I have been sitting on my birthing ball, squatting, rolling my hips, doing hands and knees rocking, walking, vacuuming, squatting, eating pineapple, having sex, having orgasms, eating spicy curry, taking evening primrose oil, and doing nipple stimulation, and...

Baby is just HAPPY in there. So I make a good baby house! She is head down, and according to my midwife "RIGHT THERE," but just... nada, zip, zilch.

I am really getting nervous though. Going *too* far overdue *does* have an increased incidence of risk factors and I just don't want to go there. I don't even want to be pondering induction; I am. I don't want to ponder the potential results of induction; (ie: failure to progress, unhandleable birthing, epidural, c-section, etc) I am.

I guess I'll go do more birth ball stuff...

Yesterday I had to have a NST (Non-stress test). This is where they sit you down in a recliner or some such contraption and strap monitors to your belly to monitor any uterine activity, baby's heartbeat, and you have this push button thingy you are supposed to click every time baby moves. They are looking to see if baby's heartbeat goes up a certain amount after each movement and stays up the proper amount of time.

'Cept... *my* baby did not like these things poking her and kept moving away. So for about an hour (instead of 20 minutes), I sat there being poked, prodded, slimed with lube (it's a conductor), and praying for my baby to... simultaneously move and hold still. How is that for confusing her? My prenatal appointment, which usually only takes about a half hour, took me almost two hours! I was so exhausted, hungry, and poked out by the time I got home.

And, they didn't get good results, so I had to go for a biophysical profile today at a radiology clinic... for this they use sonogram and measure baby, make sure she is breathing ok, make sure the amniotic fluid is ok, make sure she is moving, etc. All was perfect! This baby is fine, she is just happy in there.

But... baby... come OUT!!!!

I don't want another NST on Tuesday. Then another on Thursday. This increased monitoring is making me tense and nervous, not to mention the fact that it is just not fun. So I want baby to come out! Even though I'm nervous about my birthing too. (Nerves regarding the unknown!) We have the tub set up for me to enjoy during my birthing time, I have my Hypnobabies stuff ready to go, and... well it's just about Christmas, so there is not much going on here.

But with all this thinking about getting her out, I'm realizing how much I'm going to miss her being IN THERE. I have really gotten used to rolling over in the middle of the night, feeling her kick inside me, cuddling her and going back to sleep. I love sitting here at the computer and watching my belly undulate as she shifts and squirms around inside me. I just love her being in there. I can't imagine anything more worthwhile to do with my time than grow this beautiful girl in my belly... and I'm going to miss her like crazy when she comes out... even though I *know* she is going to keep me so busy once she is out, that I hopefully won't notice so much!

Baby... come out!!!!!

1) The fact that if you question an anti-vaccine resource (many anti-vaccine websites are run by individuals with no medical training or background whatsoever), you get slammed, demeaned, belittled, and accused of not doing any research.

2) When you ask for verifiable facts regarding statistics, 9 times out of 10 you are sent to one of those anti-vaccine websites.

3) That the authors who write books about how terrible vaccines are have not done any original research, but distort results from the research of others... carefully choosing which studies they will use and trying to find the most flawed studies. (Because yes, of course, scientists do make mistakes and not every study is perfect.) Also these authors usually spend all their time quoting one another so that the entire thing is circular. "Anti-vaccine guy A says vaccines are horrible!" This gets repeated over and over by all the other anti-vaccine folks until it is accepted as a verifiable fact, when really it is just an *opinion.*

4) It seems the majority of anti-vaccine folks do not understand even what I mean when I ask for a verifiable fact. They think they do. They seem to think that if someone put something on a website, that makes it a verifiable fact.

5) The conspiracy theories! Oh the conspiracy theories! I think there is a reason that people tend to roll their eyes at conspiracy theorists. I simply cannot imagine how anyone could believe that every government in the world, every doctor in the world, every SIDS organization in the world, every Autism organization in the world, are ALL in on the conspiracy to harm people with vaccines. Not to mention the very bizarre idea that Bill Gates would somehow make a profit from donating free vaccines to third world countries. How does that work again?

6) A lot of these people don't seem to understand that not only can anyone write a book (especially a self-published book, like "Just a Little Prick," which I can't help laughing at every time I think of it), but anyone can much more easily post a website. (Yes, I include myself in that statement. Did you think I was giving medical advice? I am not. It's just a blog, people.) Anyone can make it *look* official and *sound* official if they try and have a decent education. That doesn't make the information found in the book or website reliable.

