Relax...

Despite my best intentions, it is hard to make much time to think about the baby growing in my belly. We're at 34 weeks. By this point when I was pregnant with Zephyr, I was pretty much obsessed with his birth, with what he was going to look like, with how it was going to be to have him here. Nothing has changed - I am still obsessed with Zephyr - and the growing baby that now makes getting groceries out of the shopping trolley nearly impossible is coming off second best. 

We went for a walk to the waterfall at Piha Beach a couple of weeks ago. I spent a good five minutes smiling at Zephyr as he gazed, finger pointed almost catatonically, at the water cascading off the rocks above us, before I realised I had not even looked at the waterfall myself. It's funny how your priorities change. 

There has been some focus on the poor little baby in my belly though, as we just completed a course in Hypnobirthing. What an amazingly simple concept! Hypnobirthing, while sounding very new age and left field, is actually just all about staying relaxed. It teaches that if the body is relaxed, birth will happen without much stress or strain, and possibly even without any pain. Sounds too good to be true, but search Hypnobirthing videos on youtube and you'll be amazed by these beautiful, quiet births, where the mothers appear to be in a state of near-ecstasy. Such a contrast to the screaming, screwed up faces we are so used to seeing in movies and on TV.

The mere fact that we hear so many birth horror stories and expect birth to be painful is what causes it to be traumatic for a lot of women, or at least that is what Hypnobirthing teaches. It's all in the head.

If you have ever had a pregnant cat in your house, you will know they often go to a quiet, dim place to give birth to their kittens. Perhaps the reason why so many of us experience stalled labours and 'fail to progress' is because we are in unfamiliar, brightly lit hospital rooms, filled with strangers and machines. It is hard to feel relaxed in such an environment, which is the exact reason I decided to do the Hypnobirthing course. If I must birth in a hospital - and that seems to be the case, due to having had a previous C-Section - then I would like to have a place to go in my head. 

I am slightly anxious to go too far in explaining all this in case I have to take it all back when nothing works out. However, I am also a believer that putting such thoughts out there in the Universe can make them happen, and when I read that sentence, I am not concerned about it coming true. This time around there is nothing wrong with my platelets - they actually increased since last month - and there is no reason why I will have to be induced. I firmly believe (because it is clearly true) that without an induction, and especially without the kind of induction I had, Zephyr would have entered the world in a much different way, so this time there is no need to worry.

I am not quite up to the level of self-hypnosis yet with my Hypnobirthing practice, but I am feeling very relaxed about the birth. The key message for me is that my body and my baby know what they're doing, and when the time comes, I just need to relax and let nature take over. What could be easier than that? 

Breathe....

In the meantime, I have been trying to get ready for the little one. Today I sorted through Zephyr's old clothes and washed the teeny tiny ones. It gave me an odd sense of deja vu, and made me think of how far we have travelled. Zephyr's baby clothes dried for the first time under the dry Queenstown sun, two Februarys ago. Now we are in West Auckland in our own home and I have a 19-month-old running on the lawn beneath them, chanting 'baby!'. Life just keeps on surprising me with its progress.