Wolz Baby Blog: 22 Weeks + My thoughts on birthing.

22 Weeks!

Bryson is about 11 inches and finally hit the one-pound mark! He is sprouting hair on his head that is bright white (no pigment for now). He is developing his sense of touch, sight, and hearing. He practices his sense of touch by holding a grip onto the umbilical cord. His sense of sight is getting more developed and he can perceive light through his closed eyelids, such as a flashlight shinning on my belly. He can hear my voice, heartbeat, gurgling stomach, and the whoosh-whoosh of blood circulating through my body.

I have started doing a lot of research about birth. I want to be as informed as possible so when the time comes I can make educated decisions as different situations may arise. I plan to have an un-medicated hospital birth which I am really excited about! I read "The Birth Book" by William and Martha Sears and I highly recommend it to anyone who is expecting a baby! It taught me so much about my birthing options and helped me get a better idea of what I want vs. the scary, painful image that I have always had in my mind.

Basically what I have learned is that fear and tension increase and cause pain. The uterine muscles have very few pain receptors and can contract and relax without causing pain. Pain comes from causing muscles to work in a way they are not designed to. Pain is also felt in the tissues around the uterus as you tense up your body. If a woman is scared, or "bracing" herself for the oncoming contraction it causes her to tense muscles which causes other muscles to over-work. This imbalance exhausts the muscles causing more pain. Fear also creates pain-inducing hormones that release into your body as well.

My take away from all of this... RELAX. I believe that if I can relax my mind and body I can allow my abdominal muscles to work as they are meant to and trust that my body knows what to do. I believe that pain has a purpose. If I feel pain, it is a sign to move or readjust my body. This makes contractions more bearable for me, but it also benefits the baby to allow him to change positions, rotating to find an easier way out. Women who are numbed with an epidural can't feel those unphysiologic signals to move and laying still tends to slow the process down. We are built as women to do this and when our bodies send us signals we should listen!

So what do I plan to do? I want to walk, use a birthing ball, take a shower/bath... just MOVE as my body sees fit. I want to keep a calm environment with low lights, and music. I plan to use breathing and meditation to relax my body. I am surprisingly very interested in hypnobirthing! If you haven't heard of this (I hadn't either) you may think it sounds crazy. The idea of hypnotizing makes us all think of some cheesy magic show with a pocket watch swinging before your eyes and people barking like a dog on stage! lol It is NOTHING like that!

What they call hypnosis can be compared to being really interested in a television show that you "zone in" to a point that you feel an emotional response to the characters, or the way that you drive yourself home from work on "auto pilot" without thinking about it. It is basically just becoming really focused on relaxation techniques. This is something you practice throughout your pregnancy (basically meditating) and you become more familiar with it. Eventually you are able to "meditate" or go into a relaxed state more quickly. When you are in labor, you should be able to go in and out of this relaxed state as contractions come and go. You are fully aware of everything going on around you. You can hear and talk as you choose, or you can tune it out during a big contraction to focus only on relaxing your body so that you are not "fighting against" the contraction but rather allowing your body to do what it is naturally meant to do.

I want to buy the cd's and start practicing on my own! The reviews online are overwhelmingly positive from any website/blog that I have seen! If it doesn't work for me, it didn't hurt anything to try! I will be in a hospital full of drugs to fall back on if needed! Honestly I think it is worth it simply for the confidence that it builds alone! I am going into this feeling like I can do it! I am excited, whereas a lot of woman feel that birth is something they simply have to endure. Women for years have used Lamaze, The Bradly Method, breathing techniques, etc. I just see this as another approach which has been shown to work! Plus, practicing will help me stay relaxed throughout my pregnancy which is great, and has been said to help women to sleep better during their pregnancy as well!

Hopefully I can get the cd's soon. I will keep you all updated about how it is going. I am waiting a while to try and find them used for a good price. The set I want is fairly expensive. The good news is that whenever I am done with them they are really easy to re-sell and get some of that expense back!

If you are curious to find out any more info on hypnobirthing, here are a few links...

This is a youtube "sample" of some other company's relaxation program. This is NOT the one I want to purchase, but it is a free sample of something very similar to what I am talking about. This will give you a general idea of what the cd's are like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOEWGiiy5sw

This is the program that I plan to buy... http://www.hypnobabies-store.com/Products-Home-Study-Courses.html

And this is the original Hypnobirting website that started the whole thing. I read the entire book by Marie Mongan (the creator of the program) and was very inspired! http://www.hypnobirthing.com/

Anyway, here are some belly pictures this week!...