It's been about two years that I've committed to curating a completely slow fashion wardrobe and I'm really proud of the progress I've made. This year alone, I only bought three new clothing items, two of them being non-maternity underwear from Kohl's and the other being pajamas for Griffin from Target because we took him there to pick out pajamas and new sheets to help with the transition into our new house.

Other than that, almost everything we've bought has been secondhand. From books and toys to furniture and clothes, these are the best websites I've found for secondhand shopping.

Growing up, there was a huge stigma in my family and culture about shopping at the thrift store and buying anything secondhand. If you didn't buy something new, it was because you couldn't afford it and people from my culture (and I'm sure others, as well) take great pride in demonstrating their financial prosperity.

When I went away to college in Santa Cruz, I was introduced to the "hippie" lifestyle and had a plethora of secondhand and vintage stores to choose from. At the time, I was not yet educated about the harms of the fashion industry to the environment and human lives--shopping at the thrift stores was just the cool thing to do and helped me fit in with my classmates.

Over the last decade, the detrimental impact of the fashion industry has become clearer, especially with documentaries like The True Cost and the rise of the slow fashion movement. As Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, you do better." There really is no excuse nowadays to continue feeding the fast fashion machine and causing irrevocable damage to the earth and our fellow human beings. Here are the 7 reasons why I shop secondhand that have nothing to do with saving money.

On Wednesday, December 4 at 9:30 a.m. (at 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant), I went to my weekly check up with my midwife. When my nurse took my blood pressure, like she does at every appointment, she discovered that it was high (146/102) and it wouldn’t go down even after rest. My nurse pointed out that my belly was very low, that the high blood pressure meant that my body was reaching the end of being able to carry the baby and that I would probably be delivering today. After that, I saw my midwife and we decided that she would do a cervical exam and, if I was dilated at all, she would perform a membrane sweep. When she did the cervical exam, she discovered I was already 3 cm dilated so she did the sweep to help move things along. At that point, it was 10:30 a.m. She said that cramping and bleeding is normal and, if my body and baby are ready, that labor would start within 48 hours. She also wanted me to go to the labor and delivery ward at the hospital to monitor my blood pressure in case I needed to be induced for preeclampsia.

​I left the office, called my husband to come home from work and headed home to finish packing my hospital bag. Today was finally the day!

For over two decades of my life, I spent countless hours and too much energy focused on losing weight. My first diet was at eight or nine years old and my last one was at 29. I tried everything from the Cabbage Soup Diet to weight loss tea to Atkins, Keto, Whole30...And they all worked for a bit until they didn't.

Exactly a year ago, I was in the throes of my last diet, five days away from completing the Whole30 for a second time. I had been trying unsuccessfully to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight for about six months and nothing was working. My body was holding onto the weight like my life and the life of my baby depended on it. After a month of torturing myself and feeling obsessed with food and "clean" eating, I stepped on the scale and had lost a measly 5 pounds. I was devastated.

Frustrated with my so-called failure, I began looking for yet another diet, this time in podcast form, when I came across Food Psych. This was the start of my journey to Intuitive Eating, learning about Health at Every Size and healing my relationship with food and my body.

I learned that diets and yo-yoing in weight is more harmful to one's health than staying at a larger weight consistently over a lifetime. I learned about the "obesity paradox." I learned to free myself from diet culture and weight stigma. I learned to enjoy eating again, not only to sustain my body, but also for the pure pleasure of it, because food is not only delicious but it brings us closer to the people we love. I learned to embrace and celebrate my body for the amazing things it's able to do.

A year after giving birth, I got pregnant again. My starting weight with my second pregnancy was the weight I was the morning I went into labor in my first pregnancy. This was the ultimate lesson in accepting that bodies are meant to change and diets are designed not to work. 

Instead of obsessing over food and weight loss this past year, this is what I've been able to do:

The thing I hear the most from people and read frequently on forums when I'm planning my trips is, "Don't take your baby!" Babies are often seen as pariahs, especially when it comes to fine dining.

What's a parent to do when they want to experience the wonders of the world but they've also decided to have a family? Must they relegate themselves and their offspring to hotel rooms and not share a unique dining experience with other humans? 

When I was planning my latest trip through Europe with my youngster in tow, I had so many questions: Are babies allowed at Michelin-starred restaurants? Can I bring my infant to afternoon tea? Wine tasting with a little one--yay or nay? Though the rest of the internet may have you believe that you cannot under any circumstances enjoy such splendors with your tot, I'm here with facts based on experience (and not baby-ism).

Taking time to reflect and plan ahead is extremely important to me. It's not so much about nostalgia but of learning from my past self and deciding how to intentionally move forward in my life.

For me, journaling has been a crucial part of my life for 18 years. It's my therapy and has helped me deal with and overcome a lot of trauma. It's also where I allow myself to dream and tell the universe exactly what I want out of my life. By goal-setting every year, I make sure I express what I want to achieve, what I want my life to look like, even if I fall short sometimes.

Today I turn 30 and over the course of the past several weeks, I've been reading my journals from my twenties to reflect on this decade, see how I've grown, which (if any) of those goals I still want to pursue and plan for the decade ahead. While I was reading my journals, I found an entry from seven years ago, when I was about to turn 23, entitled "For Christina on her 30th Birthday."

I had totally forgotten about it but sentimental 23-year-old me had the foresight to know that 30-year-old me would find this to be so special. Here's the letter I wrote to myself for my 30th birthday: