Last year around this time I wrote nine months old, heart on my sleeve. What is it about this time of year that makes me have so many feels?
We're just three months away from having a two year old. He is more fun to be with every day; so inquisitive, so daring, so happy in his little world, so excited about the bigger world around him. Watching him learn is mind-blowing, I love seeing the connections he makes between things. I love seeing him express his emotions. I love experiencing the way he loves. The other morning he rolled over when he first woke up and nursed a bit. His eyes met mine and he gave me a milky smile and a little wave. That's some heart-melting stuff right there, the best way to wake up. I truly love him more and more each day.
And in this deep love, in this now 21-month journey in motherhood, I have started to notice an occasional change in myself. I've caught glimpses of someone that I haven't been in tune with in ... twenty-one months. I noticed the other day that I felt a different kind of alive than I've felt in a while. It was when I was without Harrison, which isn't a scenario that happens often. It was slightly confusing, actually. I felt like the person I was before Harrison was in my life, I felt like I was on the outside of motherhood while being engrossed in it all the same. It was a good kind of alive, but it was one that I didn't actually miss very much, and it left me curios.
I felt like my "old self" in those moments and began to question what that really meant. Did it really take me twenty-one months to get back to being a person that I didn't even know I lost? When our family grows again, will it take me another twenty-one months to get back to where I am now?
I brought this scenario and the questions up to a trusted friend and super mama of four. And as always, she had some very insightful and wise offerings for me.
No, it's not going to take me twenty-one months again. Because really what I glimpsed was just that- a glimpse. It wasn't something that I lost, and it's not something that is actually attainable for the long-term. I'm not getting that "old self" back, because in the nine months that I grew Harrison and in these twenty-one months that I've cared for him on this side of the world, I've been growing myself as a mother. I can't feasibly feel the kind of alive that I felt in those moments on a daily basis, because I'm feeling a different kind of alive these days. I think that's why these glimpses felt so unique and confusing. They were nice, but they didn't equate to current real life.
Real life these days is waking up before Harrison so I can have everything together enough to get us to work on time. Real life these days is budgeting for a babysitter so Jeremy and I can go out once a week. Real life these days is patiently letting Harrison explore the sidewalks of Los Angeles and walking up and down the same concrete steps with him ten times in a row. Real life these days is finally implementing self-care- going for a run, reading a book, writing on the couch instead of while pushing a stroller. Real life these days is taking deep breaths when my patience is maxed out, and apologizing to my 21-month-old when a lack of patience brings a harsh tone of voice or picking him up too roughly. Real life these days is often missing out on seeing movies in theaters but an anticipation of curling up on the couch with Jeremy to eventually watch them in our living room. Real life these days is reading the same book out loud to Harrison over and over again. Real life these days is thinking on my feet to get a stubborn toddler to willingly do what I need. Real life these days is realizing there are less of those "needs" than I sometimes realize. Real life these days is being late to gatherings because said toddler all the sudden needs to use the bathroom as we are headed out the door, or he is still napping and there is no way we are sacrificing his sleep. Real life these days is playing violin, or piano, or guitar, and listening to him SING with me. Real life these days is sharing my kombucha. Real life these days is allll the dance parties. Real life these days is watching him do things he couldn't do two weeks previous. Real life these days is toddler giggles, toddler hugs, toddler love. Real life these days is full of So Much Love.
The thing about real life, the consistency of the ups and the downs and the juggling of caring for all the beings in our household including myself, is that it is quite wonderful. The struggles are real, and hard, and we push through them, and learn from them, and come out the other side better for them. The highs are beautiful, and carefree, and we live in them, and also learn from them, and also come out the other side better for them. These struggles and triumphs aren't glimpses that we lose as quickly as we see them, instead they are where we are right now, building on top of our past. There is nothing we have truly lost, there is just much we have gained that has taken precedence.
Motherhood has opened up my heart a thousand times over. Here's to the next twenty one months.
Monday, February 12, 2018
Monday, January 29, 2018
Cloth Diapering
The other day I packed away all of Harrison's cloth diapers- about two dozen flour sack towels, three hemp-cotton flats, a few hemp doublers, a few covers, and a few wool shorts. Much like packing away tiny little baby clothes, it was very bittersweet. For 20 months, those supplies kept Harrison diapered, over and over again. They fit into a small bin and are now sitting in our closet, out of the way until there's another Kozling in this world.