I mean really, if Ann Coulter can write a book and be taken seriously... *anyone* can!

7) The fact that anytime you present any study or studies disproving what the anti-vax community claims, the response is... "That study is bogus!" They don't ever give a reason why the study is bogus. They just say it over and over again in hopes you'll eventually shut up. It's easy to believe that you have all the information if you just completely disregard anything that conflicts with your opinion. But why? Who would want to make medical, life or death decisions for their families that way? I don't understand.

8) The homeopathy connection. Homeopathy, if you don't know, is basically an alternative medicine practice which involves giving a person a tiny amount of a toxin, to somehow balance their system and cure whatever the problem is. Yet somehow, the anti-vaccine community does not see how protesting against the toxins in vaccines (Picture a needle, and the TINY amount of fluid in the needle, think of the many ingredients in that needle and try to figure out just how tiny an amount we are talking about. REALLY tiny!), while ingesting toxins from homeopathy, are in conflict. I recently saw a strident anti-vaccine activist discussing taking homeopathic doses of arsenic... while pregnant. So arsenic in homeopathics is ok, but formaldehyde in a vaccine that could save your child's life is not? Sorry... what was that?

9) Unverifiable quotes. Like this one.

"Dr. James R. Shannon, former director of the National Institute of Health reported in December, 2003 that “the only safe vaccine is one that is never used”.

Wow, that's pretty intense. Notice I don't give a citation for it, though. That's because there is no citation for it. You can find it on every anti-vaccine website out there on the wide world of the 'Net. But you won't find (or at least, I have been unable to find, and I tried) an original source or citation for this quote. When I pointed this out on an anti-vaccine message board, I was told that it came from private correspondence between Dr. Shannon and another Dr. That some anti-vaxer had somehow gained access to this private correspondence, quoted Dr. Shannon, and thus it is a verifiable fact, just not verifiable to anyone but that first person. Hmmmmmm....

There are lots of these quotes out there, this is just one example.

10) The insistence that mercury is still in our vaccines even though thimerosal was removed from vaccines years ago. (Aside from one incarnation of the flu vaccine. There are thimerosal free versions of flu vaccine available.) The insistence that thimerosal causes autism even though numerous studies have shown there is no connection between the two. The total crazy hysteria over thimerosal while people munch away on their tuna sandwiches.

So... ten reasons for me to be turned and completely swayed by the anti-vaxers themselves, to go the other way. I prefer living in the land of reality where I can verify things via solid medical research, personally.

'Course I should be cleaning my house so my midwives aren't terrified when they arrive for my birthing time!

I remember several years ago I found the urban legends website Snopes. I was *dismayed* as I read legend after legend... so many things I believed to be true, which everyone knew were true, were in fact... NOT TRUE.

Ever since, I've been using the Internet to verify things for me. Of course you have to be careful of your sources on the Internet... I mean, you cannot use Billy Bob's website as a reliable source. (In my post about mattress wrapping, I point out that all the proponents of mattress wrapping are just random people who have NO PROOF that it does anything whatsoever. ) But my background in journalism helps me find things which I believe to be reliable. Also you can usually verify a reliable fact more than once, on more than one site or news article.

But I love the natural living communities. Attachment parenting makes so much sense to me. Breastfeeding to me seems so simple, so logical! I am not sure how I feel about co-sleeping, except that I am not against it and plan to see how it works for me and my family. Birthing at home not only seems safer and so much more comfortable, but there is ample proof to show that walking into a hospital to give birth increases so many risks to you and your baby, that I don't even need to debate it.

But then I see things in the natural living communities which honestly make me feel a little scared and like I am way, way on the outside.

Like, the Bill Gates killing babies thing. Or, that HIV is a myth. Or that all vaccines kill babies and that anyone who is pro-vax is pro-killing babies. Or that you should wrap your mattress against all the toxic fumes it emits. That there is a global genocide in progress, coordinated with every government in the world, to use vaccines to kill babies. That big Pharma makes more money from us being dead than they would if we lived. (???) That autism is caused by vaccines. Honestly it goes on and on, and it makes it hard for me to believe a lot of what I read about.

This site might be becoming where I hash these things out while I try to figure out for myself what is true and not true, what is valid and what is just jumping at shadows. Frankly I think there are enough real concerns for parents to have, that jumping at shadows like toxic mattresses are a waste of our energy. But I suppose we'll see how it evolves...

I'm still a little unsure how GIVING medicine to needy people makes him money, but...

