Peter and the boys bagged the manic piles I made, finding it hard to keep up with my pace. The boys and a neighbor boy took dump trucks of leaves from one pile to the next. The sun shone, and I broke a sweat, and it felt good and cleansing and clearing as beneath the leaves emerged the green of summer, of full bloom in my own fullness. And then I tucked my tuckered boys into bed and went off to run errands. More nesting.
This breakneck speed has been my pace. Alternating between I-need-it-done-now to utter exhaustion. I am trying to find balance, but have yet to discover it as I feel like once this baby comes I may not leave my home for four months! I know this is not true. But this feeling is hard to rationalize with. I wish I could bottle my hormones and energy and spread it out over the course of months instead of this intense baby-is-almost-here-get-it-all-done phase.
Below are fragmented glimpses into my energy driven brain and fully pregnant body from the past three weeks of almost written, almost posted posts:
On Birth
So I am in the three-week countdown before baby four’s debut. And being in this space, and probably our last baby birth this lifetime, I find myself copiously note taking. I am trying to remember little things like the way it feels to be sitting still but have the waves of your belly move as a leg stretches near the top of the uterus or a hand tickles the bottom left quadrant of your pelvis. Absurd, strange, and wondrous, and I have no control over the baby’s movements.
Or how when I try to roll from one side while sleeping to the other an excruciating pain shoots through my pelvis.
Or how I hope post baby all my hair returns to it’s glory and find myself excited for the postpartum phase, not to skip the excitement I am growing for this birth.
I realized the other day while I was riding a hormonal wave that included tears, and birth fears, and worries that once those were released I had a lot of space for the joy of this baby and the thrill of birthing our baby. And, this got me excited. Got me happy even. I am not sure I ever went into a birth feeling this way: happy about the labor, happy about the birth, even though I have always been happy about meeting my babies.
On riding the pre-birth hormonal waves:
I told Liam, “I am fragile today Liam.”
“You’re breakable?” He responded.
“Yes.”
Later in the day he asked, “Are you still fragile?”
“No I am better.”
Then I overhear Finn say to Kie Kie my legos are fragile,” and they are.
But I realize as a mother I am not. And I too can ride the waves and keep my balance with breath and perspective as my guides.
On your return from Mexico:
Whew I am glad you are back! I am back from my distracted nesting diversions. While I have been taking notes on the process all along they are fragmented glimpses into how I am preparing for baby four, most likely our last, and this being the last few weeks as a pregnant woman I dedicated myself to noting one thing per day for the last 30 days. Here we go, the twigs that make up my nest to date.
Twig Notes leading up to Due Date April 14
Twig Note 1, Monday, March 13, 2011:
Feeling hormonally imbalanced, like I am not sure I can parent well this week if it keeps up. My mind races and I can feel the wave of hormones crashing over me. My baby kicks on my right side, with his spine on my left side. Today the baldness on my head bothers me especially. I realize I am having a hard time being present to my present.
Twig Note 2, Tuesday, March 14, 2011:
I opened my nightstand drawer to see charts of past cycles where we conceived babies. Sitting next to them is a newborn diaper, so small. I put it there awhile back to remind myself of how much each of my babies have grown and how tiny they enter the world. I have a pang of sadness thinking that this phase of our marriage, the baby-making phase, is probably coming to a close. Peter is in San Francisco on his last work related trip until post baby. The Visitation Sisters offered the baby and me a gracious blessing tonight. It was lovely to be prayed over.
Twig Note 3, Wednesday, March 15, 2011: I still need to type up the rest form my notebook….so my sharing on this strand stops here.
On releasing labor fears:
I spoke with my hospital midwife, Stephanie, about all my fears that had me in tears undercover last night, and afterward sleeping with the exhaustion only a good cry provides and Stephanie said the following:
1. Fear of forced vaginal exams: I think you will find birthing here very different we will trust you and honor you in your birth. We will talk through options and possible course if and when we need to, I won’t just do something to you.
