Mentally Preparing for Birth

37.5 Weeks

I am down to the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy.  I am so very excited to meet little miss Lily Anne.  I cannot wait to spend the first days of her life cuddled up in bed with her as the breeze washes over us and the sunlight greets us. 

Some of the women from my birth class have been sharing their birth stories, which got me a little anxious.  A couple of them planned to have their babies in the same birth center in which I'm going to birth Lily, but they both ended up transferring to the hospital as the result of exhaustion.  I listened to their birth stories, hoping to glean clues about what they could have done differently to have their babies in the birth center.

To get my brain back on the right wavelength, I spent last week browsing my Bradley student manual and Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way. The hospital was creeping into my visualizations of Lily's birth, so I rewateched Orgasmic Birth to fill my head with images of pleasant, natural births.  I continued listening to my Hypnobabies CD's to bring my awareness back to the fact that what I believe about my birth time is the most likely to manifest.  I had to roll my brain back to visualizing MY birth story as I want it to be, not as I fear it to be.

The Bradley Method says that if you think you're in labor, do five things: eat, drink, nap, shower, and take a walk.  To try to prevent exhaustion in labor, I hope to go to sleep when I think that labor has started.  To try to not pay attention too soon.  It's going to be just another day, but when it's over, there will be a wonderful new Lily in the world.