Over 8 Weeks

Hi. I'm still here. And just over the 8 week mark.

Still feeling pregnant so I'm hoping that's all good. Though after the silent miscarriage, I know nothing is for sure. But I woke at 5am this morning. Hungry, retching, needing to pee. I just wish these things didn't happen all at the same time.

I've been feeling much more tired this pregnancy. I sleep a lot and the nausea can come in strong waves but thankfully nothing as bad as last time. I managed to do a good walk up a hill to see this ruined kasbah on boxing day - I felt really good and I have now realised that exercise helps to combat the nausea. It's just that most of the time, I feel too tired to exercise, so it's a vicious cycle.

Oh and it was my wedding anniversary yesterday. Three years. But I have developed a slight cold so I'm taking it really easy and having an in-bed day. We decided that we would celebrate the anniversary later when I'm feeling better and can stomach eating normal food at a restaurant. I have totally gone off meat and fish. I cannot stand the smell of it. All I want is bread, cheese and potatoes. Basically everything that I am not meant to eat according to Dr. S.

So I have sent him an email to see what is the best way forward. I need to eat and these are the only things I want right now. Also on the alternative healing track I went to see this amazing woman who does TCM and also kinesiology like Dr. S, but she is here in Morocco. I told her that basically I am in good health now thanks to Dr. S but that I need help to stay calm and balanced during these next few weeks because I still worry after my miscarriage.

I won't go into the specifics of the treatment but basically she did these psychological tests on me: she got me to say these statements and then she tested to see if I believed them. I had to say things like 'I will have a healthy, happy pregnancy' and 'I will have a safe and healthy birth'. The testing showed that I truly believed these things. Then she asked me to say something about my miscarriage about accepting it and moving on. I took a deep breath and then out of nowhere I just burst into tears. It shocked me. We spoke about the pain, I cried, she cried, we talked a lot. And then we decided to try saying it again. I said what I had to say about accepting the loss and moving on and this time I did, and I believed it. It was incredibly powerful and felt like a great weight was lifting off me.

Then she tested me some more and she told me there was something else unresolved. We tried a number of things and they were not my issues. Then she asked me to say 'I deserve a happy, healthy pregnancy.' I said it, she tested me and I did not pass. We did it again, again I showed that I did not believe it. This was my unresolved issue. Part of me did not believe that I deserved to have a successful pregnancy. So we did all these psychological exercises to try and resolve this and figure out why I might feel this way.

It was quite complicated stuff but the crux of it came down to the fact that I felt that having a baby is something so sacred and so wonderful that I wasn't worthy. Which I think I may have always felt deep deep down in my subconscious. Anyway she made me do lots of analysis so that I can break this cycle of thought and turn into to something positive rather than being down on myself. Definitely a turning point. I left her office feeling buoyant.

So other than my annoying cold, I am doing well. Except for the nausea. And the tiredness. And the painful nipples. But I won't complain about these. Because as soon as these symptoms disappear I panic a bit. And can't wait for them to come back. And then when they do I wish they would go away. Go figure. I am becoming impossible to please. I'm sure Mr. T would agree right now!

With HypnoBirthing, NOTHING works!

Marie (Mickey) Mongan, the founder of HypnoBirthing recently presented the following speech at the HypnoBirthing Conclave/Convention. It's worth sharing...

With HypnoBirthing NOTHING works!

We see it often - HypnoBirthing mothers accept that they have the ability to relax through the first phase of labor. But when it comes to talking about the baby’s descent and birthing, the question is, “What do I do then?” My answer is always the same - “NOTHING!! That’s what I want you to get out of this course. The understanding of doing “Nothing!!”

With HypnoBirthing NOTHING works. It’s Nature’s perfect design from the very onset.

Let’s look at a newborn baby girl - as she emerges, who teaches her to breathe? She does absolutely nothing to make it happen - but it happens.

If properly placed and encouraged, she crawls and bobbles her way to the breast for her first meal outside the womb. There is nothing that anyone gives her in the way of instruction - A natural GPS??

Within minutes of being born, she releases her anal sphincters, and out comes her first stool, or she pees. How does she do that without a chart of how to perform timely bodily functions?

Over time, as she grows and develops, with nothing to tell her how or when or how many times, she learns that she can sneeze to clear her nasal passages; she can signal that she is hungry or wants attention if it’s not readily there; she startles and becomes alert if she is frightened; and, if she feels secure, she can relax and fall asleep in loving arms. What did she do to learn to fall asleep? Nothing! Who taught her to awaken? How did she know she was hungry?