If you are one of the very few people in the universe who are unaware of the vaccine debate raging on the 'net these days, you may want to google it... the following won't make much sense otherwise. Anyways, it's funny to me to see people posting on the internet about vaccines, and their signature says "Vaccines are not natural," while they are typing on their plastic computer connected to electricity and a network of wires that is the Internet!

Regardless, I wanted to repost my posts about Bill here. Never, ever in a million years would or could I have thought I'd find myself defending Bill Gates to anyone, anytime! But, here it is...

It's so sad that anytime rich people TRY to do something good, they are reviled for it. Madonna, Bill Gates, whoever. Meanwhile if they DON'T try to do something good, people revile them for that as well, for being so selfish.

Bill Gates is a lot of things, but I don't believe he is evil, much less trying to SPREAD AUTISM TO AFRICA. What a strange thing to say. What a horrible worldview it must be to be putting such malice into someone. Bill and Melinda are in a word, mainstream. The mainstream view is that vaccines are good.

Anyways, doesn't ANYONE here think that the vaccination situation IS actually different in third world countries which do not have access to the level of cleanliness and medical care, not to mention FOOD, that we do? One of the arguments I continually read on these boards in reference to vaccines is that many of these diseases are only prevalent in areas where cleanliness, medical care, clean water, and adequate food supply are an issue. In a nutshell, third world countries!

So anyways if you DO believe that vaccines are horrible, do you weigh the risks for a child of getting a disease, say something like measles, in a tiny African village with no food, no water, no resources, vs. the amount of mercury in the vaccine? And anyways, does anyone know for A FACT that the vaccines the Gates' are helping distribute DO contain mercury? Seems odd that they'd be taking the mercury out of vaccines here and continuing to use it for vaccines for other countries.

Bill Gates has so much money he can literally throw hundreds of millions of dollars at the needy, without ever feeling it. The idea that he'd be maliciously targeting children to make more money is... I'm sorry, I just find it utterly outrageous. There's really no benefit in it for him. And it's sad to see such a depth of evil attributed to him and his wife. He could just... yanno, KEEP his money and make MORE profit just from the interest it earns him! He no longer needs to DO ANYTHING to make more money than he, his children, his grandchildren, his entire extended family, COULD EVER SPEND.

Those of you objecting to his donating computers; now I am part of the universe who comes from the MAC realm and I believe Bill nabbed Apples GUI and ran with it, and I also believe that Microsoft does in some ways want to take over the world. However the reality (she says, typing on her mac!) is that PC's HAVE taken over the world and for you to be successful in the world now you have to know how to use them. So taking computers AWAY from children isn't doing them any favors. Does he plan for them to be Microsoft users when they grow up? Of course. But.. they are going to be either way, unless there is some huge seismic shift in the world of computers!

I don't know Bill Gates or care about him personally, just hate the attitude that any time a rich person tries to be benevolent, they must have "sinister" motivations. I've spent plenty of time making "evil" Bill Gates jokes throughout my life. But I could never have imagined people would think he would deliberately cause children to become autistic or DIE. I mean... he's just a really smart geek!

I'd also love to see people actually posting links that prove their statements instead of doing what amounts to very malicious gossip.

My second post, and the quotes I'm responding to...

"Also he is leaving only a fraction of his wealth to his children when he dies."

Yes, and you think this is good or bad??? I wasn't sure from what you posted. A fraction will be enough to care for them for life; plus, he wants them to make their own way and not rest on his laurels. A sentiment I'd think most MDC'ers would applaud, vs. denigrate.

"While I see your point and think it is valid why would you assume that someone who stole another person's product and then monopolized the market is a trustworthy person?"

Well, I don't *really* think he stole it anymore than Apple stole it from Xerox, which is where the original desktop idea came from. He's just a really good businessman. Really, really, scary good. And this is not about his being TRUSTWORTHY. It's about whether or not he is maliciously plotting to kill babies, which is what many of these posts are saying. Surely there is some kind of middle ground between someone you'd find trustworthy enough to babysit your children, and someone you'd applaud for making a global effort to help needy children?

"But no, I don't think that vaccinations work any better in third world countries than they do here. They are the SAME vaccinations."

Ok, well, here we just don't see eye to eye. I have never seen any proof that vaccines don't actually vaccinate against diseases. I've seen lots of people say it is true all over the internet. I've seen people point to better water and other things, which of course are important. But a study showing that all vaccines are ineffective and don't work? I haven't seen it. I'm still looking. That vaccines have side effects, yes, that I've seen and won't argue.

