29 weeks, 4 days (Christmas Eve!)

From the front...

It's official: Time is ticking away. I am in my 3rd trimester and am going to see my midwife every 2 weeks. I have begun my Bradley Method refresher course in earnest now. Not anything official, just my own pouring over of my Bradley book and remembering the things I've used for my past two deliveries. Kyle and I will be working through practicing the relaxation techniques and breathing exercises. The thing that is most critical to the Bradley method of natural childbirth is training your body and mind to consciously relax every single muscle you have in order to allow your body to relax fully during contractions. The goal is to get out of the way of your body and let it do what it was designed to do.

As the book says, in theory, it's simple. But it is most definitely not easy. We're so used to carrying tension all throughout our bodies and this is the biggest enemy to natural childbirth. So you train yourself to scan your body head to toe, eliminating tension as you go. It's an on-going process during contractions when all your body is doing is flexing the uterus muscle and if you fight it, it makes it that much more difficult.

So I'll spend the next few weeks focusing on being able to relax to the point where it looks like I'm sound asleep, but I'm really wide awake, working my way down my body loosening things up and relaxing, relaxing, relaxing...

On a side note, Kyle and I worked through a practice contraction last night as I lay on my side in the running man position and I found it really hard to concentrate on relaxing because this little one was doing calisthenics in its little water bubble and it pretty much overrode all my other efforts and sensations! The good thing is that during labor, they're usually quiet as a mouse, busy being born!