nature

I must admit that although Oxnard, California is just under an hour north of Los Angeles, in the 17 plus years of SoCal living, we have only been once (about a year and a half ago, we drove up for a 3 day camping excursion at McGrath State Beach). Boy, have we been missing out!

Our visit was very spontaneous, extremely short (about 20 hours), but oh so sweet. Vivi and I had decided to tag along with a friend who had to drive up for a business meeting. As luck would have it, that meeting was a block away from the coast, so we made a beeline for the beach; its sand a pure, fine, white blanket and its waves gentle and lapping, perfect for toddlers!

Hollywood Beach, Oxnard, California

There wasn’t a single tourist in sight (except for us, I guess!), just the occasional friendly local walking their dog or enjoying a midday jog by the shore, so we felt as if we were on our own private beach! For hours we laughed, played in the water, built castles, threw sand at each other, rolled around and laughed some more! We were in heaven!

Hollywood Beach, Oxnard, California

V even made a friend, who’s dad was sweet enough to lend us a towel being that we had no intention of ever ending up on a beach covered head-to-toe with sand!!

Hollywood Beach, Oxnard, California

After a quick shower down, we met back up with our friend and walked into the first restaurant we saw Sea Fresh Market, which just happened to be snugly perched on the Channel Islands Harbor with a plethora of ducks to chase, a gorgeous view of the boats and an even better happy hour (did someone say oysters?!)

Oysters! YUM!

So, short story even shorter: I had no idea that 24 hours in Oxnard, California would be written down in my memory as one of the best days ever, but it has been.

Like most mommy’s, I wear my title proudly. I try to remind myself to enjoy every precious fleeting moment, because becoming “Mommy” wasn’t easy.

We tried for 3 years to conceive and finally after 36 months of tears, we decided it was time to get some professional guidance. I was quickly approaching that certain age where woman are classified high risk and I just didn’t want to waste any more time! Lucky for us, one of Kerem’s basketball buddies, Dr. Aykut Bayrak, just happened to be a leading fertility specialist, so off we went!

I’ll save you all the gory details, but after months of tests & exploratory surgery we finally got a diagnosis: A unicornuate uterus. I was born with only half of a uterus. HUH?! My first response was to completely melt down into a blubbering idiot, then I wiped the snot from my nose and ask the doctor, “When do we get started?”

For us, getting pregnant was, popping pills, needling myself in the stomach and ‘making love’ to a turkey baster on a cold pleather medical table with a virtual stranger between my legs. Not really my idea of romantic, but it worked! On the first try!! Then came BEDREST. Well, technically it was called limited mobility restriction, so not full on bedrest, but I wasn’t allowed to be on my feet for longer than 30 minutes at a time. No exercise at all. Worst of all, no hiking! Boo!

I had always had this vision of my pregnant self, as I’m sure most people do, hiking up until my water broke! Yeah, well, I was going to have to get over that pretty quickly. I decided to look at this as my baby’s gift to me. Me time. 9 months of it. I started reading, meditating, cooking and just focused on keeping that little peanut safe inside. I did.

Photo by Kerem Hanci

On March 3, 2011 at 4:28 a.m. my grandmother died. She was my heart. At 10:10 a.m. Vivienne Emine Hanci was ushered into the world under the watchful eye of her new guardian angel. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it any other way.

Hanci-Fontaine Family Photo

Even before her first breath, much to the dismay of my mother, we had already planned Vivienne’s first camping trip! Four months later, our new family unit was nestled together in a lush, green glen in BigSur listening to the lullabies of a babbling brook. We had found bliss.