"It is a fact and why does it seem odd to you that they are using mercury-laced MULTI-DOSE vaccines in third world countries? They want to vaccinate the most number of people and as cheaply as possible - that means multi-dose vials."

It seems agreed that most vaccines (flu being the exception) being produced now do not contain thimerosal. Not since about 2003. I continually see discussion about leftover batches still having it... but I can't believe there are THAT many still left over now! Or that big pharma would find it profitable to deliberately keep mercury in ONLY for use in Third World countries. Just seems wierd to me. But if it is a fact, surely you can back it up with some kind of proof instead of just saying "It is fact!"

It's funny how everyone is so sure of themselves but not one person has a link or any proof whatsoever about any of this... and honestly this is, to me, what makes the mainstream look at the philosophies espoused here and go right back to being mainstream. Bill Gates killing babies to make money he doesn't need? I'm sorry, that is illogical and more than a little paranoid.

Here's a link from the Gates foundation showing some FEW of the initiatives this foundation is involved in.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/GlobalHealth/Pri_Diseases/default.htm

Here's them giving $46 million to a nonprofit organization to fight diarrheoa.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200611010908.htm

Here's $287 million for HIV/AIDS research (I know, some MDCers don't believe it exists...I disagree.)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003139170_aids20m.html

"Traditionally, most vaccine studies are conducted in individual labs, or among small groups of colleagues, McElrath said. Data are often kept secret until publication, to gain advantage over competitors.

The Gates recipients — including some drug companies — all agreed to share information promptly with everyone else in the program and the wider science community. Individuals can patent breakthroughs, but each signed a contract pledging that any vaccines developed through the collaboration will be sold cheaply in Africa and other developing regions, where the epidemic is most intense."

ie: The Gates foundation set this up so as to be LESS profitable for the scientists and all involved.

Here's another article...

"So Gates has launched a revolution in international health. It starts with his unprecedented private investment in vaccines. But its long-term goal is nothing less than shattering the cycle of disease and poverty by eradicating illnesses, finding new vaccines for old health scourges, helping governments improve basic services such as clean water, and giving developing nations financial incentives to improve the health of their people."

To me it seems the problem is this... if you believe vaccines are bad, you assume Bill Gates must be bad. But, seriously... most people here should be aware that the VAST majority of the WORLD believe vaccines are GOOD. Whether rightly or wrongly (debate for another day). So why would the assumption that he is trying to do BAD by providing vaccines make sense? It doesn't.

As for clean water, they are working on that too...

"The fight against Guinea worm is about as low-tech as it could be. The goal is making sure people don’t drink contaminated water, which can mean building wells to protect water at its source, treating water to kill the fleas that carry the larvae, or filtering the water. One of the most effective tools is this little gadget.

It’s called a pipe filter, but it looks like a piece of jewelry, and it acts like a portable water purification plant. It’s not much more than a fancy straw, but it has a fine screen here at the bottom that filters out fleas. With a pipe filter, anyone can drink from any water source, and it’s safe. "

"One must also listen to the voice of an impoverished mother of five say that it was at an AMREF clinic that she and her husband learned that their sick two-year-old was malnourished because she’d taken him off breast milk so she could feed his infant brother. "

Man I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be defending Bill Gates so vehemently. But honestly, if you are going to say something like that about someone (they want to deliberately kill babies to make money) it should have some basis in a verifiable fact somewhere down the line. Maybe it's the journalist in me, but I need PROOF.

BTW the Gates foundation involves more than just vaccines, look through their website to see all the many, many different things they are trying to do. Or google it. There is tons of info about them out there.

The theory behind this is that mattresses which have been treated to be inflammable must give off fumes which are toxic for humans to breathe.

Personally, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I have a hard time believing that just about every industrialized country treats mattresses to make them less flammable, and adults sleep on them 8 hours a night every night for years and years, without a marked affect from the treatment. I think we'd definitely see some changes in rates of allergy/asthma problems from the times when mattresses began to be regularly treated. Maybe even other symptoms... headaches, for one, all kinds of sleep disorders, I can think of a million things that breathing toxic fumes would cause.

Regardless, *everyone* knows this is true. Googling "toxic mattress fumes," will pull up thousands of results confirming that mattresses are toxic. Of course, almost unanimously these are sites which are selling organic mattresses. Some are selling other things. Some just say it to say it. NONE have any proof whatsoever, that I've been able to find, that mattresses emit toxic fumes.

