Pregnancy Update

Labyrinth of pregnancy (the path can be followed all the way into the spiral belly!)

I had my 28 week prenatal appointment earlier this week. I value my midwife and enjoy our visits, but I had a nighttime epiphany recently that I had more options to choose from, because I miss the kind of relationship I had with my midwife during my second pregnancy.

At this appointment, I had my blood sugar checked (2 hour post-prandial) and it was 91 (same as it was with my first baby at this point). I also had my hemoglobin checked and it was 11.5 (same as with my first baby—with second baby, it was 12.9 at 26 weeks). I now weigh almost as much as I did full term with number two! (still five pounds to go). Baby wiggles a LOT—sometimes it almost hurts, which I don’t remember from before. She also has hiccups regularly, which are always cute. She also seems to be head-down. When I heard that, I felt really strange—like, “there is a head in there?! And, I’m going to give birth to it?!” I have been much more reluctant to read about birth during this pregnancy—I think because I’ve been concentrating so much on successfully growing this baby to term, I don’t want to plant any subconscious ideas too early about giving birth and send myself into labor early, or something. I used to read a lot of birth stories and I have some great books of birth stories, but I don’t feel like reading them until I’m like 36 weeks—just in case. After this appointment, I started to think birthy thoughts some more—thinking about ideas and plans for when she is born. I also had a birth dream—the placenta came out first and after a while I was like, “wait, but I didn’t have the baby yet!” and then she was born—enormously fat with small eyes and she gave me a big hug.

The same night I realized I wish I had some more midwife choices, I had another realization (not exactly a new one, but a new version of it) that I still have a big root fear that something wrong with ME is what caused my miscarriages (like a clotting disorder) and that I still do not trust that I can really give birth to a living baby at the end of this pregnancy. I’m worried that my body was responsible for the loss of my other babies. I don’t know how to get rid of this or work with it really—I’m at an impasse and since I truly do not know the cause and I can’t talk myself out of logically/rationally or just “think positive.” It is buried down there—most of the time I feel happy fine, but when I catch sight of the fear again (that night it was because she wasn’t moving as much as she usually does at that time of night), I realize that it is this bone deep fear-based thing that I don’t know how to shake. I do not want to have a fear-based pregnancy or to live a fear-based life, but there it is…

When it isn’t the middle of the night and I have my logic brain back, I feel more certain that my m/c experiences were chance based—Noah perhaps some kind of abnormality and the second perhaps a progesterone deficiency or something else related to getting pregnant again fairly quickly after a significant loss—and thus have no bearing on my current pregnancy, but still.

However, speaking of fears and returning to my plans for this birth, someone recently expressed surprise to my mom that I’m planning to have this baby at home after what happened with Noah. Hmm. This is completely irrational to me, because what happened to Noah had nothing to do with being at home—he died, we found out, I gave birth to him at home. How would that mean that my new baby should be born in the hospital instead? Not to mention that fact that when I did go to the hospital postpartum because of blood loss, rather than being helped by the assumed-fabulous skills and resources at the hospital, I was dismissed in life-threatening condition! (and was instead helped by a midwife at her home.) Having Noah only reinforced for me that the hospital is not somewhere I want to be when I’m giving birth, postpartum, or in need of compassionate attention. Giving birth to him at home reinforced for me that home is where I can most capably, peacefully, respectfully, powerfully, and safely give birth to my babies.

