The first thing we did after Lisa picked Michelle and I up from the airport, was go to an intuitive reading. Some interesting highlights from that were that she said the baby looked like he had had a really hard life before this one, full of sadness and loss. She said he has chosen to reincarnate quickly into this life in order to have a big family who would surround him with love and joy. With this in mind, she said that we're not to get caught up in the details surrounding the birth and immediate postpartum. She said this baby has given us permission to feel, to cry, and to love most of all. That if we are in doubt, just looking to the baby for answers. All decisions should be made out of love and taking us all into consideration as we are forming a new kind of family. She said Michelle and Brooks are to be the "caretakers" and shower the mamas with love, attention, and happiness. This reading was very interesting. I'm newer to the idea of readings, Lisa introduced me to it, but it often times gives a different perspective, extra ideas, or confirms what my heart and intuition was already telling me. I like the idea of not getting caught up in the specifics. So much of this process feels planned out. As I think to the birth I keep feeling the urge to somehow slow everything down, not necessarily the birth itself, but the process of giving life and slowly letting it go to keep thriving. It's much like an accelerated parenting role. We have children, raise them, and they move out when they are old enough, and then they occasionally visit. This feels like an incredibly fast version of that for me. I'll be skipping the "raising" part, but that's been the plan from all along. I understand it in my brain, I just wonder how my nurturing heart and body will feel.
We also had an ultrasound while we were there. Baby is healthy and happily growing! It kept it's legs closed, which was fine since we weren't looking for the gender anyway. According to the evaluation from the ultrasound, baby is measuring potentially two weeks bigger than "normal" and I have excess amniotic fluid. Something like 96%, so still in the "range of normal" but on the high end. Since baby's kidneys are working perfectly, and I tested negative for gestational diabetes, there is no real reason for the extra fluid. Lisa was researching it some more and found that something like 65% of cases with increased fluid volume meaning nothing. I'm not worried about it. Baby is healthy and seems very happy inside me, so I'm trusting that all will be fine and maybe I'll just have more fluid to leak during labor. The fluid also changes during pregnancy, and often times is less in the last month. I'm trusting that my body knows how to grow a healthy baby and how to give birth, this must be the amount of fluid this baby wants to swim in.
Lisa's sweet friends Eva and Maria gave her/us a Baby Shower/Blessingway while we were visiting. It was so sweet. I felt a bit overwhelmed before I joined the party as I didn't know hardly any of the women attending and I knew I would be a big focus of their attention. I stayed upstairs in our room for a bit as people arrived and the sounds of women's voices got louder and echoed off the ceiling. Then I stood in the upstairs hall wondering what to do. Fortunately, Michelle had gone downstairs first and had mentioned to Eva that I may need to be checked on. Eva came up and was so sweet. She gave me a hug and I started to cry. There was just so much energy that I felt I was holding. I felt like a pregnant animal that wanted to hide in a dark corner until the commotion was gone. Eva sat me down in the rocking chair in the baby's room and held my feet in her hands. She grounded me and told me there was only love for me downstairs. She let me cry and talk and gave me another hug. Soon I had dried my tears, taken deep breaths, and was ready to join all the women celebrating downstairs.
During the blessing part Eva gave Michelle and I special necklaces that she had made us to symbolize something from the baby. They each have a piece of round dark wood and a metal pendant that hangs in front of the wood that has an engraved heart on the front and on the back says, "Thank You LF". LF stands for "Little Friend", another nickname baby has gotten. Eva also bought me a very pretty lavender colored lace-weight scarf, knitted at a local yarn shop there. It's like a soft hug from her. Maria presented Lisa with a beautiful crown made of fresh colorful flowers and a shawl with bright butterflies all over it. After they blessed us, we all wrote down blessings for the baby on ribbons and tied them to a mobile for the baby's room. We then went around in a circle and stated our prayer/blessings while holding a large bowl of water to energetically infuse the water with all this love. They will be pouring the water of the baby after birth, a symbol of all the blessings pouring down from all it's loved ones.
Here is a picture of the five of us taken after the baby shower.
It was a very full trip with lots of people to meet and places to go. I feel I am settled back into being home and enjoying being here. Me and baby going along day to day. Experiencing life together for a little while longer. It is bittersweet. We went to prenatal yoga last Sunday night. The stretching and connecting inward was so welcomed. We will continue to do this Sunday nights for the rest of the pregnancy. It feels so healing.