We are not quite done with diapers yet, but over the past few months cloth diapering has become more of a chore than something I've been happy to do. Somewhere between working a full-time job, not having a full-size washer and not owning a dryer (necessitating washing diapers every other day in our portable washer and using all of our quarters to dry them in the shared apartment laundry facility), Harrison going through an EC regression which for a season meant more poops to clean out of the diapers, and spending three weeks in Florida using disposable diapers- somewhere between all of that we decided we were done. We needed one less thing on our to-do list, one less task in our busy family life. So we bought some disposable diapers, tried them out, and then bought some more. It was time.
But here's the deal- despite opening this post with the negative, in all reality, cloth diapering has been an incredibly positive experience. It worked so well for us in the season that we did it, and I'm proud of us for realizing that we came to a point in our busy life that it didn't make sense for us anymore. I believe that if we had our own full-size washer and dryer permanently hooked up in a laundry room, we would have seen it through to the end. Or if I was a full-time stay at home mom, rather than a full-time bring-my-son-to-work mom. Or honestly, if my employers had a dryer that worked well, that could have made things better. But the pieces just didn't fit together any more, and we stopped in time for me to look back on cloth diapering fondly enough that I know we WILL be taking those diapers out for baby #2 (someday. This is not a baby announcement.)
It also helps that we have a hard end-date for diapers altogether. We are starting potty training on February 16th and are not looking back after that date. So we have enough disposable diapers to get us through until then. You all can look forward to a fun post about potty training a 21-month-old in the coming weeks!
So- these cloth diapers. Why? The details have never been set in stone in our minds, but it was a good mixture of environmental impact, cost, chemicals, and keeping ourselves encouraged to continue with elimination communication.
Our cloth diapering supplies cost us far less than $200, and we used them for 20 months. Seeing as how our budget was in the red for the first eight months of Harrison's life, this was basically a necessity. Once I started working some part-time jobs and then my current full-time job, it still felt silly to spend $50+ a month on something that we already had figured out. We live fairly low-waste in our home in the first place- reusable paper towels, glassware and stainless steel food containers and reusable ziplock bags for storing food and packing lunch and snacks, cloth grocery bags, mama cloth and a Diva cup (you're welcome for that TMI), minimal plastic, and making a concerted effort to borrow items or purchase things second-hand. We are nowhere near zero-waste, but with all that we do do, it feels funny to throw things away. Cloth diapers were another way to minimize the trash in our home.
As eco-friendly/green/crunchy/hippie/what-have-you that I have become in my adulthood, the majority of the disposable diapers on the market did not meet my preferences. We used four packs of disposable diapers when Harrison was first born, to bide us a little bit of time while we were getting used to having him around, and we decided on the Bambo Nature brand for those first two weeks, as it met my strict standards. With those strict standards came a hefty price, so it didn't make sense to continue with them even if we wanted to. We've settled on Seventh Generation for daytime and Honest diapers for nighttime for these next few weeks. As Harrison has gotten older I've become less stringent with my standards, and both of those brands fall somewhere in the middle when it comes to what they are made of. And honestly, I am aware that the cloth diapers that we used- simple flour sack towels from Target- are made of 100% cotton, and you could easily make the argument that they have a bad environmental impact and are full of chemicals since they are not organic cotton and require a ton of water for processing (and washing). We're not perfect, but we found our middle ground.
And then there was elimination communication. This was a big deal to us, and I don't think we would have had as much success as we did if we used disposable diapers. Cloth diapers should really be changed every 2 hours and/or after every pee, since they have no stay-dry qualities (you can hack a stay-dry cloth diaper by putting a fleece or wool liner in it, but we didn't use that option). You don't want to let your child run around in a wet cloth diaper so you need to stay on top of diaper changes. And the flour sack towels didn't hold more than one large pee before leaking (there are plenty of other options that are more absorbent.) This helped us with EC since I fell into a routine of offering Harrison the potty with every (frequent) diaper change, and it worked out in our benefit in a cyclical way: checking his diaper to change him every 1-2 hours meant I would often find a dry diaper, and if I found a dry diaper I was more likely to then catch a pee, which in turn would then help keep his diaper dry until the next time I checked it. On a good day, I could keep him in the same dry cloth diaper for half the day or more. When Harrison is in a disposable diaper, I definitely don't check it as frequently (though these days he is more prone to tell me when he needs to pee, which is a great win!)
