Down to the Last Days...

We are so excited to meet our little one. In fact, we're having trouble sleeping as we lay awake at night dreaming and talking about how our lives are about to become so much more full of joy! It's already brimming full of joy & love, and from what I hear it just gets more joyful & amazing. Thanks be to God!

Hopefully, the next time we post we will have some exciting news...

Until then, we remain busy watching our (what our midwife calls) "Mind Movie" of the little one being born. I created a powerpoint visual/audio slideshow that Alex and I watch 1-2x per day together. I made this technique even more powerful for us because the images and sounds are of familiar visuals within our house/belongings so that even when I see these images throughout the day my brain flashes through the sequence of how we want the birth to go and what these objects mean in relation to what is important to us.

I was so happy to find that our midwife's experience and philosophy is similar to mine--and I just ran with this project because as a clinician/counselor I taught my clients exactly how to do this!! I taught them how to create and utilize positive thought forms to help them get over ingrained patterns (think substance abuse, relationship snafus, family system dynamics, and negative self-talk) with emphasis on all 6 senses (sight, touch, taste, sound, smell & kinesthetic) to make our visualizations (which is different from meditation, praying, imagining) so real it fools our brain (based on neuroscience of change principles, i.e. QZE) into thinking the PTF is actually occurring. You may be more familiar with how this is explained when elite athletes visualize themselves winning to gain an edge and set new PRs. As I watch our mind movie I'm also creating that positive thought form of what it will feel like--both physically and using my knowledge of my body's proprioception--(the bedsheets, hot/cold, water, deep breathing, walking around etc.) and what it will smell like (freshly made oatmeal chocolate chip flaxseed cookies from the oven, serenity aromatherapy, our laundry detergent, Paddi & Alex, etc.) As you can see the more you incorporate all the senses, the more this thought form becomes something other than some wispy thought, image, or 3-D picture in your head of what you may think it may be like. It is really pretty amazing how this works, and I've been using this for years to intentionally create what happens in my life with gratitude (along with the guidance of God and our amazing guardian angels). We just can't wait to see how this pans out with the birth! You may wonder why Alex watches and listens with me, and it is so that he knows the cues that will help me remain relaxed and focused as I labor--and because his biggest role is affirming and encouraging the journey the baby and I are undergoing as we are birthing. He is already amazing at it--we just cannot wait for the birth to begin and all the practice to be over!!!

The above picture is the bassinet all ready with the first outfit to go! Dottie gifted us with the ducky onesie, and I found matching ducky mittens just in case those itty bitty nails are really long and/or he's a little chilly in those first moments. We have a whole pile of receiving and swaddling blankets--so who knows how many we'll go through as we warm him up and dry him off--it will be fun to see which one he ends up in as we cuddle and snuggle and let him adjust to our world!

I'm off to finish sewing the last two swaddling blankets...and then voila, he'll be here before we know it!

[I'm rambling along here...just trying to explain some of the reasons why we've chosen to go sans medication for a natural childbirth experience, b/c I know many must be wondering and thinking we're (a) crazy, (b) uninformed, or (c) being strong. When, in fact, this just seems the normal thing to do--given the scope of how many women in the world give birth naturally without specialized doctors. And it seems much more scary to give in to the fear of childbirth and the socio-norm/stigma in America that assumes most (read "all") women prefer to be medicated to "get through" pregnancy. I'm not writing an actual paper (so don't quote my facts ver batim!), I'm merely pulling stats that have accumulated over months of researching and educating ourselves about pregnancy and childbirth from a sleep-deprived brain that is bathed in the hormones of pregnancy. Therefore, I am not focused on citing references, but more on reasoning why this way is the best way for us (yay, emotions and listening to intuition)!

So, some friends and family are undoubtedly wondering why are we doing a home water birth? Naturally, for us this feels the most safe and secure way to welcome the baby into the world in a warm and loving environment. There is no fear, and we are very comfortable with the fact women have been having babies since the beginning of our existence, and our bodies naturally know what to do when we have had a healthy pregnancy. Which in our case, we are blessed with having!