I keep feeling this “call” to retreat—to quit most of my nonessential responsibilities and just hang around at home. I had this fantasy recently of a year-long postpartum retreat where I just take care of my baby and read and write and play with the kids and look at the clouds (or something). Ever since I had Noah last year, I’ve been feeling like turning inward/away and just spending time by myself. I also felt like I needed to take a break from being of service/helping other people and needed to tend my own hearth and take care of myself instead. I rarely actually follow-up on this urge, even when I have a chance to do so. There is always too much “work” to be done or things to “catch up” with or just “one more thing” and before I know it, my window of alone time has passed. This might just be a fantasy notion—if I really wanted to take the time out, wouldn’t I do it?—but I think it is a true call to self-care that I’m not heeding (even now, here I am writing a blog post while my kids are visiting their grandpa—couldn’t I be having a mini-retreat right now?). This is one reason I’m taking a leave from birth classes and LLL right now—I want to be able to focus on my own pregnancy, birth planning, babymoon, and new baby, rather than focusing on those things for other people. I also feel like writing about my own pregnancy and my own birthing thoughts, rather than writing posts or articles designed to help other people—sometimes I get bogged down in feeling like I should be writing helpful and informative posts and the time for personal reflection passes. Maybe this sounds selfish, but I don’t think so. I’ve always had a fear that if I am not “of service” in some capacity I will cease to exist/have any worth/be a real person—I’d like to get over that!

I often tell my college students that we cannot expect more from our clients than we are willing to do ourselves. I also tell them that sometimes we want to do for others what we are unwilling to do for ourselves. This is where I am right now—I have lots of great ideas for things I’d like to do for other women on pregnancy retreats or in birth classes for women who are having their second or third baby rather than their first and want to deepen their understanding of the meaning of pregnancy and birth in their lives. Why don’t I experiement and do all those things for myself? And, then, see about offering those things to other women…I can see it now—“My Year of Self-Care.” (Inside joke to those who know how I disklike “year of” experiment books.) I feel like I rarely do what I actually want to do with my days, instead of doing what I should do, or what makes the most sense. Sometimes it is what is most pressing, but more often it is should-based or internally driven, rather than an actual issue of priorities.

This actually isn’t the post I set out to write today, which was originally intended to be some self-care tips from Renee Trudeau with a short intro from me about my own “call” to rest and renewal. Perhaps it was the post I needed to write though! Perhaps not, because now I feel like I’ve “wasted” my chance to do some of those other things I’d like to do with my time!

Celebrate the Woman Pregnant

Oct27

Celebrate the Woman Pregnant

By Ani Tuzman

A woman pregnant,

I long to be seen

belly protruding,

life invisibly visible

churning inside

I want to be seen

honored, revered,

Exalted

not as my person,

but as the Miracle itself

of life begetting life

of human birth

Celebrate the woman

pregnant

don’t set her aside

nor cast her off as disabled,

or ever less woman;

Revel with her

feeling her firmness

knowing her softness

Carve her rare beauty

in smooth white marble

Look upon her.

Celebrate the woman pregnant

Hers is to know

the creative moment

of Life incarnating

——–

This poem came in the pregnancy newsletter I get from Mothering.com and it reminded me of the “magic” of being pregnant. I love that feeling (I’ve written about it before in the “the pregnant glow“). After this new baby is born, we do not plan to have any more children (though I have said to my husband, “what if she’s just so awesome we want to have one more?”) and I’m trying to take special time to savor and enjoy that magic feeling of being pregnant, since I will likely not experience it again personally. I told a friend recently that I feel like maybe I’m not savoring as much as I “should” be and realized that I think when I think of savoring, I think I’m picturing sitting around for hours rubbing my belly—possibly making multiple belly casts and drawing some fabulous art as well. Oh, and making some sculptures. And, then sitting and rubbing some more—preferably in the sunshine 😉 I have been making a very conscious effort to downscale my commitments to allow for more of this. I’m also taking a leave from teaching birth classes—I feel like I want to focus on my own pregnancy, rather than on other people’s. I feel a real inward-draw and not so much like being “of service” to others (I’ve been feeling this inner call since Noah was born last year, actually, but it has taken a while to actually get to the downscaling part). I also find that teaching college classes “uses up” most of my available teaching energy and I don’t have as much to give to birth classes—I am not expecting this to be a permanent leave, birthwork is too important to me for that, but I want to heed my inward call. I’ll have to stick with “virtual” birth education via this blog for a while!