2. My baldness: She agreed to put a note in my ob chart and encouraged me to talk to the intake nurse too.
And then I spoke to Ann Marie, my volunteer doula coordinator, who so graciously offered to come and bring normalcy to my birth should I desire that. And I can’t tell you the wave of relief I felt at hearing her gracious offer.
On postpartum mood disorders:
I read the article on post partum depression and Jenny’s Light and I clenched and sobbed for the loss of her life, for the misunderstanding about emotions and hormonal imbalances after and before birth. A clench of my heart, a choke of my throat as I read her story. I rally against the perfectionism that plagued her. I noted it before I read the line in the article near the bottom. I recognized it in myself from the early days of motherhood when I was trying to get a grip on the chaos and found the only sure footed way through my fear was to clutch to perfectionism. Unlike Jenny I was able to release this need before it totally killed me, but like Jenny I struggled with it.
On Spring, Breath, and Yoga:
It snowed again, two days after the spring equinox, and my next door neighbor came by with two bunches of daffodils she held in a plastic bag with the casual caveat that they were left over ones she did not give her mom. It was touching and real and nice, and gave me another moment to take yet a deeper breath.
After dinner I departed and went to yoga. I needed to stretch to release my sadness and fears, to breath. Paul, our yoga teacher gave the opening homily on Spring and the transition of the season and how it brings us out of balance before going back into balance. I’ve noticed this in my skin, it’s recent dryness as I spend more time outdoors. I sat spine fairly straight, and head bent forward and cried as I felt my unbalanced-ness of the day shift slightly. He said we would work with breath, but to do that we have to first release the breath, then breathe without constraint, and then release the breath again. We did chest openers and shoulder relaxers and my observation of how the shoulders and hips are connected was confirmed by his insights and knowledge of the body. Yes indeed they are connected and indeed when one is relaxed and open the other is relaxed and open. Bringing me back to birthing my baby and the need for better posture and spine supple and strength working in concert. Ahhh, deeper breath. My heart releasing. I was further relieved that the home birth midwife, Clare, was not teaching the yoga class tonight I did not need to fully embrace what I had given up just moments before my departure for yoga via email, a home birth. Somehow the universe seemed to be speaking kindly and gently to me that this too will be ok.
I do not want to go back on my decision to give birth in a hospital again, despite my fears of laboring there. I recall what my basketball coach said to me in high school, “Eilers, hesitation will kill you.” And think to how my historic pattern of waffling stems from the emotional mood shifts of my mother, always reading the waters she swam in, willing myself to adjust to the currents even if it was at my own peril just to stay near her. It was a way of life, a way of living in a hyper-hypo concerto, one that now affects my thyroid as I try to take root of my life amongst the chaos of my family…to bring new order to old discouraging patterns to let go. To establish a new pattern I need to make my decisions with the agility of an athlete and the resolve of a confident woman.
I read about decision making in a New York Times Blog by Gretchen Reynolds entitled How Sports May Focus the Brain. The blog reports a study on student athletes in college verses non student athletes of similar age when watching them cross a simulated road of traffic.:
“The student athletes completed more successful crossings than the nonathletes, by a significant margin, a result that might be expected of those in peak physical condition. But what was surprising — and thought-provoking — was that their success was not a result of their being quicker or more athletic. They walked no faster than the other students. They didn’t dash or weave gracefully between cars. What they did do was glance along the street a few more times than the nonathletes, each time gathering slightly more data and processing it more speedily and accurately than the other students….
“’They didn’t move faster,” said Art Kramer, the director of the Beckman Institute and a leader in the study of exercise and cognition, who oversaw the research. “But it looks like they thought faster.’”
So here is to creating healthier patterns, to thinking faster, to a speedy labor and delivery and to I hope a sooner than later welcome to our fourth baby!
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| Day 2 of raking, this time with K. on my back and five bags later! |
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