Bliss of Life

I’m not really in a blog posting mood, but I thought I should, so people would know what is not going on in my world today, which is labor. Something else that isn’t happening today is the hour long walks I’ve been taking this week. I don’t have any desire to get things moving while my midwife is still out of town. Also, I’m not eating spicy food to try to stimulate labor, it just brings on heartburn. I’m not rushing out to go anywhere or get anything done. There’s no rushing at this point. I am about as agile as an ocean liner, and I’m not able to get to sleep until after one, sometimes two o’clock in the morning.

This is just the short list of things I won’t be doing today. There is a much longer list that I like to cycle in my head. It involves getting to see, touch, smell, and sooth my baby, which will happen soon enough. Well, maybe not soon enough, but soon. I hope. Please God, let it be soon. This baby is getting really heavy.

Today is my mom’s birthday. Happy birthday Mom! I know she hoped to share her birthday with her first grandchild, but it doesn’t look like that will be the case. Sorry, I think this Little Mung Bean wants her own day, which is just another reason why I think this baby is a girl.

Anyway, I just wanted to let those of you know who have called recently that I appreciate your calls and well wishes. If I haven’t returned your phone call, please don’t think it’s because I don’t want to talk you. My days are taking on a very sleepy quality, and I’m just kind of following my body’s lead right now. I’m not able to sleep too much at night, so I steal naps during the day in between errands, meals and frequent trips to the bathroom. In the back of mind lives the thought that I need make sure I get enough sleep and food in me, just in case I go into labor that night. It’s a strange space to live, waiting for my most life-changing experience to occur.

I just got back from another appointment with my midwife. There were all sorts of crazy storms in our area last night. Nothing major in our neighborhood, just a lot of thunder, lightening and hail. The neighborhood that my midwife’s office is located was hit hard. I was 15 minutes late to the appointment because I had to detour three or four times due to fallen trees and branches. I can only imagine how frightening that must have been for the people who lived there. There were trees through houses and garages. It’s pretty amazing that no one was seriously injured. My doula kept thinking that the storms would stir up my labor, but no such luck.

Anyway, the appointment went well. My belly hasn’t grown any since last week and my weight is the same. The one thing she did mention was that if I haven’t had the baby by the time she gets back, I might want to consider doing some acupuncture to help my body relax, which can stimulate labor. Acupuncture can also be used to induce labor, but she says that she never encourages women to induce if the pregnancy is normal. Most of the women she works with tend to have their babies 10 – 12 days after their due date. I can’t imagine ever hearing an ob/gyn say that, but my midwife considers 42 weeks to be normal gestational period for most babies. So who knows. This little Bean could still be quite cozy in here come next week.

Last night, I walked for about an hour. When I got home I felt great. I finished folding a huge pile of laundry, had a snack and hung out with Ben. When I woke up to pee around 3:00 this morning, my pubic bone was throbbing in pain. It’s been sensitive throughout most of my pregnancy, and lately I can really feel it when I’m moving around, getting in and out of the car, on and off the bed, etc. My midwife said that pubic bone pain is caused by the baby’s head dropping. The bones shift apart to make room for the baby, which makes sense. If that’s the case, last night’s walk was really successful. Just standing was causing all sorts of crazy pain. So when I woke up starving at 5:45 this morning and groaning about how much my pubic bone hurt, my lovely husband was kind enough to make something to eat for me. He was really trying to temp me with easy foods, like a cashews and a banana, but no. I was famished. Egg sandwich it was.  What a guy.

I am still feeling pretty tired. Today was sprinkled with catnaps, but I’m lucky to have two old dogs and two lazy cats that enjoy napping right along with me. So far, there are no obvious signs that labor is waiting in the wings, but I am still patient. My husband, busy as he is, seems to be struggling a little more with this waiting period. He’s started pleading with the baby to hurry up and get here, and he pretends to poke my belly with a fork saying, “Your done cooking baby. Come on out.” If it takes a few more days, he may even start bribing the Little Mung Bean.

The past two nights, I’ve felt what is called lightening. My uterus just goes into one big long Braxton-Hicks contraction while the baby drops. The sensation seems to last around an hour or so. During that time, I might empty my bladder five or six times because of all the pressure being put on it. Apparently, lightening can happen right before labor or weeks before labor. The first time I felt it was almost a week ago, so something is happening.

As the days tick by, I’m becoming a little concerned. My midwife, GB, is going out of Town Friday evening and coming back Sunday afternoon for her daughters college graduation. She’ll have a midwife on call should I go into labor. I hadn’t really put much thought into the possibility of using the on call midwife because I was so sure the baby would come before then. Now, I’ll settle for after this weekend. We knew there was a chance that this would happen, which was one of the reasons we decided to have a doula for the birth, so I would have someone who is familiar to me assisting. I’m sure the midwife on call is really good at what she does, especially if GB feels comfortable working with her, but I would prefer to have GB.

