It’s been nine months since I gave birth and I feel ready to start putting all these thoughts about my pregnancy and new motherhood out for other people to read. Someday my daughter will want to learn about the circumstances surrounding her birth and our lives prior to joining us so this is a good space for me to share. This will be a series, typed out on my iPhone while the baby sleeps.
I found out I was pregnant on November 30, 2016. We started considering having a baby a month before after my parents brought it up and despite my long workdays as a pastry cook, I found myself with two positive pregnancy tests at 5 o’clock in the morning. I woke up Paolo to show him the tests, then I headed to work and let that sink in.
I went to get confirmatory tests, watched documentaries on pregnancy and birth and started telling family and close friends. I waited a couple of weeks to tell my boss and the rest of my coworkers that I was pregnant. I kept on working despite the nausea of the first trimester. The only thing that really bothered me were the kitchen smells that used to smell pretty pleasant and yummy became unbearable. What saved me was smelling a lemon or some cardamom from the spice cabinet.
I told my boss that I would keep working until I thought that I couldn’t anymore so I decided to stop working after my first trimester ended. I was just so exhausted and was worried that spending hours on my feet wouldn’t be good for my pregnancy. The funny thing was once I was in my second trimester I had more energy and felt that I could have still worked for longer, but I had already left.
I figured I’d want to have more free time to do whatever I could before the baby arrived.
Hypnobirthing Class
I can’t remember exactly how I found out about Hypnobirthing but I found a class that fit Paolo’s schedule so when I was around 20 weeks along we started going to a weekly class that met in Greenpoint.
Being semi-crunchy I knew I wanted to have as little interventions during the birth and during the 5 sessions we learned how to make that happen. Prenatal yoga was recommended, so I started practicing at home. I also listened to birth affirmation meditations and did a lot of relaxation practice.
Yoga Teacher Training
Since I had a lot of free time, I found a summer intensive YTT to attend during weeks 32-36 of my pregnancy. I’ll elaborate on how that went in another post but it was the best use of those weeks, in preparation for giving birth. The combination of physical movement, philosophy lectures and lots of meditation really grounded me.
To be continued….