The visit with our OB/ Midwife yesterday went well. I saw her on the 17th of Nov. on the day she gave me as my official "due date". The due date is an interesting topic for me, I am so glad you brought it up! I remember when I first went in for care and the nurses were trying to calculate my due date based on the last day of my period. Apparently this is just how they do it. Funny thing is and I hope you don't mind me sharing this bit with you: The due date they were giving me I was resistant to accept for the simple fact that one needs to have sex in order to become pregnant right! As the nurse was calculating the date for me, I was explaining to her that she can not count my "last period dates" because I was not sexually active at that time, so how could I possibly be pregnant???The two different nurses I saw totally ignored my comments almost as if I was speaking Japanese or a total idiot. It was too funny. I was upset and annoyed at first because I do in fact think it is silly to count days of pregnancy when there couldn't possibly be a fertilized egg! Then I just laughed at the ridiculous of it all. Why am I counting a week or two of pregnancy that couldn't possibly of happen? Oh well, Ill let then play their game and calculate away on their Iphones.
Nov 17th was the due date they gave me and I knew better so I made my own date based on factual-sexual contact! =)
The rest of my check up yesterday went well. My midwife told me that I am currently dilated to 2 cm! She said that this means my body is preparing yet it does promise I will go into labor anytime real soon. She did mention that it is common for women to dilate from 1-3 cm and stay there for 2 or so weeks! Before our time was up, she said there was no need to book anymore appointments. Hint hint....
The past few days I have preparing the house for guests and baby, sunbathing, sleeping and working on my new ebooks! People often ask me in these final days of waddle
"Are you nervous?!
Truthfully, I am not nervous eventhough I joke about it and make scary faces when asked if I am getting an epidural. I am more excited about my own body's birthing process and curious about how it will all go first hand. In preparation for this great unknown, I have read many uplifting birth stories online, viewed home videos on YouTube of women laboring in their bathtubs and beds, watched movies on water birth, orgasmic births and conscious birthing techniques. Over the past few months I have read all kinds of interesting articles from Elimination Communication, to A Lotus birth all part of the many facets of natural child birth. I know that all of this information has been wonderful and encouraging resources, however my experience will be all its own! Yeah! So excited!
FOOD!? YES! New developments in the topic of food and my pregnancy has taken place.
A few months into my High Raw-Vegan pregnancy I began to crave eggs and raw-goats cheese in a major way. I made the decision to eat these foods and to my initial suprise, felt absolutely amazing as a result! I am guessing it was due to the combinations and the frequency I was eating these new foods, as well as the other fresh foods in my diet. For example, I would poach one or two eggs and enjoy them over a nice green salad instead of toast or pancakes. I would typically do this once or twice a week. This felt very balancing for me personally and I let go of my personal judgements I had about incorporating non raw-vegan foods into my diet. I had fully intended on having a High Raw Vegan Pregnancy and was excited to write about it and share it with the world! I learned I had to go with the flow and love myself as well as my process no matter what changed or shifted from my origional "plan" and expectations. What can I say? The additions to my diet just felt right so I sought out high quality local eggs and prepared these foods with much love coupled with amazing fresh greens!
When I first introduced these foods in, I didn't share that info with anyone except family and my OB for fear of not living up to my "raw status" as a coach and chef in the movement. I quickly realized that I was being too hard on myself and that it was ok! Whatever I was doing was A-OK.
To my relief I found there were and still are many "raw women" out there that once they became pregnant..everything changed. They too added foods like fresh eggs, raw goats cheese and other whole foods such as quinoa and steamed veggies. Some of these women have shared their stories to encourage other mommas and some have chose to keep their pregnancy dietary "changes" to themselves due to the risk of being judged by the Raw World. Sadly I think this is mostly because men or women who have never been pregnant could not possibly understand a mother to-be's reasons for adding certain foods that are not in the raw-vegan category during pregnancy. and who wants to have to explain themselves when being a role model in the raw food realms? This topic I will go into at a later time. <3
For my entire pregnancy, almost like clockwork, I religiously enjoyed green smoothies every morning that had spirulina, fresh kale from our garden, local oranges and a ripe banana. I also for the first time ever- craved fresh nut milk drinks from cashews, almonds and sometimes brazil nuts. I chowed down lots of other various raw salads/dishes throughout the day. I felt excellent! I felt strong and awesome! Then shift happened!
Sometime last week I noticed a shift in my food cravings/needs. It started with a dream I had where my baby boy told me something like "momma...I have had enough eggs and raw cheese, I don't need it anymore."
I woke up from this dream, and was grinning! There was a noticeable shift inside me that I could not ignore. From that moment I had no desire for eggs nor cheese so I followed that feeling.
I have also noticed a drop in my appetite in the sense that instead of say 4 to 5 small meals and snacks a day, I only eat two meals and a snack. I feel fine, I feel satisfied. I feel different! YES!
I feel as though my baby inside is fully developed and ready to hatch therefor his needs nutritionally have shifted and my body is responding. I am so grateful for my body's intelligence!
Other amazing high raw conscious mommas I have been in contact with have shared with me similar stories about food I am excited to see how my body shifts once I begin breastfeeding! I hear it's a gunna be a fun ride!
Oh goodie! Ill let you know how it goes!
xxMelissa
Awesome blog, Melissa! Thank you for sharing about your food desire shifts. That is all so very interesting, and I think if all pregnant women who eat healthy shared (in detail!) their pregnancy food shifts, women would feel a lot more empowered and trusting in their own intuition!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, after nearly 9 years of being raw-vegan-"ish", I really see the strict term "raw vegan" to be an illusion. It doesn't really exist. Things like algae and bacteria seem to be more animal-like than plants, and what about bee foods? There are so many gray areas outside of these neat little labels, that it no longer makes sense to me to identify with one. I eat mostly raw plant foods... and there's so much more to it.
During my pregnancy, in addition to things like fresh fruits and veggies, nuts/seeds/etc, and a wide variety of superfoods and some "living" supplements, I ate bee foods regularly (honey, bee pollen, royal jelly). I also went through a bottle of deer antler extract in my third trimester, because I had an attraction to it at that point (which waned later on).
Over the 9 years of my mostly raw plant based diet, I've experimented with a variety of foods from animal sources, including "herbs" like deer antler, ant (!), deer placenta, whey protein, cod liver oil, and some herbal mixtures containing ghee. I currently have no attraction to those things, and I'm glad I've tried them, because now if I do require any of them at any point, I'll know it!
Plus, I eat lots of wild plants. This certainly includes the occasional aphid or ant I missed while brushing the leaves off after picking them :)
And about due dates.....
I was wondering the same thing, then I figured it out. On the first day of every menstrual period, a new egg is released from our ovaries. Every single egg we release EXPECTS to become a baby. Therefore, the gestation process effectively starts. It will obviously only continue if it's fertilized. Maybe due dates calculated from this point are more accurate...
The nurses you saw probably didn't answer your question because they themselves didn't even know! Haha... it's "just the way it's done" ;)
- Courtney