Welcome

 

To my readers:

Nozomi is a Japanese name that can be translated into English as hope, desire and anticipation. When naming me, my parents shortened it to Zomi. 

My hope for you in following content here is that you will connect with your desires, and that you will anticipate a brilliant future. I hope that you are able to rest here and also become filled with the fire that sparks change. 

In living as a mother, poet, doula, healthcare advocate, and lover of social activism, I have chosen a wild path of co-creation. I have also found -- rather uncomfortably at times -- that while sometimes we must trailblaze, we must also rest and allow the flowers to bloom.

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Untitled and Unsure: Phases of Parenting and Becoming

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I've been thinking a lot about pregnancy, birth, and new babies. This goes with the territory when you're a doula.  Thinking, researching, listening, holding space for my clients. But right now I feel like I'm headed over the edge of a cliff because my own babies are growing up. You know that feeling right before you fall? (You may be especially familiar with this feeling if you live in Minnesota and have ever tried to walk down a hill after freezing rain.)  That's where I am. It's every parent's goal to see their children grow up healthy, happy, learning and adventuring. Right? Yes! But I never, for one moment, thought about this time of my life until it sneaked up on me. I spent a lot of time living in each high intensity moment -- starting with keeping a newborn alive, moving on to shuffling three kids to sports and dance and school, then walking side by side with them as they entered adolescence.  Then, Juliana married Landon this past spring.  Next she grad
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Centering Women of Size in Birth - "Talk to me, not at me"

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Birthing women and people of size deserve no less than to be respected, honored, and wholeheartedly supported during their pregnancy and postpartum experiences. Pregnant women with higher body mass index (BMI) may be discriminated against. They may be presented with a barrage of anticipated risks rather than getting individualized support when seeking health services. BMI has (finally) been taken down a notch in the medical community, at least “on paper.” The American Medical Association published a new policy in June of 2023 that aimed to clarify the role of BMI. They called out “historical harm,” “use for racist exclusion,” and other limitations of the measure. In BMI We Trust, Reframing the Body Mass Index as a Measure of Health , medical sociologist Iliya Gutin argued that we should use BMI as only part of a holistic view of health, recognize its limitations, and be more flexible about its interpretation.  But how do people of size actually feel when seeking health services? I am
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Surviving and Thriving a Pregnant Summer (and a little bit on climate change)

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In the summer of 2006 I was in my third trimester with baby Charlotte and living in South Carolina. We were near Charleston in a small town in Berkeley County and it was oppressively hot. Out of curiosity today I looked up the weather reports from that time. The South Carolina State Climatology Office published a summary of weather trends by month for that year. The report says "South Carolina baked the first week of August." A nearby Berkeley County town apparently reported 103 degrees on August 3. The report indicates that tropical storms followed not too long after that, which is typical for the region that time of year. Charlotte (who now goes by Caedyn) was born on September 21. I remember intense fatigue -- more so than with Juliana who was born on New Year's Eve. I became dizzy immediately anytime I walked outside (to be fair, I've never been great with heat so that's not so out of the ordinary). The heat and humidity formed a solid wall, and I had to face
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