I’ve had a post pending for a while that I guess will never get posted, about life balance and feeling like I’ve not been living up to a good guiding quote—“the things that matter most should never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.” Instead, the things that had been getting cut from my schedule were things like hanging out with my friends, sitting in the sunshine, writing in my journal, rubbing my belly, snuggling with my husband, reading books to my kids, chatting with my mom—HELLO! Not a good idea. So, I’ve done some cutting, some saying no, and also just some mental readjusting about how I think about things (like my to-do list). I’ve also been doing a “conditions of enoughness” thing that I learned from Jen Louden, wherein you set some conditions of enoughness for the day—not, just keep burning until the day is used up, not, “I can probably do this one more thing” and likewise not a “bare minimum” approach, but what is enough on a given day. Usually, this does not mean accomplishing everything on one’s to-do list, and it leaves some time leftover in the day for self-care—which is the piece I’ve been missing too. While everything is not perfect, obviously, I feel better about my life balance in recent weeks. My main reason for this downshifting is actually in preparation to enjoy my new baby when she gets here—I want to be all “cleared out” to enjoy a nice babymoon as well as to be free to take good care of myself as well as my baby.

The picture above was taken by my friend Karen at the park last week. She has launched a new photography business recently and if you click the picture, it will take you to her Facebook fan page. She is going to do both pregnancy photography and birth photography and I hope to have some more pictures in another month or so 🙂

And, I actually have been doing a lot of drawing during this pregnancy. Here is one I did when I was starting to re-incorporate the pregnant identity into my life again, as well as to feel some of the joy of pregnancy rather than just anxiety:

I’ve done others as well and then after finding out she is a girl, I drew this one:

Movement

Oct6

My absolute favorite part of pregnancy is feeling the baby move. I’ve been feeling my new baby moving in earnest since about 16 weeks (I felt early flutters at around 11 weeks, which is typical for my pregnancies). Sometimes my oldest son falls asleep at night with his hand on my belly, feeling the baby move. I love the stage I’m in now—big bumps, jumps, and wiggles, but not so big that I am uncomfortable at all. I’m 24 weeks now and only during the last two weeks or so have I started to feel the baby move while I’m standing, sitting, moving, etc. (vs. just when lying down like before). I haven’t yet had anyone outside of my husband and the kids feel the baby—I still feel “closed in” and protective/secretive about this pregnancy and I’m not sure if that is ever going to change. I have drawn more birth art related pictures and taken more photos than during any other pregnancy, but I have journalled about it less and I talk about it much, much less. That doesn’t mean the baby isn’t always on my mind and frequently reminding me of its company with little wiggles and kicks 🙂

This week in my pregnancy newsletter from Mothering.com, I enjoyed this poem about movement:

Quickening

By Yvette Benavides

This baby moves inside me now

Sending messages at night-

Morse code

About life on the inside:

It is dark

But warm and quiet

With only muffled echoes softly pleading,

Wake up, little one.

I want to know you’re in there,

Happy and safe.

Answers come again-

A sudden flutter-

Secret lyrics of song with no rhythm.

Played with hands and feet.

Someday I will hear the song again-

A high-pitched, quick and breathy humming.

I will teach her that she’s been singing that old song forever,

And reach out for little splayed hands

That have long since held my heart.

—-

No cute pix from this week—I forgot to get one until I was already in my PJs and looking a little bedraggled:

P.S. I now officially weigh more at 24 weeks pregnant than I did the day I gave birth to my first son! Perhaps related to my sudden intense interest in consuming Nutella 🙂

Creating Needle Felted Birth Art Sculptures

Aug24

I wrote this article about birth art some time ago and it has appeared in some form or another in both the CAPPA Quarterly and in the Friends of Missouri Midwives newsletter. Since I posted yesterday about polymer clay birth art figures, I felt like sharing this article today!

