The Hormone Extravaganza

So, remember I mentioned in one of my recent posts about relaxing and pacing myself...?

Well, it seems to be working. My body, my prego mental and emotional state, as far as getting things going for d-day are completely different. :) Almost immediately after making that shift, my body started responding! Yay for giving myself permission to be a justifiable bum! ;) (Just kidding...sort of.)

Yesterday I woke up with a urge to go to a local, higher end mall to walk, talk and window shop with my mom. We set it as a date and headed off to my weekly midwife appointment around noon.

Damaris, my midwife was excited when she examined me and listened to my updated, end of week baby body report. She was getting excited by what I was telling her, which made me excited! She said our little guy is locked and loaded (dropped into my pelvis all the way) and that although she was going to go ahead and schedule another visit for next week she thought it would be a mommy/baby at home visit. (Post-natal!) Eeee!

I had been having contractions that were about 1 min and 15 sec long and anywhere from 5-8 min apart. :)

My mom and I ended up going to the mall with our men and had a great time. Sam and my Dad spent some good guy/Mac time in the Apple store looking at iPads etc... :) My contractions, which where steady enough, started getting stronger and closer together. For over 4 hours they stayed that way and we called our Doula. We got a game plan and confirmed that I was in the early stages of labor/active labor. Ha! Oh dear me... Talk about a flood of freaking emotional hormones. My goodness!

A children's book I got for little man that I adore right now!

I had a moment where I couldn't decide if I wanted to leave the mall or keep walking to help things along. Oh dear, what about my house! (I kept thinking...) I needed to wash sheets and get that darn tub of winter boots out of my bed room. Wait a second, I can't get into the adrenalin mode, I have to stay in a happy place. Eek!

At one point we were about to get in the car and I burst into tears saying, "I don't want to go to the health food store, I think I want to walk around some more...but, I don't know why I'm crying. I don't know what I want." My mom just hugged me, with a compassionate and half amused look on her face as she hugged me.

Haha! It was all hitting me like a flood. All the hormones surging as the reality that I could actually be in labor slammed into my brain.

We finished one more lap of the mall before heading to the health food store where we got some goodies. After that we all headed to my house. I was excited! Trying to stay chilled and in the thought of "Well, hey if this is it... cool. If it's a little flutter and no serious business goes down tonight, that's cool too. "

We washed sheets, put the cover on our mattress. Sam blew up the birthing pool and I scarfed down 4 avocados, chips and salsa.

SAAAAAAWEEEEEEEEEET!!!! Look at this amazing birthing tub people! We set it up in ourboho boy's room. How cool would that be to give birth to him in his own room!? Yeah, I'm kinda leaning toward the staying at my casa route. We'll see!

I got a good night's sleep and have been having pretty steady contractions all day...they are kinda getting a little stronger. I'm just taking them in strides.

For me, a girl of high pain tolerance, my Doula and midwife have come to a solution to measure the intensity of my contractions. I can't really go by how they hurt, but by how distracting they are to me. If I can't maintain a train of thought about something through one...and they keep getting closer, yeah, that's worthy of a text or two to my birthing mommas. :)

The hormone extravaganza is something that is becoming more intense to me. You have to let them come up, surface and then just wash away, my doula told me this afternoon. If I need to cry...let it out. If I need to laugh...do it til' your belly hurts! ;) Responding to those emotional feelings that way, releases that Love Hormone Oxytocin. But if you stuff them, you get adrenalin... and you don't want that til you have to push.

So, little man of mine...

I'm going to work with you however you need me to love. We are going to do this and it's going to be great. Listen to momma sing to you and know that soon, you're going to like it way better in my arms, more than you do in my tummy. Daddy and I are waiting...

love babes,

momma