friend, Michelle, who I had planned to be at the birth, was still driving to the orchard when the baby arrived. But she brought with her a large metal stencil sign that says ‘celebrate’ that is outside our front door, and that is exactly what we are doing—celebrating this beautiful life. My friend Art Goodtimes sent this poem the day after she was born:
orchard born
what riper fruit can
we offer this hungry world
than our love made flesh?
-for our new goddess baby
Love to all of you,
Rosemerry, Eric, Shawnee, Finn & Vivian
read my columns on parenting at
http://parentingsquad.com/rosemerry-wahtola-trommer
read my columns on the spirituality of everyday life at
http://virtualteahouse.com/blogs/rosemerry/default.aspx
On a day when the wind is perfect,
the sail just needs to open
and the love starts.
Today is such a day.
--Rumi
The Virtual Tea House website became 'word-ripe' when, over a cup of jasmine green, I realized that the web has an expanding part to play in the communal aspects of spiritual growth.
One of my favorite hats, among several is: initiated firekeeper in the Sacred Fire Community. Hosting a monthly community fire circle, I'm being taught that the simple act of sitting around a fire with the intent of holding open-hearted space makes for some soulful community!
With a master's degree in religion, my career spans 20 years in end of life care and I currently work in the field of child abuse intervention and advocacy.
Here in beautiful Central Oregon, my spiritual homes of the high desert and the mountains are both in proximity. And for good measure, four hours away is Grandmother Ocean and the stunning Oregon Coast.
I'm making decent progress on the goal set by my mother early on: she taught us that the goal of humanity should be to become ever-more eccentric, i.e. more fully human.
Entering the 'forest-dweller' phase of life, I am honored to host the Virtual Tea House for all who wish to explore how our lives are enriched and made new a thousand times each day by the spirituality we embody. Exploring this engagement together is the purpose of the Virtual Tea House.
Welcome! Let's have a cup of virtual tea together and share what brings us joy, what we are being taught by life, how we are leaning into the Big Questions posed to us each day in sometimes 'distressing disguises'.