Cloth diapers have come a long way from a square piece of fabric and diaper pins, though that is essentially what we ended up using. On the market these days you can find all-in-one diapers, which you put on just like you would a disposable and put it in the wet bag to wash, rather than in the trash, when you change it. They have a waterproof outer layer and an attached absorbent inner layer. There are all-in-two diapers, which have a water proof outer shell and a detachable inner layer. When you change that diaper you detach the inner layer and you can re-use the outer shell with a new liner. There are pocket diapers that involve a waterproof shell with a pocket inside that is stuffed with a liner. These can be made with some sort of stay-dry fabric next to the baby's bum. There are fitted diapers that snap or velcro on and they are made of all sorts of different fabrics that you then put a cover over, or you can get prefolds or flour sack towels (both just large pieces of fabric) and fold them in different folds to fit your baby, and put a cover over them. There are covers made of polyurethane laminate, fleece, and wool. There are so many possibilities and it can be overwhelming. And it was overwhelming to me at first. But after some trial and error, we found what worked best for us.
We used Target's Room Essential brand of flour sack towels, FST for short (a variety of colors rather than just plain white, which was fun), and folded them in the Jo fold fastened with a snappi. Thirsties duo wrap covers with velcro worked well for us, and we rotated through three of them, washing them with the FSTs every two days. We had a few FuzziBunz pocket diapers that we used as back up covers when necessary. We also had some hemp/cotton blend doublers of various brands that we used to add absorbency as needed. Hemp is very absorbent and those inserts were very useful to have on hand. I found that Harrison would typically have a lot of pee first thing in the morning, so if we were unable to catch it in the toilet, I added one of the inserts in with the FST to keep the diaper from leaking with his first pee of the day. For overnights, we used a hemp/cotton blend flat (made by Truly Charis, but currently unavailable on their website) and folded it in the Jo fold and added a hemp doubler. We used wool covers for overnight. Wool is AMAZING. It has antibacterial properties, it can absorb up to 30% of its weight in liquid before feeling wet, it is temperature-regulating, and it is a natural fiber which of course makes me very happy. We had two Disana shorties in rotation for over night. Disana is at the lower end of the spectrum for wool, price-wise, and they worked just fine for nighttime use. We also used cloth wipes for quite a while- sprayed with a homemade solution of mostly water, a small bit of Castile soap, and witch hazel- though we used Water Wipes for poop once Harrison started solids (poop from an exclusively breastfed baby is water soluble and doesn't need to be rinsed before being put in the wash!)
So ... there it is. Cloth diapering the Kozeluh way. We made things perhaps a bit more difficult than we needed to but the season we used them was a good season. Cloth diapers can be very simple- you can buy enough all-in-ones to last you 5-7 days, store the used ones properly so they don't smell before they are washed, and throw them all into your regular-sized washer (with a good wash routine) once a week, then let them air dry. EASY. Apartment living and shared washers and all of the quarters and smog and etc etc etc made that more difficult for us, but our little portable washer washed our diapers SO WELL and it was all worth it. I am so looking forward to this next season of raising a child- the diaperless season. The potty trained season. Here's to February!
--- --- ---
I really just skimmed the surface of all of the possibilities for cloth diapering. If you're intrigued at all, one of the best resources for learning is Fluff Love University- not a question unanswered on their website or Facebook group!
We are not quite done with diapers yet, but over the past few months cloth diapering has become more of a chore than something I've been happy to do. Somewhere between working a full-time job, not having a full-size washer and not owning a dryer (necessitating washing diapers every other day in our portable washer and using all of our quarters to dry them in the shared apartment laundry facility), Harrison going through an EC regression which for a season meant more poops to clean out of the diapers, and spending three weeks in Florida using disposable diapers- somewhere between all of that we decided we were done. We needed one less thing on our to-do list, one less task in our busy family life. So we bought some disposable diapers, tried them out, and then bought some more. It was time.
But here's the deal- despite opening this post with the negative, in all reality, cloth diapering has been an incredibly positive experience. It worked so well for us in the season that we did it, and I'm proud of us for realizing that we came to a point in our busy life that it didn't make sense for us anymore. I believe that if we had our own full-size washer and dryer permanently hooked up in a laundry room, we would have seen it through to the end. Or if I was a full-time stay at home mom, rather than a full-time bring-my-son-to-work mom. Or honestly, if my employers had a dryer that worked well, that could have made things better. But the pieces just didn't fit together any more, and we stopped in time for me to look back on cloth diapering fondly enough that I know we WILL be taking those diapers out for baby #2 (someday. This is not a baby announcement.)
It also helps that we have a hard end-date for diapers altogether. We are starting potty training on February 16th and are not looking back after that date. So we have enough disposable diapers to get us through until then. You all can look forward to a fun post about potty training a 21-month-old in the coming weeks!
So- these cloth diapers. Why? The details have never been set in stone in our minds, but it was a good mixture of environmental impact, cost, chemicals, and keeping ourselves encouraged to continue with elimination communication.
