We have something like 8 (+/- 2) weeks to go. If I can judge by the way I feel today (which comes after two restless nights, to be fair), the time of exhaustion may have started. I’m feeling weak and listless.
Our birth education class just finished so we have a good number of extra hours to our week. Unfortunately, there is much left to do:
- Finish studio/bedroom and general apartment re-arrange.
- Store studio ‘junk’ currently residing on living room floor.
- Paint two unpainted walls of bedroom (non-toxic paint, of course) and zen it up.
- Procure a certain portable laundry washer and hook it up.
- Get organic stuff for bed (yes, still haven’t done, despite the law that was passed earlier)
- Obtain “home birth” kit, including oral vitamin K for the babe.
- Continue yoga practice despite being totally pooped.
- Meet a pediatrician.
- Go to a vaccination info session at above pediatrician’s office so we can be told how vaccines do cause/do not cause/or something in between regarding autism.
- Figure some sort of baby changing station (this to please husband but surely I’ll come to love it too, right?)
Additionally, we need to step up the practice of body scan/relaxation technique for labor. We’ve been very, very slack at it. We often do it late at night when we generally just fall asleep. While falling asleep isn’t a bad outcome of relaxation, in this case, it would be better to be able to finish the process consciously and then sleep. While a person can and should do the the relaxation by herself, it’s best to have another person guiding the process. You see, your mind drifts to all kinds of places before you remember you’re supposed to be moving the imaginary orange light from your forehead to your neck. This is where your “birth partner” or, as I prefer to call him, “husband” comes in play. The secret is to use a true and tried script but make it your own so it doesn’t sound like you’re reading from a book.
We’re still searching for a good way to do it. Birthing classes helped, but we can’t remember what exactly made the teacher guided relaxation so much more successful than the stuff we’re trying at home. Any progress will be documented, I’m sure 