Calm Birth

Last night, Ash and I went to a Calm Birth class. It was a really positive experience! The class is basically meditation for pregnancy and childbirth, so it is not a "childbirth education" class. I will take one of those in May, a Hypnobabies class.

There were five pregnant women total, three who had their husbands with them (the three first time parents, including us). Two were going to give birth in just a couple weeks, one was in her second trimester, and then two of us (including me) were three months along. Turns out, the other pregnant woman who is three months along is ALSO having a home birth with Deb!

A funny coincidence... I read this really great blog called "Sew Liberated". I found it because I was looking for info on creating a child's room Montessori-style, and this post of hers is pretty famous all over the internet for being a shining example of such a room. She also has a post about a play or homeschooling room that is a great example as well. Anyways... she was one of the moms in the class last night! I had no idea the author of my favorite blog was living in the same city I was. Turns out she also has experience building with cob from her time in Mexico, and she offered her family to us for a day whenever we get started building our cob home. How neat!

The class itself was pretty long, lasting from 4pm-7pm, but it only meets twice (last night and again this Sunday). My homework for this week is to meditate at least 20 minutes per day, using the guided meditation tracks the instructor gave us.

The first guided meditation is done lying down on your side, which is great for me since back pain is the number one reason I do not meditate (sitting meditation is hard on my out-of-shape-anxiety-ridden back). I had a SUPER positive experience with that session, I felt more connected to my baby than I have the entire pregnancy, and I even cried a little bit during the session because I felt so good and relaxed and connected. I can already feel how healthy meditation will be for my nervous system, my immune system, and even my nausea (which stopped when we started meditating).

The second guided meditation was harder because it was sitting, and I had a lot of back pain. I couldn't concentrate very well. I looked forward to trying this one with a little back support this week.

After each session we wrote words or drew pictures to describe how we felt. After the first session, I drew a pretty goofy, mermaid-looking female figure whose womanly parts (breasts and womb) were all glowing in red and blue. After the second session I just drew what my back pain felt like, but I tried to make it more positive because part of meditation is learning not to hate on yourself all the time.

We stopped and got tacos and cheese dip from Chubby's on 9th street. We arrived just in time to see probably the WORST HALF TIME SHOW of all time (if that is even possible? They were all bad to me. I haven't looked to see if anyone decent has ever performed). Seriously the Black Eyed Peas looked BORED out of their minds. Then we pretended to care about football for the rest of the game, which was pretty fun. I mean, it's a game in which stuff happens, it's fun to watch. I just cheered for whoever happening to be running with the ball, and Ash made smart-alec remarks like "Oh no! That guy didn't catch the ball" and "Hooray! That guy caught the ball!"

I did the math for the first time in a while, looks like I am working about 23 hours per week right now. Funny how that feels like so much more.

My family just reserved a house at the Outer Banks for a week this summer. "Vacation" isn't something my family usually does, either because my parents didn't want the hassle/expense when we were young, or because we're all pretty busy doing different stuff throughout the year now that we're older... but this year we are really trying to make it work. Frankie is going to request to not be on tour that week, and I can get off work pretty easily. Alyssa and Arjuna may have trouble working it in around their summer school schedule and Ash will (hopefully) have a job of some kind which may limit his availability as well. Oh... and who knows my mom could finally get a job, or my dad's job could say no to taking a vacation since he hasn't been working there very long. So... maybe only a few of us will get to actually go to the beach this summer!