I'm not saying proof is not out there. I'm simply saying that it seems it would be easier to find. If this were really such a big problem, I cannot imagine that the CDC and similar organizations for other countries around the world, would not have researched it and made public their findings.

I did find this, from the National SIDS Council of Australia...
http://www.sidsandkids.org/documents/September2005_000.doc

Also check out their FAQ on safe sleeping. This is a PDF file.
http://svc021.wic005tp.server-web.com/documents/FAQOctober2006.pdf
They restate their position that the claim about gases from mattresses contributing to SIDS is patently false.

Here's a news article about mattress toxicity; please note that the person suggesting that mattresses are toxic is SELLING MATTRESSES!

Here's a press release about flammability regulations for mattresses with some very dramatic photos.
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml06/06091.html

There are so many things in this universe to be legitmately worried about, I hate to think of so many people jumping at the shadow that is mattress fumes. On the other hand, if anyone has PROOF... real live scientific studies (which, IMO, it would be very very easy to conduct!) which prove that mattresses are toxic, please do let me know!

Ok, so I bit my fear bullet and went on a search to find out what the deal was with the New Zealand studies about SIDS. Turns out that NZ previously had pretty high rates of SIDS and thus they initiated a big campaign to go after it.

Unfortunately the only sources I can find which cite mattress wrapping as a factor in reducing SIDS deaths are secondhand. The site usually referred to in disucssions about mattress-wrapping is cotdeath2000.co.nz. (Sorry, I'm deliberately not linking to it directly.) Cotdeath2000 is not affiliated with a medical organization. It's "someones" website. I tried to track it down, but the New Zealand domain registry service doesn't provide much in the way of information. I'd be interested to know what other domains these people own, but I do know they own both cotlife2000.co.nz and cotlife2000.com.

First thing I found, dated 2006, is an article about a scientist castigating Auckland University for releasing this study about cot death for publication; claims are made that the study is both biased and invalid.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE0610/S00025.htm

The end of the article states:

The nationwide cot death rate has fallen by 70% since mattress-wrapping began and the Pakeha rate has fallen by around 85%. These reductions in cot death rates cannot be attributed to orthodox cot death prevention advice (e.g. face-up sleeping). There has been no material change to that advice in New Zealand since 1992.

But I went to the New Zealand Ministry of Health website (http://www.moh.govt.nz) and looked up SIDS and cot death, and was unable to find even a single mention there of mattress-wrapping. You'd think if it really made such a significant change, the MOH would discuss it on their site! So basically they make this claim about a reduction in the rate of SIDS with nothing to back it up, which seems very odd to me.

Here's some info from New Zealand's Ministry of Health for 2002 (the most recent year I could find).
http://www.nzhis.govt.nz/stats/fetal/sids.html
http://www.nzhis.govt.nz/stats/fetal/keyfacts.html

If you go to New Zealand's "HealthEd" database and search for SIDS, there are a series of articles discussing smoking, "back to sleep," safe bedsharing, and more on smoking. Nothing on mattress-wrapping. (Unfortunately these are not linkable).
http://www.healthed.govt.nz

Here's an article from NZ about (sad, sad) a SIDS case where the factor of smoking and bed sharing comes into play.
http://www.gisborneherald.co.nz/arti...iid=547&sud=27
(FWIW, NZ is not against bed sharing. But apparently smoking AND sharing a bed dramatically increases risks. Makes sense to me!)

Here's an article from Mothering magazine from 2002 in which no mention is made of mattress-wrapping...
http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/sleep/taylor.html

Canada is not recommending mattress-wrapping...
http://www.dundasstarnews.com/dsn/news/news_629359.html

Nothing on the CDC website about it...
http://www.cdc.gov/SIDS/riskfactors.htm

Basically the only thing I have been able to find citing mattress wrapping are articles which refer back to the study listed at cotlife2000.co.nz. This link, which another poster posted (http://www.healthychild.com/cribdeathcause.htm) cites the man from the cotlife website (Sprott) as its source. So there are tons of websites talking about what they say on the cotlife website, but nothing else I can find. Not a single other source that I can find with any research or statistics to back it up. Plenty of sites selling mattress wrapping materials cite these statistics, though!

This article also says:

In spite of denial and opposition from orthodox SIDS organizations, no research has disproved this gaseous poisoning explanation for crib death.

Ok, someone please tell me why a SIDS organization would pooh pooh a possible cause for SIDS??? What would the motivation be? I don't understand that. Secondly, this is flawed logic. Disproved??? How would you "disprove" this??? So they say 800 people used mattress wrapping and not one had a case of SIDS. Who says there would've been a case of SIDS there ANYways????

