september mama

i'm feeling a lot of interesting things lately, though "feeling" isn't quite the right word. "sensing" or "anticipating" maybe fits better.

i have a strange, calm sort of excitement about the birth. it sounds silly but it's not as much about finally meeting her--though of course that is awesome--as it is about the process of birth itself. i feel as if i am approaching a point-of-no-return spiritually, like i'm getting ready for a journey i can't even begin to speculate about; something completely otherworldly and life-changing.

having never done it before, i manage to have incredibly positive, and perhaps idealistic, feelings about birth... i imagine it as the greatest, most impossible task one could ever undertake, and knowing that i will get to the point of breaking where i "can't do it"--and still do it--is something i look forward to on a level i can't really describe. i want to break down completely, to give up, and then realize i'm not broken at all and come out singing. while i can understand on a physical and logical level why women might want painkillers for what is always described as the most painful experience ever, but emotionally and spiritually i cannot fathom agreeing with that. to me, numbing medication would be robbing myself of my own greatest experience. pain goes away... being able to know that i did it despite the pain is 100% worth it to me. there is a woman in the business of being born who expresses that birth can (and should) be the most empowering, triumphant experience of a woman's life, and that's basically how i feel about it. i am ready for the challenge and have no doubt about the outcome. women are made for this, and it is what makes us as strong as we are. we do the impossible as a matter of course.

i have been feeling a little... spacey?... but without the negative connotation; i've been having surges of spiritual energy or something like that, and it's making me aware of how irrelevant most of the things i spend my time on really are. i need to be secluded and quiet and a little bit out of touch to really embrace this. it's hard to be half-meditating at work! i have been listening to meditation podcasts at night to fall asleep, which is good, and i made a pandora station out of "new age/spa radio" music to listen to at work. this all started two fridays ago when i was exhausted, i went to the birth center and was told to go home from work and sleep, but instead of heading straight home i stopped at a little herb/crystal shop that i have been meaning to go to, and the second i walked in the door i reconnected with a part of myself that has been long repressed... it was like getting an auric massage just walking in the door. i didn't realize until then how caught-up i have become in the stupid things (stupid things=work), but now i do. the closer i get to birth the more strongly i feel that my life has to change. i know this is partly my saturn return waving from a distance and nudging me to get ready for what is to come. i had plans to pursue natural medicine that i have allowed to fall to a far back burner, but clearly they are not the kind of plans i can dismiss without a fight. which is good, because it will take a fight to put them into action. and it might take a number of years, as well, which i am fine with... there is no rush, as long as i can express myself as i wish without encumbrance.

i just can't bring myself to care about stupid things, or bills, or legal matters, or anything that doesn't directly relate to my growth as a spiritual being, or matt's, or how we are going to raise rowan. gardening, love, self-expression (of myself and others) and a harmonious home are the only things i give any concern to anymore. i'm half-afraid and half-hopeful that this will not change when the pregnancy is over. it is time for me to assert my needs, and to pursue what is important to me... all my intuition tells me that this drive will only become stronger after going through birth.

today was our 36 week appointment, and rowan is definitely head down and partially engaged. good news, now i can stop reading about how to turn a breech baby :). matt surprised me at the appointment by showing up, and he got to hear her heartbeat for the first time. and he felt her head through my abdomen. it was cute. i also took the GBS test so we'll see how that goes.

the difference between inner knowing that everything is perfect and will be perfect, and having external reality confirm it and say "yep" is really interesting. i have known from the beginning that this pregnancy (and birth) would be totally OK in every way, but somehow with each new confirmation of my intuition it gets more and more fun. i believe in informing myself of all possibilities regardless of what i really "feel" will happen--which is why i read everything and get worked up about stuff all the time--because i think it's important to understand fully all potential situation(s) even while i hope for and expect the best outcome. things are going as well as could be hoped for.

and rowan... she is an interesting being. i've had a sense of her since the beginning when i knew she was a girl, and it hasn't changed at all. of all the things i can't quite put into words, the one thing i can is "wisdom." it sounds silly but i never, ever think of her as a baby, a kid, or a noob at all... i relate to her as a fully sentient being who knows at least as much as i do about things, consciously or unconsciously. i don't think of her as a child. i think her "spirit" or whatever is way old and may even come out knowing exactly who she is. then again i may be completely wrong, but that's what my sense of her tells me. she's like an old monk or a sage spiritually, i think. and this funny little spirit i feel in the background, impatiently waiting its turn--her sister?--is so different from that. not unwise, but playful; almost mischievous. pregnancy does strange things to us. maybe i'm just hallucinating all of this via excess of hormones and imagination.

anyway... that's where i'm at.