Crunchy Mom Life

Jay shared why he transitioned his farming techniques, so I (Robyn, wife) thought I’d share why I started changing our living habits.

About 8 years ago now, I had some medical issues that were a mystery to traditional doctors, but it led me to go to a doc that recommended I take an antidepressant. My issue was going to be solved as a side effect of this drug. It really weirded my husband out, so my sister recommended a naturopath. She solved the issue after the first visit. I lived with this for 10 years and she solved it in 5 minutes.

Well, we got pregnant a few months later and I ended up having subchorionic hematomas. For those who do not know what this it, I basically a collection of blood near my baby that could burst with too much movement. This meant I was forced to go on bed rest for a while. This being my first baby, I took it extremely seriously. But that naturopathic doc was concerned and got me some herbs to help heal it up. She did it in a month. Score 2 against 0 for the natural doc!

Our daughter was born after over 27 hours of labor. Yikes! I had a lovely doctor that was foreign and heard you induce at 39 weeks so that was how it was done. It was hard to breastfeed, so I had a friend from work tell me “the American formula system is super messed up, you should get this brand from Europe”. I thought sure, no big deal. So I actually used that brand for all three of my kids. There is a whole rabbit hole in the formula industry you can go down. Why do they insist on putting unnecessary ingredients in the food?

Then came the solids stage. Now, I love food. My dad laughs at us every time he’s around because we’re always analyzing something: too tough, salty, doughy, etc. So when Louise started solids, I was a bit thrown why there was so much garbage in a little can of sweet potatoes, so I would just make my own.

I continued down this “homemade” path for a few years until my son was born. I wasn’t too cautious about sugars or anything at this point. Just to give you a reference date, I was pregnant in 2021, right after the pandemic. But while I was pregnant, I heard about people getting skeptical about vaccines. It was all the rage to start questioning the medical system. So when it came to giving George his vaccines, I started with the usual and then quit at his 2 month appointment. It was terrifying. Was I killing my baby? Will I ever give him these? I didn’t know but I knew that if there were questions surrounding the safety, I shouldn’t do this until it is proven safe. We’re in 2026 and it is still not proven safe. Pending guys!!

When I was pregnant with my third child, I went DEEP. My mom was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in January of 2023. Her supplements worked in conjunction with the covid vaccine to cause this according to her doctor. This sent the family in a spiral and changed my health journey forever. No vaccines while pregnant, all natural birth, no vaccines for baby. We had some serious hippy juju going on.

But because of this came the best birth. I labored around my own home, went in at 7 cm (as my husband was taking his time finding the PERFECT parking spot for 20 minutes), hopped on that delivery table sideways like a darn frog and breathed her out. THAT IS IT. My hormones dropped naturally; everything happened like it was supposed to. After having two medicated births, what a difference this was. My whole world blew up in that moment. My mom saw me walking 10 minutes after giving birth (photo below) and asked if I wanted another and I said yes. I know this is not the case for all, but it made me question my whole life.

Thus began the crunchy mom phase! When I learn something about being healthy, I dive in, much to the dismay or disagreement of my husband. Occasionally I am on a cliff and he has to talk me down, but that is rare! Like the $2900 Ladybug Steam Vacuum. HA! I started hearing things about plastics, now we have all glass containers. Then came plastics in our clothing, so guess who wears cotton and linen. Freshly milled flour. Local vegetables. You get it! It doesn’t stress me out but fuels me. I know what we are doing is helping our children. So that is my journey from sugar loving, bleach obsessed adult to crunch housewife with a zest for health living.