Life on The Farm: Letting Go

Today was a very low key and nappish day. I watched a couple of movies, read a little bit, took some naps, and Matt and I cooked the most delicious peanut noodles for dinner together. Such a delight. It was gray and windy out, so I didn't take a walk, but it sounded just perfectly perfect, with rain coming down intermittently and the wind blowing those dry leaves around. It's been so luxurious to just let go of everyday life and stress and just focus on the fine art of waiting. Speaking of letting go, I spent a lot of time today wondering how long it will be before all of those ripe red and yellow leaves fall, and how long it will still be beautiful, and if I'll be able to get any good outdoor newborn photos in the leaves. As in, which will drop first, my baby or the leaves?

I had some cramping today that I took as an opportunity to practice relaxing and breathing through. I've been doing the Hypnobabies home study course, borrowed from my wonderful doula back home in Jackson, and it has been a huge help in drilling relaxation tools into my brain. It's five weeks of what is mostly daily audio tracks that are listened to repeatedly, followed by review until you reach your birthing day. The woman's voice on the CDs is like the voice of the Angel of Calm, Comfort and Ease, and I can easily conjure it up in my head whenever I want to. It was actually incredibly helpful in letting the minor discomfort fade into the background and I wasn't even sure when it finally stopped. I guess I found my way to let it go. (See the theme here today? Because I just found it!)

As for what I still need to let go--the baby moved position again and it drives me nuts when he does that because I can't quite figure it out and it seems to be my fixation, having him in a good position for birth. I told Deborah yesterday that because I can't relax and let it go he'll probably be transverse and inside out when I go into labor. She laughed. It was silly. (A baby can't be inside out.) Now I feel limbs on my right instead of left side, yet it feels (I think?) like his body is still on the right. And his movements though frequent were not as large today as usual, which of course always worries me as well. He's moving now, and I'm stopping what I'm doing to obsess over figuring out exactly where every body part is and which way its facing.

The fact is I can't control it. I can't know it for sure, not having a Plexiglas window into the womb, and while I can do poses and exercises to encourage a good position, at the end of the day, I have to trust my baby to know what he's doing. I have to let it go. And on that note, I'll leave you with a photo essay. The first photo is of the trees behind our house this morning.

Life on The Farm: Day One

I promised a few people who were dying to keep tabs on me during my days here at The Farm (really, there are a few) that I would blog every day about my experience here. It’s not at all selfless--as I am heading into my greatest life transition to date I of course feel the burning need to write anyway.

I started writing a “Why The Farm?” blog a few weeks ago, but honestly, that question is just too big to deal with here. I was sprawling and rambling and citing support every which way like an old growth vine covered in heavy grapes in September. (How’s that for a fertility metaphor, eh?) There are just so many reasons, but these words basically cover all of them up in their blanket of wisdom:

I’ll leave it at that for now because you won’t really care about the details unless you’re a birth nerd, and if you are a birth nerd you’ll already know. If you would like to be a birth nerd and are looking for proper training, I’ll refer you to Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. It pretty much covers it. If you’re not much of a reader but care enough to spend an hour and a half, the popular documentary The Business of Being Born works too. You can watch it for free on YouTube. These are just starting points that will lead you into into a wide new school of thought about birth if you fall down the rabbit hole like I did.

Anyway, I am here. In this beautiful house in these beautiful woods, resting and centering myself, being cared for by some of the most experienced and respected midwives in the world, waiting reflectively for my baby boy to make his way fully into the real world from the mystery beyond it, and generally being incredibly spoiled to have the most ideal situation imaginable as my reality. And I’m going to share my thoughts and experiences, and soon, baby pictures and new mama thoughts. My filter will be pretty minimal, so if you’re disgusted or annoyed by side notes on my round ligaments and milk production, or bored by the mundane (like what I ate for lunch) you may want to just check out now. This is my diary and I’m just letting you read it if you want.

So where am I today? What did I do? How am I feeling? So nice of you to ask.

