We finally got around to recording our script. I can't remember if I mentioned this earlier or not, but part of our childbirth class includes recording a meditation script and a relaxation script -- in the partner's voice. It's kind of cool, since that will be the voice there helping you through the labor, why not have it as practice relaxation as well?
Well, with all that's been going on recently (car shopping, work drama, etc.), we didn't get around to doing the recording until the night before our third class (and there's only five!). So, that means that last night after class was the first time that I listened to the relaxation script.
Just to fill in quickly here, the meditation one is shorter and is to be done in the morning. The relaxation is a full visualization journey to the ocean, engulfed by a cloud, etc. and takes a good 15-20 minutes to get through (poor Mo, trying not to make mistakes while recording!). You listen to this one while lying down, so it's fine to do before bed.
So, last night we got home from class and I did my full routine. (Put on the hot water to prep my hippie pregnancy tea and yoga exercises that are to be done twice a day while waiting.) Once I got through that routine, I headed back to bed to listen to Mo's voice guiding me through the visualization (which made me forget that I'm supposed to get a one-minute massage from him every night -- what kind of a dolt keeps forgetting that?!).
Anyway ....
I laid down on my side and listened to Mo take me into a state of relaxation, and Blueberry WENT WILD!!!! Wow!! I'd be curious to listen to it with a different voice to see if hearing Daddy's voice made a difference or if it was just the relaxed state, but Blueberry, usually a very active baby, has NEVER been that active! It was crazy!! Full-on, all-limbed bouncing around, kickin' it up, punchin' away, frenzied dancing. It was hilarious. I'm thinking Blueberry must have a tail or an extra limb or something, because it definitely felt like more than just four limbs and a head making action in there. Of course, it was then harder to relax, because I was so fascinated by what was happening in my belly. Though the fact that it was happening was proof enough that the relaxation was taking place, I guess. It's really hard to describe.
Which gives me pretty strong hope for labor. If that's all it takes for me to relax enough for Blueberry to be ready to pop on out, well then you can bet that that recording is coming with us to the hospital!!
I've been wondering a lot about what Blueberry can detect inside of me emotionally, and I've been intrigued at my assumptions.
For example, I'm sure Blueberry is happy when Mo & I are home together, because we have such a loving relationship with each other. We do a lot of cuddling and laughing together, which I'm sure is good for Blueberry.
However, I like to pretend that any of the stress I've been going through is not getting through the placenta. But it's madness to believe that one gets through and the other doesn't. I don't think that the placenta has a positivity filter on it! (Wouldn't that be nice?!)
I'm especially concerned now, as Blueberry is getting closer to full-term, right when my work is in full-on explosive, epic crisis mode. I can't help but be stressed and frustrated with the level of ineptitude, 'not-my-problem'-ness, and general vacuum of leadership that is occurring. I like to believe that since at least I'm not that much of a stress case all around in my life, that stress is being mitigated by the loving happiness that is the rest of my life.
Because I have a lot to be grateful for. Like I already mentioned, there's Mo, and we have a great relationship. We're good at laughing our way through challenges, even as we're facing them head-on and seriously working our way through them. We just have a lot of fun together and genuinely enjoy each other's company. Which is nice. You know, since he's here every day and all.
And I have wonderfully supportive parents. And a fabulous array of friends who are amazing in a fabulous array of ways. And we have this new spacious apartment. And now a 4-door car -- a Prius, even! And I have good health, have had a pretty easy pregnancy. And we're taking cool childbirth classes. And, despite the madness at work, I work with some great people and have learned so much through my exposure to the stories of resilience of the survivors I get to work with. The list goes on and on ...
So I hope that balances out my current work fury and Blueberry knows, at some level, that this will be gone and out of my life by the time s/he arrives in the outer world, and that it's in general going to be a happy place to be.
Mo reminded me of a funny story from our first childbirth class.
Our teacher Betsy had all of us (moms and partners) hold an ice cube for a minute. Then she asked us, in our heads, to rank the pain from 1 (not painful) to 10 (extremely painful). We had to get the number in our heads before telling each other so we wouldn't influence each other with our responses.
But no worries. Because I knew what the outcome of this was going to be ...
Can you guess?
Katie: 2. Mo: 7.
Mo points out that this was an unfair advantage since he has a particular aversion to cold and I have a particular tolerance for it. But still. I had to laugh and say, 'Well, I guess it's a good thing that I'm the one giving birth!'
