to be continued.

Birthing plans are becoming less talk and more of a real thing as the weeks creep to an end. She is in the birthing position, "Engagement"- already and my Braxton-Hicks are happening about twice a day now. I have spent many of moments daydreaming about laboring at home and our experience at NFRMC. The hardest part has been telling myself to breathe and take everything slow. School ends in two weeks and then my little scheduled world slows down and I have nothing but time to nest and prepare for birth.
Bottom line is I am going to be practicing making up the perfect birth cocktail. Three parts fear, preparation and surrender.
I bought "Birthing from Within" and have really been enjoying reading what's inside. I haven't respected or fed into any of the books that I have been given/bought thus far. They seem so commercial and focused on the 95 percent of women who opt for the plan we don't have. It and my doula/birthing-class momma have given me great confidence in a natural birth and me as a woman. My body is mine. This baby is mine. This plan is mine. I am in control of it all. I tell myself this when the anxiety kicks in and it helps me... I feel ready. I can't possibly expect to be told how anything will go or even more so "the answers" by any book. People can accumulate data all day and tell you about birthing but not about ME. I am basically going to have to trust my body and judgements. I am going to fight and surrender to labor and the throes of this experience.
I wake up some mornings and think..."What if I went into labor today?" "do i know too little or prepared myself for - the plan- too much?" The fear kicks in and I worry that I haven't mentally prepared myself enough. Women have premature births everyday. But there is something in deep in me that KNOWS she won't come out until I am ready for it.
I saw her in Orlando and it blew my mind how much she grew since I got to see her last. When I lay I see her foot poke out of my stomach and it blows my mind. There's your foot! A tiny little bump poking up from my perfectly round belly to say hello.
When she moves now- the movements are no longer little flutters or bumps. It's full shifts and major belly altering drags across my abdomen. The wildest part is the fact that in the next nine weeks she will grow three times the size of what she is right now.

I am so tired my eyes are closing involuntarily.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.
- Shunryo Suzuki