Week 25: Feeling Pretty, Oh So Pretty

....and that's saying a lot, considering that on Monday I felt like I was coming down with something horrible, but I did chalk it up to pregnancy fatigue, took the afternoon off, and rested up and now feeling much more glow-y than I think I have all summer. Of course, perhaps it's because I got my eyebrows cleaned up and so my face looks more normal to me than it has in a while, or perhaps it's because in 95˚ super-muggy weather without any air conditioning, of course we're all going to positively glisten. But since it's taken this long, til the last week in July, for the humidity and hot temperatures to set in this year, I'm taking it in stride.

Bunky is a very active baby but right now seems to be enjoying a siesta. I am wondering if he's starting to get into a groove of sleep and wake.  But all in all, we're doing ok. Weight gain a wee bit higher than I'd like, but a lot of it is coming on now as the baby gets bigger, and I really only have two more months of weight gain before I hit the top end of the curve. Had a minor blood pressure scare, but it was back down by the end of the appointment; I really think I'm going to start doing yoga workouts before my appointments and start doing more focused meditations. I'm through most of the pregnancy anxieties at this point and starting to process the labor and delivery anxieties--most of which revolve around a tangible fear that my first labor and delivery was so near-perfect that there's no way I'm going to be able to do a re-run. But statistics really are in my favor; easy labors (as labors go) run in my family and Elder Son's rapid arrival does more to establish that I can handle a large baby with no problem than would be the case if he wasn't around to be Mr. Precedent.

But as I was describing his birth to the midwife, her face was brightening. More people should tell their positive birth stories, she said. And she reassured me that we would work together to make sure I had another one, easing some concerns I had about being able to eat and drink in labor and her own caeserean rate (8 percent). One thing I didn't know about her that made me really happy to hear was that she had originally been a midwife in practice with the obstetrician who delivered Elder Son, and that obstetrician, other than ordering an amniotomy to trigger active labor (I'd been walking around at 3 cm with no idea I'd been in passive labor), steadfastly avoided ordering any interventions, even going as far to fuss at the nurses for giving me an IV without his asking for it.

I registered for childbirth education classes. To be honest, they are more for the Mister than for me; I'm realizing I would love to teach childbirth education, would love to be a doula, would love to be a midwife like I originally planned to do when I was 23. Because I can't imagine a health-care reform landscape without midwives and doulas. At the very least, I want to find freelance writing opportunities that fit this new passion of mine--or, rather, this reactivated passion of mine.