Today is my due date... With so many people choosing scheduled C-sections and the media's skewed portrayal of birth, it's interesting to see/hear people's reaction to the following dialogue:
stranger: wow! when are you due?
me: today
stranger: today?
me: yes
stranger: OMG! (as they back away) are you going to deliver right now?
me: uh, no. If I was I wouldn't be here. I'd be at the hospital.
I also find it interesting that a lot of young women don't understand what a natural birth is all about. Or that a due date is not a date set in stone. You can't schedule anything. It's normal and ok to go into labor any time from 38-42 weeks. So for five weeks you're kind of on-call 24/7, and so should your support system be on call.
Today I actually felt better than anytime in the last 5 days. I'm not as bloated and my energy sort of came back. I went to pre-natal yoga and then to acupuncture to help the process along. I felt both help.
In yoga I felt the baby drop even further during our lunges. Then during shavasana, as I laid back in a propped reclined position with my feet together in a "butterfly" I noticed the very top of my stomach was flat! For the first time in months my stomach was flat!!!! The baby had moved down! All the way down!
During acupuncture the baby was moving hard core and I could really feel some contractions. All evening long I've been feeling them but nothing has officially started. However, I do have a whole repertoire of things to do to get the process going.
Every day I sit on an exercise ball, three times a day for 45-minutes. To get all that time in, with a 4-year old in my life, I just sit on the ball during every meal and again later in the evening. My knees have to be higher or the same height as my hips. The supported squat helps the cervix and hips open up. I take 1000mg of evening primrose oil, drink raspberry leaf tea, take long walks and have sex. Who knew the very stuff (semen) that gets the entire process started is the same stuff that helps us end it?
This evening the whole family came on a walk with me. It was nice to have everyone's company. The acupuncturist felt I would have a baby tonight....but so far at 10:15pm I'm not thinking it's going to happen.
On the way home from seeing her I stopped to get a pedicure. I just got one on Saturday but the color I picked, a pale purple, was really bugging me. During my last NST I noticed my toes were the same exact color as the hospital walls! It looked kind of trailer trash and it was bugging me so much I felt it was inhibiting me from going into labor. So, now with the perfect toe color (a classic and classy red) I'm ready to have a baby!
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