Our cloth diapering supplies cost us far less than $200, and we used them for 20 months. Seeing as how our budget was in the red for the first eight months of Harrison's life, this was basically a necessity. Once I started working some part-time jobs and then my current full-time job, it still felt silly to spend $50+ a month on something that we already had figured out. We live fairly low-waste in our home in the first place- reusable paper towels, glassware and stainless steel food containers and reusable ziplock bags for storing food and packing lunch and snacks, cloth grocery bags, mama cloth and a Diva cup (you're welcome for that TMI), minimal plastic, and making a concerted effort to borrow items or purchase things second-hand. We are nowhere near zero-waste, but with all that we do do, it feels funny to throw things away. Cloth diapers were another way to minimize the trash in our home.
 |
| Whether or not it is 100% accurate, this is a good representation of disposable diaper waste. |
As eco-friendly/green/crunchy/hippie/what-have-you that I have become in my adulthood, the majority of the disposable diapers on the market did not meet my preferences. We used four packs of disposable diapers when Harrison was first born, to bide us a little bit of time while we were getting used to having him around, and we decided on the Bambo Nature brand for those first two weeks, as it met my strict standards. With those strict standards came a hefty price, so it didn't make sense to continue with them even if we wanted to. We've settled on Seventh Generation for daytime and Honest diapers for nighttime for these next few weeks. As Harrison has gotten older I've become less stringent with my standards, and both of those brands fall somewhere in the middle when it comes to what they are made of. And honestly, I am aware that the cloth diapers that we used- simple flour sack towels from Target- are made of 100% cotton, and you could easily make the argument that they have a bad environmental impact and are full of chemicals since they are not organic cotton and require a ton of water for processing (and washing). We're not perfect, but we found our middle ground.
And then there was elimination communication. This was a big deal to us, and I don't think we would have had as much success as we did if we used disposable diapers. Cloth diapers should really be changed every 2 hours and/or after every pee, since they have no stay-dry qualities (you can hack a stay-dry cloth diaper by putting a fleece or wool liner in it, but we didn't use that option). You don't want to let your child run around in a wet cloth diaper so you need to stay on top of diaper changes. And the flour sack towels didn't hold more than one large pee before leaking (there are plenty of other options that are more absorbent.) This helped us with EC since I fell into a routine of offering Harrison the potty with every (frequent) diaper change, and it worked out in our benefit in a cyclical way: checking his diaper to change him every 1-2 hours meant I would often find a dry diaper, and if I found a dry diaper I was more likely to then catch a pee, which in turn would then help keep his diaper dry until the next time I checked it. On a good day, I could keep him in the same dry cloth diaper for half the day or more. When Harrison is in a disposable diaper, I definitely don't check it as frequently (though these days he is more prone to tell me when he needs to pee, which is a great win!)
Cloth diapers have come a long way from a square piece of fabric and diaper pins, though that is essentially what we ended up using. On the market these days you can find all-in-one diapers, which you put on just like you would a disposable and put it in the wet bag to wash, rather than in the trash, when you change it. They have a waterproof outer layer and an attached absorbent inner layer. There are all-in-two diapers, which have a water proof outer shell and a detachable inner layer. When you change that diaper you detach the inner layer and you can re-use the outer shell with a new liner. There are pocket diapers that involve a waterproof shell with a pocket inside that is stuffed with a liner. These can be made with some sort of stay-dry fabric next to the baby's bum. There are fitted diapers that snap or velcro on and they are made of all sorts of different fabrics that you then put a cover over, or you can get prefolds or flour sack towels (both just large pieces of fabric) and fold them in different folds to fit your baby, and put a cover over them. There are covers made of polyurethane laminate, fleece, and wool. There are so many possibilities and it can be overwhelming. And it was overwhelming to me at first. But after some trial and error, we found what worked best for us.
We used Target's Room Essential brand of flour sack towels, FST for short (a variety of colors rather than just plain white, which was fun), and folded them in the Jo fold fastened with a snappi. Thirsties duo wrap covers with velcro worked well for us, and we rotated through three of them, washing them with the FSTs every two days. We had a few FuzziBunz pocket diapers that we used as back up covers when necessary. We also had some hemp/cotton blend doublers of various brands that we used to add absorbency as needed. Hemp is very absorbent and those inserts were very useful to have on hand. I found that Harrison would typically have a lot of pee first thing in the morning, so if we were unable to catch it in the toilet, I added one of the inserts in with the FST to keep the diaper from leaking with his first pee of the day. For overnights, we used a hemp/cotton blend flat (made by Truly Charis, but currently unavailable on their website) and folded it in the Jo fold and added a hemp doubler. We used wool covers for overnight. Wool is AMAZING. It has antibacterial properties, it can absorb up to 30% of its weight in liquid before feeling wet, it is temperature-regulating, and it is a natural fiber which of course makes me very happy. We had two Disana shorties in rotation for over night. Disana is at the lower end of the spectrum for wool, price-wise, and they worked just fine for nighttime use. We also used cloth wipes for quite a while- sprayed with a homemade solution of mostly water, a small bit of Castile soap, and witch hazel- though we used Water Wipes for poop once Harrison started solids (poop from an exclusively breastfed baby is water soluble and doesn't need to be rinsed before being put in the wash!)
