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Happy Birthday Heavenly! Labor Day, Birthing Day, Life!

September 06, 2022

Happy Birthday Heavenly!  Labor Day  Birthing Day  Life! heavenly reyna
Reflections! The arrival of Heavenly was a miracle that we prayed for so long and in September 2000, I  went into labor on Labor Day at 48 years old, after 10 years of trying to conceive and many devastating, heartbreaking miscarriages, thus we are so proud of her and have cherished every day of her life. Today is the first time we are not together on her birthday and happen to be a continent apart, so that feels a bit strange in this new phase of very independent "adult child" and new "empty nest" parents. Luckily we can connect virtually, but we will miss the hugs and it gives us time to look at things with new eyes. She has a successful singing, songwriting, Twitch streaming and acting career, great apartment in LA , good friends and she seems happy, so that makes us happy as we always just want the very best for her. 

Happy Birthday Heavenly!  Labor Day  Birthing Day  Life! heavenly reyna 5th birthday soultravelers3 blog
Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful? Isn't she precious?I never thought through love we'd be Making one as lovely as she



Growing up is an adventure for parents too! As one's child grows and leaves, parents must also learn to live without them under one's 24-hour care and it's an interesting new dynamic when you only have one that you were super close with. It's fascinating on how much travel impacted our life with her as a child and now with us as empty nest boomer travelers. Are you an "empty nest" parent? How did that affect you? 

Happy Birthday Heavenly! Labor Day  Birthing Day  Life! soultravelers3 world travel family

It is a great day to celebrate her and all that she has meant to us..our "everything" these last 22 years and reflect on the past as well as the present and future in this new mode. We feel so lucky too that fate ( and our risk-taking, hard work and sacrifice) allowed us to raise her around the worldnon-stop for a decade, which kept us extraordinarily close as she had two "stay at home parents" to nurture, love and worldschool her as we roamed the world together.

At our age, we did not want to miss any of this amazing journey of helping a child blossom and we didn't. We didn't take on 2, 4, or 10 kids, ( I can't even imagine the work of that),  we just wanted to do one well and devoted our lives to that for the last 32 years ( just getting her here was part of the process) and glad & grateful we did. Grateful she is alive, healthy, happy and thriving. To us she is the best daughter in the world and a true miracle child.  ( I have a lot of links in this post in case there are any places and ideas you might like to try with your family). 

Happy Birthday Heavenly!  Labor Day  Birthing Day  Life! baby heavenly and family
"Children understandably have no concept of the profound impact their birth had on their parents. There are the years of care and work that went into raising them, of course. But the birth process (and the pregnancy leading up to it) is something about which they have no appreciation. How could they?"


Happy Birthday Heavenly! Labor Day  Birthing Day  Life! pregnant mom heavenly reyna

So of course, Heavenly's birthday also brings up so many memories of that fateful day that changed all of our lives forever. We became parents, we became a family, I became a mother and my dear husband became a father. I was lucky to have the means and time and a supportive husband, so I  had the most perfect pregnancy where I felt fantastic and had daily time to meditate, visualize, rest, exercise, eat the best organic food, play music tapes for her, join singing groups for mothers & babies, do Baby Plus ( which she loved) and we even read to her daily in the womb in 2 languages! I believe when one is co-creating with God, that everything that goes into the mother, also goes into the growing child, so we did our best to keep those 9 months sacred.  The photo above was taken in my beloved organic garden in our deeply beloved home on the day of my "Blessing Way"/Shower where I was surrounded and blessed by friends and family right before her birth. Yes that is a henna tattoo I got for the occasion! It says Heavenly above the big belly heart. This is a photo from her birth announcement ( she was a very aware and very strong baby from the get go). 

Birth_anncmt

Below you see Heavenly on a pony at her first birthday at our much loved home and in the same organic garden ( with rainbow!) where I took the late pregnancy photo and that helps to show Heavenly's early years and first home and what we sacrificed to show her the world and spend full time with her. It was probably the hardest decision of our lives at the time,( to take such a risky chance as there was no such thing as digital nomad or worldshool in 2005) but in 20/20 hindsight, it was the best decision we ever made. Her father took the unheard of choice of 8 weeks of unpaid leave( in high pressure, high tech Silicon Valley where even women execs did not do this) so we could "baby moon" with her as we all adjusted to a newborn and new family and that precious time together shifted our perspective forever and we wanted more of that irreplaceable time together. That was one of the "seeds" for our world travel life. 