I’m settled in my very comfy temporary bedroom, where I foresee spending a lot of time for the next month. I started out the day by sleeping until I woke up at around 8:30, to hear Matt on the phone with his boss dealing with emergency #1 of what are sure to be a string over the month that he works from “home”. I used what little phone reception I could get to check in with a few people who had asked if we’d arrived safely.

Then my midwife Deborah came over and we settled into the comfy couch for a long talk about risks, benefits and uncertainty in birth related choices, both at home and in the hospital setting. Matt sat in a chair nearby and listened attentively, asking a question now and then as well. Then we rode with her over to the clinic for a quick check on the baby and routine labs. Baby boy is still head down, butt on my right side. I expressed concern over the ideal position being the left, but Deborah seemed mostly unconcerned. Babies turn during labor (not surprising, since there’s a lot of action going on around them at that point), and she’s seen plenty of births with right-side babies go just as fine and dandy as any others. Since she’s seen over a thousand of them, I guess I’ll go with her relaxed attitude about it. He’s head down and anterior, both of which are more important. He’s also very strong, though he measures a bit small. Takes after Dad. ;)

Then we walked home from the clinic and enjoyed the beautiful weather and falling leaves…as well as acorns, which fall and hit tin roofs around here with what is apparently the velocity of bullets. We discussed options for taking walks with the baby that wouldn’t involve a newborn sized hard hat and Matt pointed out which trees were the offenders. All I have to do is avoid walking under them.

Our house completely empty of groceries, we then hopped into the car for lunch and grocery shopping in Franklin (home to the stars, none of whom we spotted at Whole Foods, I’m disappointed to report). Lunch was a quick and really delicious affair at the P.F. Chang’s new “good food quickly” chain, Pei Wei. We so need one of these in Jackson! While packing both our Teriyaki and our Sweet and Sour leftovers in one Chinese takeout box, we speculated that this must be the way that the Chinese have invented so many varied and flavorful sauces over the millennia. If only my expert-on-all-things-Chinese brother Drew had been around to confirm.

Then I shopped while Matt unsuccessfully searched for a mechanic with time to take a look at our very unfortunately timed gas leak in our car. I got really tired and had a weepy hormonal breakdown. No worries though, I cry about once a day lately. It’s fine. I’ve accepted it. It’s how I’m processing.

Which brings me to the ‘how am I feeling?’ portion of your question. I think the baby dropped the other day as we were working like mad to close up the house and pack up the car. Since then I’ve been feeling movement lower, and unfortunately my feet have finally been a little swollen. Maybe I can breathe deeper? I was still breathing and eating pretty dang well for the most part, so I don’t think I appreciate this phase as much as most mamas do. I’m just annoyed with the swollen feet. But other than that I’m still pretty great. Other typical discomforts are minimal or nonexistent.

Emotionally? 99% of the time I’m all peace and bliss and excitement. Then there are random moments, usually when I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, when I have an oh shit, I’m going to have to give birth. Really soon. moment of terror. I’ve never done it before. Birth seems like such a monumental task to be handed to such untrained, naïve newbies, yet that’s been Mother Nature’s plan since the beginning for some reason. So I go back to embracing that truth, and trusting that I will be surrounded and supported by some of the very best humans on the planet: my husband, my mom, my midwives (and possibly one of my dearest friends, too). And this baby isn’t staying in there forever. That’s just a fact.

We came home and Matt threw together a quick veg chili and biscuits for dinner while I wrote most of this.

And now I am sitting here finishing up, listening to a Sara Bareilles album that baby heartily approves of, judging by his dance party that only quiets when the music does. J Tomorrow’s schedule is looking very full. There’s a hammock on an enormous screen porch that’s begging to be used before the weather gets too cold. I have a ton of scrapbook supplies ready to be assembled into baby boy’s baby book. I’m thinking my favorite made-from-scratch lentil soup is in order for tomorrow’s dinner. We’ve set up a super sweet home theater with a silver bed sheet and our projector. And of course, I’ll have another blog to write. It will probably be more introspective and less of a play-by-play, and maybe also have some Farm pictures. If I can gather the wherewithal to take a walk on these swollen feet.

Until then! (Too tired to proofread this, so forgive my errors.)