So ... there it is. Cloth diapering the Kozeluh way. We made things perhaps a bit more difficult than we needed to but the season we used them was a good season. Cloth diapers can be very simple- you can buy enough all-in-ones to last you 5-7 days, store the used ones properly so they don't smell before they are washed, and throw them all into your regular-sized washer (with a good wash routine) once a week, then let them air dry. EASY. Apartment living and shared washers and all of the quarters and smog and etc etc etc made that more difficult for us, but our little portable washer washed our diapers SO WELL and it was all worth it. I am so looking forward to this next season of raising a child- the diaperless season. The potty trained season. Here's to February!
--- --- ---
I really just skimmed the surface of all of the possibilities for cloth diapering. If you're intrigued at all, one of the best resources for learning is Fluff Love University- not a question unanswered on their website or Facebook group!
Sunday, December 31, 2017
not really a recap
This year my intention was to write one blog post per week. I didn't quite make it to 52 posts, but I'm really not concerned about the number. I love writing and hadn't had much of a reason to write over the past few years, and this ended up being a great outlet for me; I've enjoyed having a purpose for thinking through and expressing my thoughts, and I've enjoyed receiving feedback and having conversation based around some of the posts. I know that I often have a bit of an alternative opinion on many aspects of life, and I hope that I've given at least one person reason to consider something differently this year (if you're that one person, let me know!)
A few weeks ago I won The Listserve (enough of that already Bekah!) and had the opportunity to write an email for many hundreds of thousands of subscribers to read. I chose to write small tidbits about some of my passions. I received some Instagram followers and a small handful of emails back, no conversation went farther than my return email, but it was nice to connect with people in a small way. I'm not sure how many of my friends and family actually read that email, so I want to include it here on the blog. I think it's fitting to include it as my "end of the year" post, since it references many of the things I've written about this past year, and some of the things I intended to write about but haven't found the words yet. I'll include links to past blog posts as applicable; these links were not in the original email.
I truly desire to have more conversation and connection based around these passions of mine. If you're reading this and want to know more of my thoughts, or want to question the way I think about something, or want to change the way you go about this that or the other- whatever it is- please reach out. I'd love to chat, debate, consider other opinions, etc.
So, my recap that's not a recap- my Listserve email
--- --- ---
Hello world.
Some of my passions:
Healthy gut
The health of our entire physical and mental selves starts in our guts. We should be nourishing ourselves with real, whole food. Wild ferments. Pesticide-free crops. Homemade kombucha (my specialty), sauerkraut, sourdough bread. Bone broth, raw milk. Allll the egg yolks! Healthy fat is VITAL. I eat slabs of butter like slices of cheese. There can be a big difference between a healthy body and a nourished body.
—-
Fertility awareness method
I want to know how it can be deemed “empowering” to use birth control to work against your body, rather than educating yourself on how to work with your body. I used FAM to successfully avoid conception until my husband and I used it to conceive our now 19-month-old. THAT feels very empowering.
—-
Raising empathetic sons
When he falls down and cries, I don't tell him he's okay and to brush it off, or to be “brave” and not cry. I ask him if he's hurt, or scared, or surprised. I give him room to feel. When he tantrums, I don't walk away and ignore him until he’s done. I acknowledge his big feelings and stay there to help him process through them. I want to equip him with tools to understand his emotions rather than shut them down, and to be comfortable with acknowledging the emotions of others.
—-
Adoption
There is so much beauty and heartbreak all wrapped up in adoption; it mirrors redemption as it starts with loss and journeys to hope and life. Five of my siblings joined our family through adoption. My husband and I hope to grow our family through adoption some day also. I love the work that Love Without Boundaries does with the orphaned and impoverished children in China.
—-
Health share
Instead of standard health insurance, our family is part of a health share called Samaritan Ministries. It is one of the best decisions we have made. We send our monthly share directly to another member who uses it to pay for a specific medical bill. My pregnancy was covered 100%. 100%!!! An Urgent Care visit ended up being $17 out of pocket. The checks we received for these bills were accompanied by cards from people all over the USA, with kind words and prayers. What a beautiful community. My healthcare coverage is in MY hands thanks to Samaritan.