We did it two more times, one time focusing our attention on an object, and another time focusing on sounds, to see if those kinds of diversions were helpful us to us in tolerating pain. It didn't make a big difference for either one of us, particularly.
But the really funny part comes in when Mo went on to tell this story to our friend Mia this week, explaining that this was an exercise that simulates what labor feels like.
Thank goodness for Mia who has not been through labor herself but still knew enough to look at him and emphatically let him know that, in fact, no, holding an ice cube for one minute is NOTHING like going through labor.
Again, I repeat, I think we have the proper partner going through the physical part of this process in our case, though I have to say that I've always thought that I was a bit of a wimp when it comes to pain. Thank goodness for Mo who's proving to me that I'm not as bad as I thought! :)
We started childbirth class this week. Well, one of them. Because yes, in classic Katie & Mo form, we're taking not one but two classes! Plus a few additional workshops, though those will focus on specific topics like breastfeeding, newborn care, and such. In our defense.
You're probably wondering why we would take two classes. Mo absolutely loves the health education component of having Kaiser healthcare. He therefore wanted to take the Kaiser class, and I agreed that it was a good idea for us to take it to get the 'inside scoop' as to their philosophy and outlook on childbirth, since we're going to be birthing there.
However, since in an ideal world I would have liked to have been able to have a midwife, and possibly a home birth, but in the grand scheme of big expenses we had, that took the low priority, I insisted that we also then take a class that is more in line with the ideals that I have for the birth process.
I did a fair amount of research and then eventually made a spur-of-the-moment decision that landed us in a Zen Childbirth class! And ... we love it!!
I don't think it would be possible for us to have found a class more well-suited to Katie & Mo. Well, the only way I think it could have been more well-suited is if it also combined elements of the Birthing from Within methods, which have sort of an expressive arts component to them. But I'm working my way through that book in addition, so that will suffice.
Anyway, why do we love this class so much? First of all, the teacher is great. She's the perfect combination of Berkeley hippie and grounded person. She's taken all these fabulous hippie ideas and condensed them into one of the most well-organized curricula I've ever seen. The whole curriculum is experience-based, with a focus on meditation and relaxation, and we spent a good deal of the time in class practicing what she was proposing that we practice at home, which we loved! Neither Mo nor I learn well by being bombarded with information in lecture format, and that is so not what this class is about.
Her class is also partially based in HypnoBirthing, which I know you're going to immediately think sounds crazy. But that's just because you have this image of hypnotism as getting you to do nutty things you wouldn't normally do. When in fact what it's really about is getting you into an altered state of relaxation. And who can argue with that? Especially when going through labor?? That's where the visualization exercises come in.
She even gives us a script for the meditation and relaxation exercises, tells us to edit it so that it works for us (!), and then has the partner record the script so that we're listening to it in the voice that we'll be hearing at the birth! I will admit that there is a portion of it where my practical side took over -- there's a cloud coming down and lifting us off the beach, at which point my brain went, 'A cloud can't hold me! That doesn't even make sense!' But, since she sets up the process so that we edit the script, I could edit that right out! Viola!
So in the meantime, I have a list of homework practices to do each day -- and Mo has to do some of them too. They include some yoga moves, meditation, relaxation, Kegel exercises -- and end with a mini massage for me before bed! I'm certainly not complaining about that!
It's making it all that much more real, though. This is actually happening -- and in two months! Gotta go drink my hippie pregnancy tea ...
Well, apparently it's worse than I thought. Cuz I really do still feel like I'm not that big. In fact, we went to an introductory night to Hypno Birthing (more on that later) the other night, and there was a woman sitting next to us who said she's due mid-May, and I swear we were about the same belly size.
So anyway, we went out to dinner with another couple last night, and I couldn't fit in the booth!! What?! Mind you, it was an *unusually* small booth space. Even Mo looked scrunched in, for crying out loud. But still -- how would you feel if you had to switch tables because you couldn't fit?! Luckily, I have the pregnancy to blame -- if I had been a regular plus-sized person, I would have been humiliated and furious!
Instead, we all got a good laugh. Mo thought it was hilarious. And somehow, it made me feel good, since it validates that the belly is growing!
I can no longer see my belly button. It's there, but I have to lean way over to see it. Mo was laughing at me yesterday as I was demonstrating this to him. It's like being at the edge of the Grand Canyon and you're very carefully leaning over the edge to try to see something along the side of it, making sure not to fall down. That's kind of what I looked like trying to see my belly button.
