37.5 weeks: nesting, birthing and lifelines…

It’s been longer than I thought since I last posted. Seems I’m in one of those time warps of a soon-to-be-a-mama-surreal-reality and a painting-all-day-and-night-in-hopes-of-finishing-my-book-before-going-into-labor-fantasy. Ha. We shall see. Babies have agendas of their own.

Yesterday my midwife mentioned that sometimes a sign that you’ll go into labor soon is feeling really watery. Uh-oh, I responded. All day while visiting with some friends, my eyes were so watery. Not irritated or even emotional, just pure ocean-like. I wondered for a moment if I felt ‘ready’. Yup. I am. I feel so great, and I’m actually ‘excited’ about labor (as odd as that may sound), so curious about the whole mysterious miracle climax of this little soul coming into the world. We’re also totally fine if the baby decides to take his/her time, too, (that would give us time to finish our birth classes…) Either way, we’ll be ready to meet him or her and love ‘em up!!!

I haven’t done so much nesting yet, but we have the essentials covered including a rocking chair (YAY!) and a baby ’side car’. And Patrick is set to go on a cleaning frenzy as long as I keep painting (Thanks, P!)  I did get the baby the perfect little birthday present, a sweet little peace dove (above) created by my artist friend Kelly Buntin Johnson, which is now hanging in our fig tree, ready for the baby to discover. Kelly included these words with the dove:

Patrick recently switched my book “deadline” mentality to a “LIFELINE” mentality. Much more appropriate since this book feels like a gift for this little one. Plus, it feels like I’m giving birth to TWO babies at once! (I hope to share more about my book/process soon…it’s going GREAT!

Last night, Patrick woke me up from a dream because I was moaning. I immediately said, I wasn’t moaning. I was breathing yogic ujjia breath during labor. He woke me again later when I was making some other noise, and I said, we had a girl…and we’re trying to decide on her middle name. He laughed and said he had been lying awake thinking of a girl’s middle name.

So, now we’re “in the window”, and particularly giddy. It’s such a sweet time. We’ve been hearing from so many friends (which has meant a lot to us), some just to check-in and others who are sharing some incredible birth stories with us. All unique and beautiful.

I’ve heard from many friends who’ve given birth naturally, that just when you think there’s just no way you can do it, endorphins kick in and you do it. Powerful shakti. I think it also comes from the ‘other’ 300,000 women giving birth that same day. Labor is probably the most unpredictable event in life (no way to plan ‘how’ it will go), so my biggest intention is to stay in the moment and with my breath. No matter what happens.

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