22 weeks

Everything went well at my appointment last week. I got to meet Samara, another midwife who has joined the practice as an assistant. She said my dizzy spells were probably low blood sugar and that I just need to eat more in the mornings, especially protein. It's possible that it could be low blood pressure as well, since my blood pressure is already at the low end of normal... but I'm guessing it's the blood sugar thing since I have always had a raging metabolism in the mornings. The back pain and the stabbing-pain-after-eating have eased up, making my days a reverse of what they were (previously I couldn't be up walking around in the afternoons due to back pains, now i can't be up in the mornings due to dizziness!). I'm now about 135 so I gained back the weight I lost to food poisoning, and have gained about 10 lbs total since getting pregnant.

Here is my little souvenir from the Shakori festival... a tiny henna flower. It was $10 to get that tiny flower, and that was from the cheap henna place... I will have to just mix up my own and decorate further.

I haven't seen my debit card since that day so... that's not good!

That dress I am wearing just BARELY still fits, and none of my other summer clothes fit at all. I have drawn up plans to make myself a maternity dress, modeled after another dress I own that still has plenty of room in it. I also found some old white chiffon curtains in the attic, which I plan on making into a skirt. I'm going to have to buy some maternity shorts though... there are many activities that require a material a bit more dural than chiffon.

I picked up my pregnancy support herb blend! It is composed of:

3 parts raspberry leaf (astringent, toning, relaxing, nourishing, coordinates effective and productive contractions)
1 part chamomile flower (for digestive problems related to stress, soothes intestines, relax muscle cramps)
1 part lemon balm (relieve stress, sooth pain and gas after eating)
1 part dandelion leaf (vitamin A, calcium, potassium, iron, stimulate digestion, diuretic)

I drink about three cups per day until I am 32 weeks, and then we will change the herb blend so that I get my body super ready to give birth (and he will also give me herbs to use during birth, if my contractions need help picking up). I also will pick up some other herbs for reflux, even though I haven't had too many problems with it yet, I probably will as my third trimester approaches! Poor Ash has some really terrible allergies, the kind that make you sleep all day. But his herb tincture actually works really well for him and he takes it three times per day, giving him an hour or so of total relief following ingestion.

I am still undecided on the doula issue. I am already looking into hiring someone to do my placenta encapsulation, which will be about $200, so I really don't want to spend another $500 on yet another person! My birth class starts this Sunday, I'm sure I will have a better idea of what I want and need at my birth after attending the class.

I can go from zero (blissed-out and totally relaxed) to 100 (wanting to scream from stress) in about five seconds. It's no fun at all! Especially because I am used to a meditation or self-hypnosis session lasting an entire day... I don't know what to do about it since the source of the stress isn't going anywhere until the end of August (Jonathon moving away for college and Quinten possibly starting public school again). Ash is just as stressed out as I am so we can't really help each other out energy-wise, other than the basic sympathy and comfort we can offer one another. I'm afraid that all the stress will affect my birthing process, or worse, affect my relationship with my newborn (or EVEN WORSE, both). I wish my due date were later so I could have a week or two to decompress without them around, before attempting to give birth and nurture a newborn.