—-
Natural childbirth
Why do so many people expect childbirth to be a medical event? I am trained as a birth doula and love the privilege of being present with a mother in labor- seeing her strength, breathing through pressure waves, relaxing deeply, allowing her body to take over and surrendering to the primal beauty of birthing her baby. There is nothing like it. I wish there was better education on the different options women have for childbirth.
—-
Student loans
A passionate frustration. My husband and I have a cumulative 5 years worth of private college loans. Eight years after graduation we’ve worked our butts off to pay down half the loans so far but it feels like we’ll never be done. “Student debt is good debt,” they said. It’s the only debt I’ve ever had and let me tell you it does not feel good. We live minimally and have made sacrifices to pay off what we have and it’s a constant feeling of suffocation. We have no savings aside from an emergency fund; buying a home someday seems impossible. I don’t have a need to live extravagantly, but I want this weight off my chest. If you’re college-bound, I strongly urge you to consider a public school near your parent’s home. Live with zero or minimal rent, work hard to pay for your classes in full each semester, and start post-college life better than in debt. (And if you want to make my situation a community effort, I’m all for accepting donations towards these loans...)
—-
I could say more. Breastfeeding, elimination communication, adopt don’t shop and my one-eyed rescue kitties, playing violin; if any of this interests you please reach out or check out my blog where it’s all been written about more extensively. (Linked in my Instagram @rkozeluh)
With love,
Rebekah
USA
rebekah.listserve@gmail.com
--- --- ---
Here's to 2018, continuing to enjoy my passions, continuing to write, and working on my new year's intention- learning how to skateboard. Happy New Years to you all!
A few weeks ago I won The Listserve (enough of that already Bekah!) and had the opportunity to write an email for many hundreds of thousands of subscribers to read. I chose to write small tidbits about some of my passions. I received some Instagram followers and a small handful of emails back, no conversation went farther than my return email, but it was nice to connect with people in a small way. I'm not sure how many of my friends and family actually read that email, so I want to include it here on the blog. I think it's fitting to include it as my "end of the year" post, since it references many of the things I've written about this past year, and some of the things I intended to write about but haven't found the words yet. I'll include links to past blog posts as applicable; these links were not in the original email.
I truly desire to have more conversation and connection based around these passions of mine. If you're reading this and want to know more of my thoughts, or want to question the way I think about something, or want to change the way you go about this that or the other- whatever it is- please reach out. I'd love to chat, debate, consider other opinions, etc.
So, my recap that's not a recap- my Listserve email
--- --- ---
Hello world.
Some of my passions:
Healthy gut
The health of our entire physical and mental selves starts in our guts. We should be nourishing ourselves with real, whole food. Wild ferments. Pesticide-free crops. Homemade kombucha (my specialty), sauerkraut, sourdough bread. Bone broth, raw milk. Allll the egg yolks! Healthy fat is VITAL. I eat slabs of butter like slices of cheese. There can be a big difference between a healthy body and a nourished body.
—-
Fertility awareness method
I want to know how it can be deemed “empowering” to use birth control to work against your body, rather than educating yourself on how to work with your body. I used FAM to successfully avoid conception until my husband and I used it to conceive our now 19-month-old. THAT feels very empowering.
—-
Raising empathetic sons
When he falls down and cries, I don't tell him he's okay and to brush it off, or to be “brave” and not cry. I ask him if he's hurt, or scared, or surprised. I give him room to feel. When he tantrums, I don't walk away and ignore him until he’s done. I acknowledge his big feelings and stay there to help him process through them. I want to equip him with tools to understand his emotions rather than shut them down, and to be comfortable with acknowledging the emotions of others.
—-
Adoption
There is so much beauty and heartbreak all wrapped up in adoption; it mirrors redemption as it starts with loss and journeys to hope and life. Five of my siblings joined our family through adoption. My husband and I hope to grow our family through adoption some day also. I love the work that Love Without Boundaries does with the orphaned and impoverished children in China.
—-
Health share
Instead of standard health insurance, our family is part of a health share called Samaritan Ministries. It is one of the best decisions we have made. We send our monthly share directly to another member who uses it to pay for a specific medical bill. My pregnancy was covered 100%. 100%!!! An Urgent Care visit ended up being $17 out of pocket. The checks we received for these bills were accompanied by cards from people all over the USA, with kind words and prayers. What a beautiful community. My healthcare coverage is in MY hands thanks to Samaritan.
