335: Things I'm Doing to Prepare for Baby #9
Welcome to the Joyful Mom Podcast!
I’m due for baby #9 in May. Yes- I also can’t believe I’m pregnant for the 9th, it’s actually the 10th time, as I had a miscarriage as well. But it’s sometimes crazy to me that I’m having baby #9. Even when this is normal to me in my life, I know how crazy it might sound to some of you that this is not normal at all. But I’m so excited to have this baby outside of my body instead of inside. I know babies are more work, but I love having babies, and I don’t love being pregnant, so I’m starting to get more and more excited about this.
I do home births, like I shared in an earlier episode. And I love it, and what I’m going to share today are things you can do whether you are doing a homebirth or you are doing a birth at the hospital or a birth center. I do believe it’s incredibly important to prepare both my body and my mind for birth, I take it very seriously- and so should you.
I know some people have gone into birth not wanting to know anything, wanting to just have it happen- but I guess going through this 9 times- there are so many things that you can do to prepare your body and mind to have a better labor and delivery- that’s always my intention. Obviously there is so much out of my control in the end, but I will do everything I can to make labor and delivery easier and for it to go smoother. And if you are listening and it is your first birth, I would highly recommend you learn everything you can about birth, and labor, and how to support yourself through this. It’s actually a huge thing, and to go through it completely blind and not know anything can just be so shocking. It’s probably going to be shocking no matter what, but I guess I can't imagine not learning anything about birth and labor at all.
So here are things I do, probably starting around 30 weeks, I start adding these things into my life, some might be a little later like 35 weeks or so. I’m going to warn you, some of these things might sound weird to you, and if you’re not interested in listening to personal things- then maybe this isn’t the episode for you and you can just click off.
I usually go to the chiropractor before the baby comes. I want to make sure my body is in alignment and in the space possible to heal a baby, so I do regular chiro appointments before and after the baby. But this time I might go back to a chiro I’ve gone to on and off for years that only adjusts your atlas and axis and with that, I won’t need weekly adjustments, just once or twice.
I haven’t done this before, but i might also add in craniosacral therapy at the end to again, get my body prepared for labor, and to make sure things are loose where they are supposed to be loose so that baby can come out easily
I eat a couple dates a day- I don’t know any factual evidence of this making a difference in labor, but I do it. You can eat the dates with peanut butter and those are pretty good, otherwise I’ve made a smoothie and just blended up the dates in my smoothie. I also have been drinking pregnancy tea- and will continue to drink it until birth, I will change to a strong tea closer to birth. The main tea I usually drink is raspberry leaf and nettle tea. Though I have a few pregnancy blends that have more types of herbs in them.
I do a lot of visualizations and prepare for birth. I visualize how I want my birth to go. I imagine meeting my baby. I practice breathing exercises to get through contractions. In the past I’ve normally used free you tube videos, but I am going to buy something like hypnobabies this time around to have something to listen to. When I have a baby I go very internal- it’s a very internal experience, nobody looking at me can tell how intense it is, and I just want something that i can listen to and prepare with before baby. This mental work is huge. It’s some of the biggest work I do before baby. I also have to process the fear and anxiety I have had around the pain of birth. I’ve used tapping, doing the visualization helps, and just really preparing my mind for birth makes a huge difference.
This is where it’s getting a little personal. But i have done pelvic floor therapy a few times, so I’ve gotten to know my pelvic floor quite a bit- and in general my pelvic floor is very tight, and so I do perineum massage, stretches and I do manual pelvic floor stretches and releases so loosen any muscles in there that are super tight that would make it hard for my baby to come out. Doing the perineum massage and stretches- I guess I have no evidence for this but what makes sense to me, that when I practice stretching those tissues before the baby comes, I’m less likely to tear. I have torn a few times and it’s terrible to tear. I have not torn for quite a few babies now, and I want to keep it that way. So I do these stretches, massages, and also internal massage to try to get everything as relaxed as possible. Something along these same lines that I do to my physical body, that someone once told me to try is because I nurse my babies, and for so many babies I’ve had terrible cracked nipples and wiggling my toes for a few weeks after they are born, now that I think about it I don’t think I have had that since I’ve been doing this. I know some people say it’s all about latch and you need a good latch and you won’t get cracked and bleeding nipples, but I don’t know. This seems to help. So what I do- it’s not the most comfortable thing. But every time I take a shower, I rub my towel on me, so that my nipples can get used to that. Kind of like roughing them up a bit- and by the time I’m nursing, it’s no problem. Definitely beats cracked and bleeding nipples.
Okay, I think we are past the more personal parts. Something I also try to do the whole pregnancy but especially at the end is keep active and get out on walks often. I’ve heard people say that giving birth is like running a marathon- at least the energy it takes to run a marathon. And so I need to move my body and prepare it in some way to have the stamina and energy to have a baby. It can be hard when you are exhausted, or it’s hard to move as it is…but this is something I do to make sure I can “stay in shape” to have a baby. Not that I’m in shape, but to try to make sure I have the energy to have a baby.
Like most people, I get in nesting mode, and start scrubbing my house, organizing everything, prepping food to go in the freezer, and changing things up. Whatever comes up for me. It’s kind of a fun time actually. I think I will begin to prepare your home for the baby, and I will never force this part. I know it will come at some point, and then I will go crazy cleaning and organizing and decluttering and baking. It just happens every time for me. This time I made a list of every part of my house that needs to be cleaned, decluttered, organized. Printed it out, and every day, me and my kids would cross off some items. I know that they will probably be dirty again by the time baby comes, but at least every part of my house has been cleaned, and closets have been cleaned, and clothes have been gone through and a lot of garbage cleaned out.
For labor, I always make a drink I call the labor aid drink. I got the recipe from Mommypotamus. I linked the recipe up in the show notes, so you can find it there. But I drink this during my entire labor. I do not like the taste of it at all, but again, I want to have the energy and stamina to get through labor, so this has felt like a great option for me to drink, and so I make lots of it, and sometimes it goes bad before I have baby, and then I have to make a new batch, but it’s worth it!
I get out of the house as much as possible, go hang out with friends, visit people, do things. Because I know soon I will be stuck on a chair with a baby attached to me, and that will be beautiful, but I embrace my freedom to come and go as I please when I have it! So part of preparing is really just getting out and doing things, enjoying the last bit of pregnancy as much as I can, even though I don’t like being pregnant.
Obviously, there’s then actually preparing your space and getting all the parts for the baby. Things that I usually get are one outfit for a girl, one outfit for a boy, since I never find out what I’m having. My babies usually just live in a blanket for the first while while I wait for their belly button thing to fall off. So I don’t need tons of clothes right away. I also got a new blanket for them- a girl blanket and a boy blanket. Then I might get a few pajamas after they are born. The comfier the better. My favorite thing for my babies is one piece zip ups of some sort. I get diapers, get the crib or pack n play by our bed. Make sure I have a booger sucker like the nose frida, but I want to get the electric one before this baby as well. What else do I get for the baby?
If you want to learn more about how you can clear anxiety more automatically by rewiring how the mind is working and processing things, go to my website www.meganhillukka.com where you can click on a link to register for my free training, where I will show you what you need in order to do this.