Most pregnancies are healthy, there is a small percentage that do not progress "normally." Later, as we read more and more we found out that the average U.S. hospital has a rate of 1 out of 3 (in S.V.) or 1 out of 4 births that deliver via C-section, and if you deliver in a hospital most doctors do not know what a natural (i.e. UNMEDICATED) child birth even looks like. Besides that every woman progresses through active labor on their own time schedule--if you are going to a hospital where they set time constraints on how long the first stage may last before they speed it up with pitocin (or if the doc has decided you need to be induced b/c you are past 40 weeks even though your ovulation timeframe may have been miscalculated and you may only be "38" weeks...) and they have you on continual fetal monitoring and/or with an IV so that you cannot move around, go to the bathroom, eat, change positions (like normal mammals do when they are birthing their babies) how can you feel safe and confident in your body's ability to birth when you're being rushed, checked, and are positioned on your back in the worst position for both you and baby (you cut off a major vein and cause oxygen deprivation for both mother and child--which is what can cause a lot of the complications in the first place with dilating when you aren't squatting and letting gravity help the cervix dilate and efface)...to have an uncomplicated pregnancy? Notice in that sentence I did not even mention being medicated--and having the epidural, spinal block etc. further tie you down to the bed, on your back etc...Did you know out of the developing countries, the U.S. has some of the highest maternal mortalities, I think we're #38 (and that is with the CDC's under-reported rates... (Ina May Gaskins site has a ton of articles on this). Forget about all of the amazing benefits of a baby being able to use its rooting reflexes from the moment he is born to find its mother's breast when unmedicated and thus begin the process of attaching to its parents and feeling safe and secure in the world. Remember that I have worked with clients who have a myriad of problems in their lives due to the initial lack of attachment to their caregivers...Also, forget about the fact that babies born naturally are healthier all around. Also forget about the fact that once pitocin is introduced (either to induce or speed up labor) in the hospital it creates a domino effect of more and more unnecessary interventions, thereby increasing both the mom and baby's risk for complications. Did you know that once you have a medical intervention introduced into the mom's body, her body's natural pain management hormones turn off thinking they are no longer needed, so that when that first dose of medication wear's off the mom is now in more pain than if she was having natural contractions. Her endorphins don't turn back on, because they were knocked off line by the synthetic drugs. Also, once these drugs are introduced into the body--it no longer is given the time it needs to naturally dilate and for the cervix to thin etc etc., so that is where the increased risk of tearing and being given an automatic episiotmy comes from, because the mom's body doesn't naturally get to work the cervix open and allow the perineum to relax so that the baby is able to easily slide out of the birth canal? There is a ton of information out there about all of this, I haven't even hit the tip of the iceberg. Speaking of which, I need to go drink some more water so I'm hydrated and healthy!

Really, all I was going to post was: Yesterday we found an interesting statistic in BottomLine "...Caesarean births are twice as risky to the baby as vaginal births. Babies born via C-section to women who did not need the procedure have twice the risk for death within the first month as those born vaginally. Marian F. MacDorman, PhD, statistician and senior social scientist, divison of vital statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta." I think what is even more interesting to think about is that OB/GYNs go to medical school and they learn pathologies. So, when they are checking out moms progress in pregnancy, they are coming at it from the point of view of everything that can go wrong. Rarely, do these doctors know what a natural unmedicated birth looks like. That is because in school they learned the interventions to help along complicated pregnancies. This is what they are looking for whenever they see their patients, they are merely doing what they were trained surgically and medically to do!

So, basically, I will always go with a midwife who has experience and knowledge of what healthy pregnancies look like. I prefer to spend an hour each appointment with my midwife having my questions answered, learning more about prenatal nutrition, and discussing my comfort level of the birthing process. I will take this any day to waiting in the OB's office for 45 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes (yup, my average wait at the OB's here is 1 hour...), only to have 2 minutes face time (the longest I've spent with an OB here is 5 minutes, and that was because I was being routinely tested for strep B) with one of the two attending OBs who may or may not deliver our baby.

All just food for thought. And, I promise all of our other posts will be miniscule in the writing department and more focused on sharing pics!!! I think I just stumbled onto an english major's paradise. Anyone want to help me get my PhD, so I don't bore you with all my writing---and it is directed at something very productive?!! Hee-hee. I'm merely just re-directing my attention away from the numb fingers, inability to breathe deeply because my lungs are squooshed, and the waddle I will have to perform to go get re-hydrated...thank you for reading!!