Due Date!

Well here we are at 40 weeks and Baby (we're still planning on naming her Eleanor) is still safely in tact! I'm pretty good at being pregnant now so I don't really mind. I'm still really comfortable and everything is going smoothly so I'm in no hurry. I AM really excited to meet my little baby though! I just know it's going to be a lot harder learning how to be a mom than sitting around and waiting. We're just praying that she'll make up her mind to come before I have to be induced.

I've been studying Hypnobabies for the labor and delivery and I'm feeling really good about it! I just listen to tracks for a half hour every day and do my own practice of going into hypnosis and I'm feeling confident about having this baby! I know a lot of people who do Hypnobabies still get an epidural but it's great coping for the whole time before you get the epidural. I feel like when people plan to get an epidural the whole time they don't really have a plan for what happens before the epidural and when they start getting those contractions they panic and cry and just have to suffer through it. With Hypnobabies you focus on staying completely relaxed and calm and that sounds way better to me! After my friend gave me the whole program to borrow I started doing some research on the medical journal websites I used so much while I was in school. They've done studies on people using hypnosis as pain relief and found that it works as well as any other pain killer. In fMRIs of people doing hypnosis they found that there is actually an area in the brain (the thalamus - it acts like grand central station for all signals entering and exiting the brain) that is actually inactive during hypnosis used to block pain. That means that the pain signal (nociception) isn't even getting to your conscious brain. Isn't that awesome!? After I read that I was really excited to train my brain to be that awesome. You can actually use hypnosis to stop pain for anything not just labor! They said that people who used it for migraines were able to stop migraine pain in 15 seconds! I've never had a migraine but I know it can take people out of commission for days! If I were one of those people I'd get to a hypnotherapist ASAP. So anyway, I'm pretty excited to put all my practice into action! I'm hoping to make it all the way without an epidural but I guess we'll see how well my practicing has worked. My friend had a completely pain free delivery! That's pretty uncommon just because people don't practice as much as they should. But even when people do experience pain it's much less than it would be otherwise. I think the best part of it is that it keeps you focused on being relaxed and comfortable and not panicking and making things worse for yourself. Enough of my rant on hypnosis, the point is I would recommend it to anyone having a baby whether you want to be medicated or not!

The nursery is done, the hospital bags are packed, all our major items are purchased! I'm feeling ready to bring home a baby! My mom was going to fly down here from Indiana (where she was going to be helping my sister with her baby) but my sister went 2 weeks early so Mom is home now. I was able to convince her to cancel her flight and drive with the whole family down here so I can see everyone. I'm especially excited to see my nephew, Cole, who just turned a year old on the 12th. I wish I could meet my NEW nephew, Clark (who was born Sept 23) but I'll have to wait until Christmas when we both go back to Washington. It'll be nice to have my mom here to help with things though. This weekend we're trying to clean up what we can so it's ready for visitors but I know it'll be nice to have my mom here to help out with all of that. And cooking! I already don't have energy for cooking. It's a lot more fun when you have money to buy good food to cook. As it is, I'm a pretty big fan of mac n cheese with hot dogs and broccoli in it :)

Moral of the story: everything on our side is ready! Now we're just waiting for Eleanor to be! I'm bad at blogging but we'll get pictures up on facebook as soon as we can and I'll blog it all later :) Wish us luck!