—-
Natural childbirth
Why do so many people expect childbirth to be a medical event? I am trained as a birth doula and love the privilege of being present with a mother in labor- seeing her strength, breathing through pressure waves, relaxing deeply, allowing her body to take over and surrendering to the primal beauty of birthing her baby. There is nothing like it. I wish there was better education on the different options women have for childbirth.
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Student loans
A passionate frustration. My husband and I have a cumulative 5 years worth of private college loans. Eight years after graduation we’ve worked our butts off to pay down half the loans so far but it feels like we’ll never be done. “Student debt is good debt,” they said. It’s the only debt I’ve ever had and let me tell you it does not feel good. We live minimally and have made sacrifices to pay off what we have and it’s a constant feeling of suffocation. We have no savings aside from an emergency fund; buying a home someday seems impossible. I don’t have a need to live extravagantly, but I want this weight off my chest. If you’re college-bound, I strongly urge you to consider a public school near your parent’s home. Live with zero or minimal rent, work hard to pay for your classes in full each semester, and start post-college life better than in debt. (And if you want to make my situation a community effort, I’m all for accepting donations towards these loans...)
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I could say more. Breastfeeding, elimination communication, adopt don’t shop and my one-eyed rescue kitties, playing violin; if any of this interests you please reach out or check out my blog where it’s all been written about more extensively. (Linked in my Instagram @rkozeluh)
With love,
Rebekah
USA
rebekah.listserve@gmail.com
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Here's to 2018, continuing to enjoy my passions, continuing to write, and working on my new year's intention- learning how to skateboard. Happy New Years to you all!
Friday, December 22, 2017
Dear Florida
Dear Florida,
Oh, and Florida, I’m taking home with me some memories I’d rather not have made. A fainting brother during wedding pictures, a feverish ring-bearer who couldn’t enjoy the wedding, a father of the bride with Norovirus in the hours leading up to walking his daughter down the aisle, a lost iPhone, a presumably stolen laptop that was thankfully located, a niece with hundreds of unrecognizable bug bites, the aforementioned red light ticket, a brother with a hacking cough, what gives, Florida?
Dear Florida,
I’m clearly not in love with you. But, dear Florida, I’m in love with the company I’m keeping here.
A sister who was more beautiful on her wedding day, inside and out, than I’d ever seen her before. A new brother (in law) who I am honored to call family. Mom and Dad with all of their children and grandchildren in one place for the first time in almost three and a half years. Spending time with my nieces and watching them and Harrison play together. Seeing Aunts and Uncles that I rarely get to spend time with and passing my sick baby off to my Aunt Beth for some cuddles, and he actually stayed in her arms. Having a whirlwind 20 hour Kozeluh family vacation in Disney Springs and watching Harrison be soooo delighted with all the one-on-one time he got with Jer over the weekend. Anticipating the last part of our trip up in Cocoa Beach, reuniting with the family members who spent the past few days in Disney, and having a low-key Christmas enjoying each other’s company. These are the moments I live for, and Florida- not even you can take them from me.
Love,
Rebekah
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| Anything at all for any of the beautiful beings in this photo. |
Friday, December 15, 2017
Alternative to health insurance
A few years ago, we opted out of the standard health insurance available to us through Jeremy’s employer, and joined a health share called Samaritan Ministries. It is hands-down one of the best decisions we’ve made for our family. Gone are my days of stressing over the financial impact of a theoretical major medical event, gone are my days of not fully understanding medical bills, gone are my days of being cared for by medical professionals I cannot choose myself. I feel so much freedom in leaving the world of health insurance. Here is how it works.
Up front, know that Samaritan is a Christian health share. So there are requirements for being a member, including church attendance, limitations on alcohol and smoking as they pertain to health, and others. This is already in line with our values, so Samaritan is a great fit for us. There are other health shares with less/different requirements, they all work slightly differently, and I imagine Google has some answers. Being a member of Samaritan satisfies the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to have health insurance, so there is no penalty tax on your yearly returns. Samartian sends out clear instructions about how to fill out the health insurance portion of your tax paperwork, and it is a very simple process.
So, as part of Samaritan, each month we are told via our online account who we should send our monthly share to, and a short synopsis on their medical need so we can pray for them as we feel led. Once per year our share goes straight to Samaritan for upkeep costs. As a family with a child, our monthly share is $495 (I’m transparent about that because it’s listed on the website.) This is standard month-to-month. On occasion the amount will actually be lower because the amount of money for all of the member’s collective needs is less that month. Samaritan doesn’t keep any excess.