This article goes on to say...

This logical finding explains every factor already known about crib death, and is backed by scientific research (Sprott 1996, 2000) and eight years of practical proof consisting of a crib death prevention campaign that continues in New Zealand.

Again their source is the same person, same thing, over and over again. Honestly, this seems like a pretty easy thing to track if ANY SIDS organization wanted to. I can't imagine that if the evidence were really so compelling, that Canada and the US government wouldn't have gotten on the bandwagon to see what effect it has.

Finally:

A 100% successful crib death prevention campaign has been going on in New Zealand for the past eight years. Midwives and other healthcare professionals throughout New Zealand have been actively advising parents to wrap mattresses. During this time, there has not been a single SIDS death reported among the over 100,000 New Zealand babies who have slept on mattresses wrapped in a specially formulated polyethylene cover. The number of crib deaths in New Zealand that have occurred since mattress-wrapping began in 1994 is about 550. The number of crib deaths that have occurred in New Zealand on a properly wrapped mattress is zero.

Gosh that sounds wonderful doesn't it? Except NOWHERE do they back it up. If this is true, why is it not on the New Zealand Ministry of Health website? Why is it not on ANY single solitary SIDS organization website? It just doesn't make any sense. Sure they have a list of references here; but most of those they are using to discuss general issues regarding SIDS. Not once do they actually attach a statistic to a valid source aside from this Sprott guy.

I would be grateful if anyone finds anything more than I have, if they'd post it... I've looked and looked! I just would like to be able to only be scared about things that really are a threat to my baby. It doesn't seem to me that mattresses are one of those things I should be too concerned about.

SIDS is a boogeyman to parents, IMO, and scares us to death. Scares me to death! I hate to think someone is preying on our desire to protect our children at any costs. So if there IS independant research about this and I'm not finding it, that is NOT sponsored by this Sprott guy or Baby Safe products, I'd be glad to hear it. I hate thinking people have unethical motivations for things like this.

Of course, everyone needs to make their own decisions for their family and their baby. Hopefully though, we can make decisions about things that are rooted in reality and not superstition or someone's desire to sell mattress-wrapping materials and "safer" mattresses.

But, for me.. I was still in a state of disbelief that there really is an actual baby-sized baby in my belly. I look down at myself and I just look and feel so BIG... it's like, where's the baby? Even with all the kicking. Even with being able to look down and see my belly jiggling from her kicking and moving inside me. Even with all that, it still wasn't real to me. In my head, baby was still a teensy little four month old fetus. Not really a BABY, yet.

Well, we decided to go, and it was today, and it was amazing. Amazing. This technology is just phenomenal. That they can just touch me, and up pops my baby's face, right there, just like that. Amazing!!!!

She is fine. She is perfect. She was moving, opening her mouth, blinking her little eyes, squirming around. I could feel the movement inside of me while watching her move on the screen. She was head down, but sort of diagonal, and had her hands both up in front of her face, like a little boxer. She smiled! Honestly she is just perfect.

Tears were leaking out my eyes while I watched the screen, I just couldn't help it. The whole thing is such an incomprehensible miracle. No matter how much I may *know* about babies (having been doing sooooo much research!), or anything else... that there is a baby inside of me is still just... astonishing!

The fact that MY body, which I've always viewed with more than a little contempt, could create something so perfect... well that is even more astonishing. For the first time in my life, I feel proud of my body. Years and years of shame over my weight are completely overwhelmed by the fact that my body is making this perfect little person, and all I have to do is allow it to do its work. Millions and billions of tiny little cells knowing just where to go, just what to do, creating the placenta, feeding the baby, helping her grow, getting my breasts ready to feed her, getting my pelvis ready to birth her, all this going on at once... and going RIGHT.

All along I feel like I've just been waiting for something to go wrong. Not that I would lose my baby!!! But that I would have all kinds of problems, as most of my friends have had. That I'd wind up with exactly what I don't want, a medicalized pregnancy leading to a birth full of interventions because my body MUST be broken.

Well, it's just... NOT. Everything is working. Everything is growing exactly as it should. I feel like I've gained a little too much weight, but my body apparently knows exactly what is needed to care for this little girl in my belly. So maybe I'll be able to quiet my worries, and trust myself and my body a little bit, for the very first time in my life. Surrender to the process. Be at peace.

I can't wait to meet my little girl!