Happy Birthday Heavenly! Labor Day  Birthing Day  Life! riding pony 1st birthday


Happy Birthday Heavenly! Labor Day  Birthing Day  Life! heavenly reyna  at home in garden
Being a mystical Pisces, I first connected with her soul in 1988, at a retreat in the UK, after my peace trip to Russia and was soon having dreams about her ( looking just like her), so it was over a decade of inner connection before she showed up. When I met and told my future husband about her and that her name was Heavenly, he started dreaming about her too. I had been reading books and articles about how to do conscious conception, pregnancy, natural childbirth, nursing, raising a child etc for decades as I some how put a lot at stake on this profound duty and had fear and deep obligation of wanting to do my very best. I had been a big sister and the favorite aunt of many cousins and nieces, but having a child of my own seemed like an enormous undertaking and I had insecurities about if I was up to it and if I wanted to face childbirth. Having a really good and fully committed father and partner was the main factor in marrying for me. I have a powerful and iconoclastic personality, so I hoped to have a child that I was good for and who was good for me. I got exactly that!

Mom and daughter paris picnic heavenly reyna and soultravelers3

The pregnancy was amazing and labor started out wonderful at our home and some time spent at the beach, and we had planned a water birth and no drugs ( based on all my reading, as it was the best for the baby). Sadly, it was an excruciating 48 hours of very painful back labor, forceps and ended in a last minute C section at the hospital.

I think with my
weight loss journey, my body is just now fully recovering from the trauma, as motherhood is a fast moving train that keeps the focus on nurturing the ever changing baby and child. As someone who has had a lot of trauma in her life, I seem to be constantly learning how to take care of myself as I take care of others. She was worth the wait and all the lessons learned along the way. Every parent just does the best they can, as does every child. I love the prayer "Lord bridge the gap between the love others need and the love we give them."


Happy Birthday Heavenly! Labor Day  Birthing Day  Life! baby heavenly reyna

I even collected lots of baby clothes for her while I waited, year in and year out, so many beautiful things on sale and waiting for her arrival ( and why she had an abundance of cute clothes). During the hard grieving times in this process, I would pack them all away as sometimes things looked hopeless.  I also collected photos that looked like she looked in my dreams ( various ages and exactly as she looked in real life!). Friends of mine bought this photo of an angel baby based on my description ( and my photos)  of her in my dreams long before I got pregnant ( so after she arrived I took a photo of her with it when she was about the same age as the art baby model).  Her father and I married after knowing each other only three months ( not something in either one of our natures), thinking she would show up immediately. We committed to "the soul we call Heavenly" in our marriage vows ten years before she was born, as I explained in Mozart Dee is Heavenly Reyna, when she decided to reclaim her real name.

Heavenly reyna merch angel t shirt
Now she even has merch made from that same angel photo of her! Funny how life can go full circle sometimes.


Heavenly_with_mom
Are we a bit obsessed with our one and only miracle child? Yes, like most parents. Every baby is a miracle and every birth is a miracle and gift that we should never take for granted. ( She has always been tiny and never even made the 1 percentile level of the doctors checkup, so that caused a lot of stress and worry, but always very healthy and full of extraordinary energy. She was born with a full head of black hair and just like my pattern at birth, it became blonde as she grew, so she went through lots of colors before we knew she was a blond!

Heavenly_and_dad_at_beach

She had her own unique path from the start, crawling at 3 months and bilingual talking and walking at 6 months ( much to our surprise & ran faster than me at 9 months) and taught herself to read at 2 and was reading Harry Potter books by 4. So these things also greatly impacted our decision to homeschool and  travel to try and give her a more normal life and let her learn at her own pace. She was also very musically precocious, had great love for it even as a tiny baby, so was obsessed with opera as a toddler, started violin at 2 ( she wanted to because all the kids in our neighborhood had an amazing teacher and she was ready), piano at 3. 

Heavenly_violin

Happy heavenly reyna at 2 years old
 Heavenly started Kindergarten at 3 and first/second grade at 4 ( despite neither school ever having done this before, but they made the exception for her abilities and she still was well beyond 2nd grade in reading at 4, so not a perfect fit). Her being very tiny for her age and such an advanced reader and precocious in math, music etc, made things tricky and challenging  in educating her in a traditional way, so we were always on the lookout to support her unique talents. You can get an idea of how tiny she was in her Kindergarten official photo below when she was 3 and since most of the kids in this area start school late, she was in class with most who were 6 and 7 years old.( You can see some of that in the photos of her birthday party before we left California as all her same grade kids were several years older, much bigger and yet she was reading at a far advanced level, so hard to find a fit).

Our world travel plan was much about trying to find a fit for Heavenly and more freedom for her and us. My brother had skipped a grade, so I'd seen the disadvantages and advantages in that route ( and he was big for his age, but it still impacted him greatly as far as sports & popularity as that turned him from one of the biggest, to one of the smallest). Being able to do school in one of her other languages helped even out her abilities as she could not read and write in Spanish like she could in English, so let her be closer age peers. 