Any medical event (called a “need” in Samaritan terms) over $300 is able to be covered (shared). The handbook lists the types of needs that are not able to be covered, with consideration for Samaritan’s values. $300 is the deductible, but there is a way to get some or all of that covered as well, more on that later. This means that standard checkups, sick visits to the doctor, etc, are not covered. As a family, we budget for those as needed, and we are a generally healthy family who looks to western medicine rarely anyway, so those costs do not happen frequently for us. We pay out of pocket for chiropractor visits once a month and that’s generally it.
When you are at the doctor’s/hospital/etc, you fill out the insurance paperwork as self-pay. And you ask for discounts for self-pay/cash patients. Typically there are discounts, even up to 60%. These discounts are important because they lower the collective amount of money that members are sharing month-to-month. Additionally, receiving a discount helps to lower your $300 deductible. So say you are billed for $500, but because you are self-pay, you are discounted down to $300 and that is what you pay. When you file paperwork with Samaritan, the $200 discount is then taken off the initial $300 deductible, leaving you with only $100 paid out of pocket once all the expenses are recouped.
My pregnancy was covered 100%. All my prenatal appointments, any supplements recommended by my care providers, up to 40 therapy visits (chiropractor, massage, acupuncture, physical therapy, some require a doctor’s note to be covered). My birth tub rental was even covered. I planned to give birth at home, and since the cost of home-birth is generally much lower than hospital birth, the $300 deductible was automatically waived. However, I ended up transferring to the hospital while I was in the throes of labor, and my $6000 birth turned in to a $25,000+ birth. I was and am still so thankful that I didn’t need to worry about the financial impact of my necessary hospital transfer. A few weeks after giving birth, I went through allllllll the paperwork, called care providers for discounts as needed, and paid everything off or set up payment plans. I kept all the paperwork organized and submitted it to Samaritan. Two months later I received dozens of cards in the mail with checks totaling the exact amount of money I needed to cover all of the medical bills. These cards came from people all over the USA with notes and prayers written in them. It was such a beautiful example of community.
So clearly submitting a medical need takes some legwork and organization, and you need to be active in your medical bills in a different way than you are with typical insurance. This is something I like- I have such a stronger understanding of where my money is going and what bill is for what. If I misunderstand what I am being charged for, I don’t just passively sign off on it. I make phone calls, wait on hold, and speak to people to learn why this or that is being billed to me. I take ownership of every medical bill that comes through our mailbox.
There are more often than not up-front costs before you submit your need to Samaritan. Some care providers will not let you pay on a payment plan if you ask for a discount, so you need to pay in full at the time of service. This was a bit of an issue for us after our hospital transfer, since we hadn’t planned for it. We ended up splitting the hospital bill over two credit cards, and then applying for a new credit card with 0% APR for 12 months and we did a balance transfer to the new card before being charged interest. We paid the new card off once we received everyone’s shares toward our need. I do NOT recommend doing that, it was very nerve-wracking, but it worked for us in a pinch and we are better prepared these days. Pregnancy needs can be shared in advance if you know generally how much everything is going to cost. Our midwives charged us $6000 on a payment plan throughout my pregnancy, and I was able to have that need shared long before Harrison was born- which was ideal because everything was paid for before giving birth and I theoretically wouldn’t be drowning in paperwork after the birth. But hah, such is life when plans change and you enter a hospital.
There is no “in-network” or “out-of-network” with Samaritan. You have freedom to research and decide who the best care providers are for your specific need. Western medicine and alternative medicine are equally recognized and respected. You can go to someone down the street, or in a different state, or in a different country- you determine where you can get the best care, and submit the paperwork the same way for any provider. I LOVE this freedom.
So for an example to make some sense out of it all (in general numbers, I don’t remember the specifics)- Jeremy went to Urgent Care for a broken toe not too long ago. The initial cost of the urgent care visit was $700. We asked for a discount and paid $500 up front that day. We retained all the paperwork that showed the initial cost and the discounted cost that we paid. We received a bill a week later for the x-rays they took at the visit- $300. We called the billing company to ask for a discount and paid $220 over the phone. Jeremy also went to the chiropractor a few times to help his body out as it was adjusting for his uneven walk as his toe was healing. $450 total for all that, no discount. So the initial total was $700 + $300 + $450 = $1450
The discounted total was $500 + $220 + $450 = $1170
That is a $280 difference. Upon submitting the paperwork, that $280 got put towards our $300 deductible, leaving us with a $20 deductible and we received every penny after that in the mail two months later.
I love being part of Samaritan and the active role it allows me to take in my healthcare. For more information you can check out their website or feel free to reach out to me!
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