Fast forward to when she is a teenager. Her body changes with nothing but internal hormonal secretions to act as catalysts - she becomes a woman. The power of nothing is, and has been, alive in her human experience in so many ways, and she has mastered many functions with nothing but instinct to guide her.

Nothing has to teach her that she is experiencing her first love. She instinctively knows it and feels it. And when the time is right, there is nothing she has to study to learn how to express that love physically.

But enter the miracle of pregnancy, and all of a sudden, her previous trust, power, and confidence crumbles. She is now taught that her body is incapable of leading her through what should be a perfectly magical time. She must now be carefully taught how to nurture her pregnant body and her baby and ultimately how to give birth.

She is further taught that her trust and dependence is best placed outside of her own abilities and externally placed into the hands of others - strangers, trained and practiced experts, who know better than she. She needs them now to efficiently and conveniently manage her birth. They will teach and guide her along each step of the way. Instinct be damned!

She is now categorized onto charts - primagravida, and she’s put onto schedules, and regimens. She learns that she is inadequate and almost irrelevant to her own birthing experience.

For the woman who senses this as a disconnect, there are two options. She can go along with the prevailing model, or she can trust birthing, register for a HypnoBirthing class and learn to do nothing!!

We know that many of our moms hear a common question when they say they are preparing to birth their baby with HypnoBirthing. The question often is “Are you out of your mind.” In truth the response to that is “Yes.” To rely on her basic birthing instincts, a mother literally needs to be “out of her mind”. That’s where she turns her birthing over to her body and gets her mind and the regimens and techniques out of the way.

That’s exactly where we want our moms to be. When we teach them otherwise - how to do, and when to do, and how often to do - we confuse the inner consciousness, which controls instinct. Instinct no longer can function - we have stifled the natural function with the clutter of confused, panicked mind talk.

We strip it of the internal knowing, and then we turn to drugs as an external means of forcing the body to do what it used to know how to do. We know that drugs inhibit the bonding experience at birth, and mind talk also inhibits bodily function. Instead of achieving the objective, we confuse the body and it abdicates.

My question to all is: How dare we? How dare we presume to think that we can manipulate and redesign and introduce confusion into the experience with our own special outlines, instructions and techniques? How dare we mess with what is already perfectly created?

When we distribute charts and lists and lessons, filled with exercises and positions and advice,in effect,we are telling our parents that they need to do more and they need to do it this or that way at particular times. We need to bring about an awareness that what we teach in HypnoBirthing is not the cornerstone of HypnoBirthing, but rather suggestions to pass time.

Parents panic. They are afraid they will forget what we carefully instilled. They question are they doing it “right’? The only important thing is that they learn to do nothing - to just “allow” - to be the mammals that they are and return to their basic instincts.

Birthing has a rhythm and a flow, and every bit of “fixing” that we impose helps to disturb and shut down that very rhythm and flow. What they need to develop is a mastery to be “Out of their minds.” We need to stop humanizing birth. We have to put aside our own egos and our need to be a relevant factor in their birthing.

The time has come when we need to stop labeling these births as “exceptional” and “fantastic” and “out of this world.” They need to be seen as the norm and not out of the ordinary. When we no longer feel that we have to talk about how shocked and surprised the caregivers are, we will have begun to make progress. These will be the births that all mothers will expect when they are “out of their minds” and doing Nothing.

——Mickey Mongan, Director and Founder of the HypnoBirthing Institute

6 weeks

So far, so good. So far as I can tell. Sore boobage and nausea creeping in. Hopefully I won't be vomiting like last time, Dr. S did tell me the nausea wouldn't be so bad now my vitamin B6 levels are normal. So hopefully all these signs mean the bean has now progressed to a tadpole.

Also I just got the results from all my reproductive immunology testing. All normal. Thank the Lord. The word 'relieved' just doesn't cut it. I'm sure my normal results have a lot to do with what Dr. S did for me. Did I tell you that he called me on my cell from the UK to congratulate me on my pregnancy? He also told me to up my Omega 3 now that I am pg as this does the same as aspirin, but without the side effects. He is simply the best doctor I have ever met.

Positivity. Hope. Faith. That's the new 6 week plan for me. Just get me to that 12 week milestone!