I mostly wanted to do a class because of the social aspect of it... meeting other pregnant mamas! I chose a Birthing from Within class because I loved the book, and because it seemed very likely that I'd find other semi-crunchy mamas there to talk to.

Right before we went, I started having second thoughts about the class. The book Birthing from Within is wonderful, and I enjoyed it. I loved the discussions about our expectations, fears, worries about both birthing and becoming a mother/parent. I loved the idea of sitting around with other mamas/parents doing birth art and chatting. Fun! But the book also includes pain tolerance exercises using a piece of ice. A teeeeeensy part of the book for me, but I wondered if it would be such a teensy part of the class?

Doing pain tolerance exercises would actually be totally contrary to the whole idea of Hypnobabies, which is focusing on birth as an intense series of sensations. Intense, powerful, but not *painful.*

Well, I decided to give it a try, and now I'm kind of wishing I hadn't. Expectations, expectations!

Here's what I did NOT expect.

I did not expect to be in a tiny basement with only two other couples. Which apparently fosters intimacy and that is wonderful, but it's not very many people to meet and be social with.

I did not expect both of the two other couples to be completely uninformed about birth. I mean, I expected that they had at least read... yanno, Birthing From Within! Nope. One woman had read one book (Active Birth, so a good one!), the other had not read any. At about 30 weeks pregnant.

I know that I go overboard with things like this. (Well, really, what other thing is LIKE becoming a mother for the first time?) I've wanted to have a baby my entire life. I've been totally obsessed with learning everything I can about pregnancy, birth, babies, motherhood. I am well aware that there is lots I cannot know until I go through it, but darnit... I plan to be prepared! :) I am always a prolific reader, and I've read... maybe 20 books. Plus I'm addicted to the Mothering message boards, where I read all different kinds of debates that make me go seek more information on the internet on my own. Plus tons and tons of birth stories! Oh how I love the birth stories! :)

But it honestly scared me to see a mama telling the class that she trusts her doctor, feels safest in the hospital, and hasn't read much about birth because there's so much conflicting information out there. It scared me to hear her say that her doctor told her at her 26 week appointment that she was having a HUGE baby and would need a c-section (based on a notoriously inaccurate sonogram!). It scared me to hear her say that she feels empowered going into the hospital when the reality is that she obviously had NO CLUE about the basic pitfalls of having a baby in a hospital.

Don't get me wrong; I believe a mama should be able to birth wherever she chooses. Whether she is informed or not. The choice is ALWAYS with the mama. But I wanted to sit down and rattle off some statistics for her, I did, I wanted to! I didn't!!!! But I SO wanted to.

The other woman was not so scary; she was only six months along, was reading Active Birth, and was birthing at a birthing center with midwives. It was just this one woman, C, who made my stress levels go shooting through the roof. I have this awful tendency to want to rescue everyone, and I wanted to rescue her!

So, anyways, then began the pain tolerance stuff. The teacher started out by asking us, on a scale of 1 to 100, how painful we expected childbirth to be. Well, yanno, I'm doing the Hypnobabies thing. I believe I deserve an easy, safe, comfortable birth! I believe that I can have that. But I knew that if I said I believed birth to be TOO easy, she'd correct me. I just knew it. My husband and I both put our expectations of birth at around 50, and yes, she corrected us, and told us that she didn't want us to be expecting an easy birth and get a really hard one. I responded that for me, I felt that believing I'd have a really hard, painful birth, would be setting myself up for a hard, painful birth. She disagreed. *sigh* I don't necessarily think that is true for everyone, btw... but it IS true for me.

So then she passed out the ice, and we went through a series of exercises holding the ice. Now here is one thing that really upset me. C, the woman headed straight for a c-section happy doctor attended birth, was not really feeling any pain or discomfort from the ice. All the rest of us were! (Try holding a piece of ice in your hand for 60 seconds. To me, very uncomfy!) Anyways, C tried a few different things. She moved the ice to the inside of her wrist. She tried it on her neck. She just wasn't really perceiving it as painful at all. The teacher, however, seemed determined that she WOULD feel pain, she'd find a way!

I mean, isn't it possible that this woman has a high tolerance for pain, and is going to have a super easy labor? Isn't it possible that giving her confidence about her bodies ability to cope, vs. making her feel "broken" for not experiencing it the same way everyone else did, might have done more for her birth?