It just proves that my valley isn't totally gone yet. Cuz see, I've always had a valley in my belly. The Valley of the Belly. I think maybe I've worn my pants too tight over the years or something (well, at least when it was fashionable to wear pants up to your belly button/waist -- clearly I don't do that any more when it's SO not hip -- of course, now I wear pants that have a band that covers my entire belly, but I guess that's a whole other story, and I'm currently exempt from fashion, methinks, but I digress), because there's a very distinct dip between two layers of the belly. I've really been looking forward to that getting pushed out with the pregnant belly -- and perhaps even becoming a thing of the past permanently, since who knows what this body is going to look like post-birth. Like a glacier filling in the belly and creating a whole new land mass. Well, emphasis on land, not on mass, please.
But, since the upper lip of the valley seems to now be making it such that I can't see the belly button, it proves that the valley has yet to be filled in and that the river still runs through it. Maybe now that I can't see the belly button, Brad Pitt is down there fishing with his brother and dad. Who knows what happens in the valley!
Oh well. There's still hope. Cuz the belly's still pushin' out! Mo's taken to calling me Mount Honeymore. Which I guess is appropriate, seeing as how Mt. Rushmore itself isn't exactly the example of the highest mountain imaginable, and I definitely haven't yet reached my geologic peak in belly growth land. (Oh, if only I was clever enough with images to Photo Shop my belly into Mt. Rushmore and put it here, but I definitely don't have the energy and patience to attempt that right now. I guess some things should be left to imagination, anyway.)
I'm intrigued to see if, as Mt. Honeymore shapes into Mt. Katiemajaro, my innie bursts forth into an outie ... maybe THAT'S the geologic force necessary to even out the valley.
It's New Year's Day, which also means that it's our anniversary. Our second one, to be precise. We've developed the tradition of watching our ceremony (utilizing the FF button liberally), reviewing the guest book (in which we also made notes of funny and heartwarming stories from that week), and reflecting on how our relationship is going and making notes in a special notebook. (Yes, I realize that it's a bit of a stretch to call it a 'tradition' when this is only the second time we're doing it, and frankly, all we've done so far today is review the guest book.)
But since we're both self-helpy, goal-setting kinds of people (admittedly, Mo's far better at actually reviewing them and trying to achieve them throughout the year), it's kind of nice to use this reflection time to also look forward to what's to come in the coming year and think about what we'd like to manifest.
I can certainly say that, when we had our ceremony two years ago, I wouldn't have imagined that I'd be pregnant at our two-year anniversary. I was sure that was five years out or so. But it didn't take too long into last year to change my mind on that, and I definitely feel ready now. Which I guess shows the limitations of yearly planning, since you don't know what life will bring.
In any case, I hope that reflecting and looking forward are traditions that we can pass on to Blueberry.
I've been thinking recently about traditions and rituals and how I didn't realize what an important part they played in my own upbringing. I've been lax about many of them over the last few years, but it's been fun discussing what we want to pass on to Blueberry. For example, it was so much fun to introduce Nomi to my family's Christmas traditions this last week. I think he was a bit skeptical going in, since he didn't grow up with a Christmas tradition in his family and has only really been exposed to the consumerist aspect of Christmas. But he came away saying how much fun our kid(s) will have with it. And I got to remember what was most important about it for me, which is just the togetherness of family and the warmth of staying in, playing games, sharing, laughing and eating with each other. Giving presents. And enjoying the winter and snow, of course!
We then also want to develop traditions with Eid so that Blueberry can learn that side of the family culture as well. It will be fun to see what else we dream up to pass on as traditions that s/he can look forward to every year!
So here's to 2011! It's certainly going to be one of change for us, and we're so looking forward to what's in store!
I laid down on my side and listened to Mo take me into a state of relaxation, and Blueberry WENT WILD!!!! Wow!! I'd be curious to listen to it with a different voice to see if hearing Daddy's voice made a difference or if it was just the relaxed state, but Blueberry, usually a very active baby, has NEVER been that active! It was crazy!! Full-on, all-limbed bouncing around, kickin' it up, punchin' away, frenzied dancing. It was hilarious. I'm thinking Blueberry must have a tail or an extra limb or something, because it definitely felt like more than just four limbs and a head making action in there. Of course, it was then harder to relax, because I was so fascinated by what was happening in my belly. Though the fact that it was happening was proof enough that the relaxation was taking place, I guess. It's really hard to describe.