Heavenly reyna started Kindergarten at 3 years old gifted skipped ahead soultravelers3

CELEBRATING HEAVENLY'S BIRTHDAYS AROUND THE WORLD 

Rejoicing today in all the happy and unique memories & sharing a few with you and keeping it here for prosperity, hoping we, she and others can enjoy it forever. 😍 Memories are timeless treasures of the heart and happy times come and go, but the memories stay forever. We are in a new phase now, so it is fun to look back and remember with gratitude. I write this blog to share my inner & outer journey with all, but, since we are older parents, it's always been to also  leave a record for Heavenly long after we are gone. 

Heavenly reyna birthday party before world tour and paris celebration

Before we even left for our world tour in 2006, I decided Paris and even more specifically, the Eiffel Tower, would be the perfect place to excite a five year old about travel and give her a world traveling goal to look forward to. We planned an exciting 6th birthday for her in Paris, including going to the top of the Eiffel Tower at night and riding on the merry-go-round. She even had an Eiffel Tower decoration on her cake at our going away PJ party and we got lots of kids books about Paris to add to her education and anticipation. 



Singer songwriter actress heavenly reyna at five

Heavenly's international birthdays started when we began our decade long world tour when she was 5 as it helped her identify exactly what "world travel" was by planning her 6th birthday in Paris before we left. Who knew we were starting a trend?
Heavenly reyna celebrating 6th birthday in Paris on her world tour
We went to an amusement park and Louvre where she got that stuffed toy and then walked up the Eiffel Tower at night, after the wonderful dinner. 
Heavenly Reyna at the Eiffel tower with her mom celebrating 6th birthday
A magical day and night filled with love and adventure and I guess why it started that tradition. 

Heavenly reyna hugging her dad on her birthday in Paris

She celebrated her 7th birthday in Salzburg, ( Mozart Magic Flute suite)

Heavenly reyna celebrating 7th birthday in Mozart Magic Fute hotel suite in Salzburg


her 8th birthday in Stockholm, ( Creating at the Junibacken Museum in Stockholm)

Heavenly Reyna celebrating 8th birthday in Stockholm  Sweden kids museum


her 9th birthday in London,

Heavenly reyna in London on 9th birthday


her 10th birthday in Barcelona, with her Spanish speaking best friend,

Heavenly reyna celebrating 10th birthday in Barcelona with best spanish friend Maria


her 11th birthday at Harry Potter's Wizarding World, and

Harry potter world wizarding world of harry potter in orlando florida
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Holiday vacation birthday Heavenly reyna cute


( not to mention staying at the amazing Coco Key Resort and waterslides which she loves) 

Best water park in orlando Coco Key Resort  heavenly reyna and soultravelers3 vacation birthday


and ending up on a TV interview on Fox in Orlando that she just loved doing! ( Unfortunately I was traveling with serious medical issues during these years starting in fall of 2009 when I ended up in the hospital with broken bone & paralyzed arm) which affected our travel, birthdays and everything for quite a few years, so things aren't always as easy as photos show, but more complex). 

Heavenly reyna and soultravelers3 on fox news orlando world traveling family

her 12th in Penang, Malaysia singing karaoke with her Mandarin speaking friends.( Again she was the youngest in the whole school, so years younger than most). 

Heavenly reyna birthday in Asia singing Mandarin soultravelers3 travel bloggers digital nomad pioneers
Then, 13th in Sydney,

Sydney four sesons hotel heavenly reyna celebrating 13th birthday soultravelers3
Heavenly's  13th birthday in Sydney made it the 9th country and 4th continent that she has celebrated a birthday on our open ended world tour! ( And they went out of their way to help me with my health issues which was also part of the reason we were there). 

Glam singer songwriter heavenly reyna at Four Seasons Hotel Sydney soultravelers3 travel



14th in Dallas, 15th in LA & carnegie hall singing , 16th at the beach with friends in Santa Monica... 20th #onset starring in a Lifetime movie

Lifetime movie star Heavenly Reyna soultravelers3


Heavenly Reyna starring in Life Time Movie Fame at a Deadly Cost &  KIDNAPPED TO THE ISLAND

and last year with world wide friends on her Heavenly Twitch music channel!( I don't think this photo is a clip from the birthday, but typical and shows she had over 5000 people from around the world watching her ( sometimes up to 10K!) which is fascinating and how she mostly makes a living these days, supported by fans. This is not easy to do and hard work singing long hours four nights a week, so we're proud of her work ethic!

Heaveny Reyna on Twitch singing star viral beauty



What are your best tips for the empty nest years? We got a very late start to parenting and now starting empty nest phase at 70 ( so who knows how long it will last), so still figuring this all out. 


Empty+Nest

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