I know I'm overreacting, but this seriously upset me. The whole thing upset me. It got me all discombobulated and I wound up having insomnia all night till 4am, which I haven't had in a while. (Baby makes me sleepy!) So I'm going to try to get out of the class. The other aspect, btw, is that I already know all the information the teacher is giving us. I know the stages of labor, I know how the uterus works, I have seen tons of pictures of it, I can't wait to see my placenta! I know that if I start freaking out and saying I cannot do it, that means I'm in transition and ALMOST DONE! I know that I'm a little bit bossy sometimes (ok, maybe more than a little), and I have a hard time finding a balance between chatting and being... pushy. It's the Leo in me. It comes from a good place (wanting to help), but almost always engenders a bad reaction. I'm working on finding better ways to do it, or just hushing up, but I am not there yet... and I know I won't be able to help myself in this class! And, as you can see, the result is totally stressing me out.

I wonder if she'll refund at least half of our money!

When I say infant, I mean little; like newborn or maybe a few weeks old. You know how newborn babies have that very distinctive cry with no shape to it yet, just a desperate sound!

I found myself full of... sheer rage. I wanted to run over, punch that lady in the face, grab her little baby, and run. Really. I was steaming, my heart was hurting for this little guy, I thought I might cry.

Talk about hormonal!!!!! Research says that there are biological responses in a mama to her own babies cry. What about to other babies, though???

Anyways, as I continued to walk, I started making myself think of reasons *why* that mama could be so callous to her baby crying. Maybe she is just one of the "Cry It Out" crowd who believes that babies should self-comfort. (Total crap, in my opinion. Babies cry as a survival mechanism, not as manipulation!) Maybe. But even the CIO people usually don't advocate ignoring a baby crying until they are the ripe old age of four months, and this baby didn't sound anywhere near that old.

So, my next thought... amongst "JoAnna calm down!"'s over and over... was, maybe this baby has colic and is simply inconsolable and mama is going completely bonkers. Sometimes babies with colic simply won't calm no matter what you do, so I can see a mama at her wits end just winding up ignoring it.

But still, it was a little chilling to me to watch mama and daddy totally blase' about their babies screaming, and even the little two year old seemed to think it was perfectly normal to ignore a screaming baby. I wound up calming myself to the point of giving them the benefit of the doubt... I bet that baby has colic. I bet she is doing the very best she can. This is not the mommywars, and I am not on this earth to judge other mama's. But I wonder what most mama's do when dealing with colic... just ignore? Or something else?

Here's hoping I never REALLY need to know the answer to that!!!!!

So I was lying there petting him when all of a sudden I felt like... THWAP! I shrieked, jumped, and rolled over immediately. It was like baby was saying... "HEY!!!! Get offa my house!" :)

The next time I really felt the baby strongly was when we were en route to Vegas. This was the first week of August, 2006, so I was a little over five months pregnant. While the plane was accelerating, I suddenly felt baby start to go bonkers... flipping and whirling and pushing and kicking and squirming! It felt kind of like when you go over a sudden hill on a road in the car and as you come over the top, your stomach gives a jump... except with added pressure! Also feels all at the same time, like someone is whacking your bladder as hard as they can.

I was a bit anxious over that as I couldn't get up to pee! But all I could think was that baby did not enjoy the pressure as we rose into the air!

Ever since that fateful day, this little squirmer has not stopped. She squirms, flips, wiggles, giggles, pushes, and basically makes her presence known throughout the day. I can't wait to meet her! :)

Hmmmm, Charlie is going to have his hands full keeping me from wanting to do it again!

In spite of all the negatives; weight gain (20 lbs so far!), aching ankles, indigestion, random crazy headaches, emotional outbursts... I just love it! I love knowing that my baby is safe and sound inside of me. I love feeling her move around and push at me and spin and flip and squirm. I love seeing my stomach ripple when she gets a particularly good kick going!

I have wanted to have a baby for so long. I remember as a little girl dreaming (literal, dream while asleep) of having a little girl. I could see myself holding her in my arms and loving on her. It was a repetetive dream that I had over and over again. Now she is here, in my belly, growing and growing. I can't wait to meet her!!! But at the same time I'm perfectly content to keep her safe and sound inside of me where nothing can hurt her.

One of my favorite books, "In pursuit of the Green Lion," by Judith Merkle Riley, the protaganist is pregnant. When she first feels the baby move, she says she can hear/feel the baby saying... "Joy, joy, joy!" And flipping, swimming, squirming. That's how I feel. I love it. I'm honored to be the vessel for this little one to make her way into the world.

I dunno if I will feel that way during labor, though... how good IS that hypnobabies stuff anyways? :)