I sit here at my desk on a Monday
afternoon in the second story office of my townhouse bouncing on a
yoga/birthing ball at 37 weeks 3 days pregnant and it occurs to me that these next
few hours, days, weeks (who knows!?) are to be some of the most cherished, ephemeral,
perfect, wonderful days of my life. I sit
on the precipice, this fleeting moment in time is the cursor between two worlds,
all that was before and all that it will soon become. Today is the first day of my leave from work,
which will continue over the next 12 weeks, and though it’s medically mandated
(due to prior experience of pre-term labor) I’ve asked myself several
times: Am I selfish for taking this time
before birth to prepare mentally and physically? Is it really necessary? Should I be powering through? I’m well aware that it’s a luxury many don’t
have. But then I remember that my doubts
are shaped by living in one of the only countries in the world without mandated
maternity leave (with the exception of three states), in a culture that expects
women and families to do all and be all without ever skipping a beat or taking
their health into consideration. After
doing a little digging around on the internet, I found that women who take 1-3
weeks of rest before delivery are 4 times less likely to have a
c-section or other complications, and that helped put my mind at ease. But more than that, the overwhelming sense of
peace I feel surrounding the upcoming days or weeks of preparation, that feeling is what truly informs me
that my decision is the right one. Especially
in juxtaposition to the complete and utter stress I’ve been feeling about doing
it all-heavily pregnant and working an incredibly stressful job with erratic
hours and a long commute (and training a new employee by myself), all while keeping
up with housework, meals, and parenting while Chad has been consistently working
50-60 hour weeks for the past several months.
This ability to slow down, contemplate, process, prepare, putter around
the house, nest, NAP, fold baby clothes, is so, so, so vital. And I know in my bones that I’m taking part in
a great time-honored piece of the human experience: preparing and waiting for
new life to arrive.
In other news and notes, I was
able to delve into the preparation for labor, delivery, and birth by a weekend
with my family AND a weekend long birth preparation class at Balanced Yoga
called Mamaste. Friday evening, they had
a family night and free showing of the movie Babies (which I highly
recommend!). Everett, Chad, and I went, sat on a blanket on
the floor, and ate dinner while watching the movie, surrounded by other expectant
parents as well as lots of toddlers. It
was a beautiful warm spring evening, with a warm breeze flowing in the windows
of the large yoga studio, filled with young and expectant life. The next day Chad drove Everett to my mom’s
house, where he had his very first overnight away from us!! I relaxed around the house in the morning,
and then went to the yoga studio for 3 hours of prenatal class, followed by an
hour of prenatal yoga instruction. I was
completely fine all day, but as I lay there at the end of class in shavasana, I
thought of my little boy wondering where Mommy and Daddy were at bedtime,
feeling lost and alone, and silent tears started to roll down my cheeks. Hopefully if the yoga instructor saw, she
thought that she had just provided me with a really moving yoga practice J Anyways, it turns out that
Everett had an awesome day, slept no worse than he might at home, and missed
his parents the appropriate amount – in short, we all survived! After Saturday’s yoga class, Chad and I went
out for a super fancy date night at Angry Bear Kitchen. We had super fancy cocktails (alcoholic and
non-), three appetizers (gratuitous!), delicious entrees, and dessert (or port,
if you’re a Chad). We joked in the
beginning about how we felt a little awkward, as though we were on a first
date, all over again. “How does this
whole dating thing work? We can barely
remember!” Somehow we stumbled on and
had a truly lovely two-hour dinner full of great food and conversation.
Sunday continued on the weekend
of awesome. Chad went to pick up Everett
from Grandma’s house and drove him to Nonna’s house, where the weekend of
grandmother fun for Everett would continue while we went to our second day of
labor preparation at Balanced Yoga. The
doulas teaching the birth preparation class went over the stages of labor and
we practiced some coping techniques. I
wouldn’t say that I necessarily learned a lot…I have had a kid before, have read
pretty extensively about labor and birth, and am part of a few mom’s groups
where we talk about such things, but it was great to be in a class with several
other families who were in the same page in life, sharing and talking about our
impending labors and births. It was especially
great to be able to share that time with Chad, so that we could get into the
groove together, and I really appreciated the opportunity to practice coping
techniques together. The best part of
the weekend seminar was the partners prenatal yoga taught by Abby Dorn. I have been going to prenatal and baby yoga classes
taught by Abby for a long time, and have always enjoyed her instruction, but
this class was especially great. Most of
the poses in the class were collaborative poses that employed team work and
communication between Chad and me. It
was an amazing experience during which we felt at different turns intimate, silly,
collaborative, and unsure. We felt many
of the emotions we might feel during our labor experience, and were able to
hone our collaboration and communication while at the same time focusing on
restoration and rejuvenation.
Finally, around 7:00 PM that
evening we got to eat pizza (obvious follow up to yoga) and see our little
boy! I was so happy to see Everett
again! Of course, he had had a BIG BIG
weekend and was an exhausted crank monster, so we only saw him for about an
hour before shipping him off to dream land, but it was enough just to hear him intermittently
sighing from the bedroom while Chad and I hung out in the media room, the next
room over. We ALL slept peacefully and
soundly through the night (with the exceptions of my several lumbering trips to
the bathroom), which we all sorely needed!!
And that’s the end of the
beginning of Week 37 J