—————————

I learned about creating birth art during my first pregnancy in 2003 when I read Pam England’s amazing book, Birthing from Within. Seeing paintings creating by pregnant women, mothers, and fathers was inspirational for me. I was also moved by reading the accompanying explanations of how the art process had helped people on their birth journeys, or on paths to healing from traumatic experiences with past births. In the book, Ms. England primarily discusses the use of journaling, painting/drawing, or sculpting. Though I am an avid journal keeper, I did not find that medium vibrant or visual enough to express the hidden birth wisdom I sensed faintly at the edges of my consciousness, waiting to be given form. Birth art allows you to tap into your “right brain” consciousness and express unexplored gifts, primal wisdom, or release hidden fears. Creating birth art can help you explore your feelings, memories, beliefs, and perceptions surrounding birth outside of the confines of the spoken or written word.

During this time, I had also been experimenting with the craft of needle felting. Needle felting involves using 100% wool fiber, a single felting needle, and your imagination! Needle felting is a dry felting process in which washed and carded wool fleece is sculpted into shape using only a special barbed needle. I decided I had found the perfect medium to express my birth art. I had envisioned creating a Venus of Wilendorf style goddess sculpture. My first attempts left me feeling dissatisfied. I had created the form of a pregnant woman with white wool and then layered colors over it (the effect was cluttered and disorienting—not the inner wisdom I was seeking to explore). I also gave them faces that seemed unfortunately more haunting than wise.

Finally, I created a lushly full figured pregnant woman in white wool in a seated position (my previous efforts were standing) and decided to leave her white and without facial features. I gave her wild, colorful hair in colors representing the four elements. Finally, I felt my vision being manifest! My only concern was how the eye was drawn to her head/hair. One of my fears surrounding birth was that I would be too “in my head” to get into the rhythm of the birth process. I worried that this fear was given visual form in my goddess sculpture—her “energy” was concentrated in her wild, woolly hair, not in her ripe body where I thought it “should” be. Only after I gave birth to my son, did I fully realize what my exuberant goddess was trying to tell me. Her hair and the colors in it were symbolic of the elemental forces and intuitive knowledge that each birthing woman possesses. I had been concerned about being “in my head” with “book learning.” After giving birth, I recognized the intuitive, natural, wild wisdom that I do carry in both my mind and my body.

Polymer Clay Birth Goddess Sculptures

Aug23

In my recent post about “the tentative pregnancy,” I mentioned feeling the urge to make some birth art. Coincidentally, I have several blessingways/mother blessings coming up and also needed to make some gifts…so I put the two needs together and made some lovely (if I do say so myself) polymer clay birth goddess sculptures. I’ve made quite a few in the past, but this was the first time I’d tried using pigments to color them. I also boiled them instead of baking them, which works really well (and they are just as hard and plasticky as when baked—not rubbery or anything as you might expect—but there isn’t any weird fumes from the oven or a need to have an oven heating up the house on a hot day). I think the pigments turned out nice, though I was hoping for more color.

I hope that none of the pregnant mamas for whom these are intended will read this post and have the surprise ruined! (the blue one is actually for me, I thought as long as I was creating for others, I would like to create something for myself as well)

In my earlier post, I’d also mused about my feelings that my pregnancy loss experiences have impacted my ability to connect with the “pregnant identity” during my current pregnancy while at the same time still being constantly aware of being pregnant. Interestingly, I was skimming through my old pregnancy journal from my first pregnancy in 2003 and found the almost exact same sentiment expressed (6 years PRE-loss experiences). I wrote (reflecting on earlier in the pregnancy), “I felt almost constantly aware of being pregnant, but not fully connected to being PREGNANT. This feeling changed after I started feeling the baby move on a regular basis.” Ah ha. So, perhaps my current feelings have more to do with the normal developmental tasks of pregnancy than with having been wounded by loss? (it is probably a combination of both, really, but it was reassuring to me to see that this is not a completely “fresh” feeling!)