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.