In the meantime, Ben is playing it cool. During the periods of lightening, he’ll peek over his laptop and in the same way he might ask what I want for dinner he’ll say, “Are you having a baby?” Tonight, I might say yes, just to see what he does.

I have weathered a few rocky paths on this journey that is pregnancy. My first trimester was filled with physical challenges that after time became emotional and spiritual. Then in my second trimester I experienced some instability in my extended family. That was followed by the decline of Ben’s mother’s health, and her passing. Recently, I’ve had another loss that is of such a personal nature I cannot write about it in this forum, but I will say that the grief runs deep. In many ways, I have lost a loved one. A member of my family has perished from my life. Yet, as I grieve this figurative death, I look forward to beginning my own family.

Once again, I find myself living in a strange paradox of loss and life, illusion and truth, separation and unity. I am grateful for the awareness of it all. But I can’t help but ask God to explain the timing. Why now when I am on the verge of birthing my first child? Why couldn’t it happen way before I was carrying this baby, or even wait a couple weeks until my baby is born, so she doesn’t have to experience my every emotion? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem fair to her, but maybe this is part of her journey too. I remember my doula saying that one of the miracles of childbirth is that a woman gets to rebirth herself. That makes the most sense to me. It is the cycle of all existence — birth, life, death, and rebirth. Nothing ever really ends. So I am awaiting this birth and rebirth with an open heart, counting my many blessings, two of which happens to be my amazing husband and my supportive family.

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In the past couple of months my mind hasn’t been able to grasp onto to anything longer than a magazine article, but a book of poetry, given to me by my friend Kirti as a baby shower gift, has nurtured my soul on many sleepless nights. The poem below is from a collection of poems entitled, Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West. When I read this poem today, I realized that it captured the quality of my mind and the spirit of my heart at this moment. So I thought I would share it. Enjoy.

The Way Wings Should

What will our children do in the morning?

Will they wake with their hearts wanting to play,

the way wings should?

Will they have dreamed the needed flights and gathered

the strength from the planets that all men and women need to balance

the wonderful charms of

the earth

so that her power and beauty does not make us forget our own?

I know all about the ways of the heart–how it wants to be alive.

Love so needs to love

that it will endure almost anything, even abuse,

just to flicker for a moment. But the sky’s mouth is kind,

its song will never hurt you, for I sing those words.

What will our children do in the morning

if they do not see us

fly?

Rumi (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

Happy mother’s day out there to all you mamas that read my blog. I really thought that I would be showing some signs of labor by today, but no such luck. I’ll admit that I have a little bit of mama machismo about reaching my due date, like I can somehow take credit for making a really comfortable space in my body that my baby has occupied for all of the 40 weeks, which is considered a normal gestation period. The other thing that I have a little bit of mama machismo about is having a good-sized baby. At 5lbs 10oz, I was a scrawny baby, and it’s probably safe to say that I am not exactly a woman of sturdy physical stature (at least not in my pre-pregnancy body), so the idea of making a baby that is around 7.5-8lbs just makes me giddy with pride. Throw in that I’m a vegetarian, and well… Let’s just say that this baby hasn’t missed out in the nutrition department. Now it’s just a waiting game, which means more time to knit!

Today I took it easy.  I woke up, walked the dogs and promptly went back to bed.  There were a couple meals and a phone call stuck in between my time spent asleep, but nothing else.  As of now, I am definitely feeling every bit of my 39 weeks (almost 40) of pregnancy.  I’m not exactly feeling impatient for the baby being born, especially with all the school work that Ben is doing right now.  It would be nice if the baby were to come late, so he could have more time to devote to the baby.  But on the other hand, I am just so very big and pregnant.

Now that the house is about as ready for the baby as it is going to get, I’ve actually started doing some of the more subtle things that can encourage labor.  Last night, Ben and I went for a nice long walk and tonight I’m eating vegetarian chili cheese dogs.  (Spicy foods are supposed to encourage labor, but I don’t want to go overboard with spices — heartburn isn’t fun.)  I would like to go for another walk tonight, but since we just had a short hail storm, I might have to skip it.

After months and months and months of listening to me build a case for needing this baby hammock, Ben finally broke down and ordered it. How did I convince him? Well, here it goes… This little hammock cradles the baby, bounces, and swings. It can hang from hooks in the ceiling, which means it won’t take up a lot of room (a huge selling point when you live in a house that is slightly larger than a shoe box). It also has a clamp that attaches to door frames, making it lightweight and portable. All good arguments, but what finally sold Ben on the hammock was reading the consumer reviews. Several people’s babies used the hammock well after a year and a half. What these clever moms did was lower the hammock closer to the floor, so the children could climb in and out on their own. And because it can hold up to 33 lbs, your baby won’t outgrow as quickly as a bassinet. Hopefully, our Little Mung Bean will like it, even though ours will not be in the beautiful shade of ivory, as shown in the picture. Ivory is sold out. Shucks! Our little one will have to be satisfied with moss green. It’s green for the Mung Bean!