Melancholy Prioritizing

With only 10 weeks to go I’ve realized that my reading list needs to be cut down. The reading stack has continued to grow and as much as I want to be a book worm a thing called life has limited my time. So, I’ve got 4 left that I am considering “must reads” …

• Birthing from Within
• Hypnobirthing
• The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
• 12 Hours by 12 Weeks

Birthing from Within has been the perfect bathtub book. It is all about relaxing and looking inward about the whole process of labor and motherhood. Very different than the Bradley philosophy which in my opinion is very activity focused. Birthing from Within is almost spiritual which I have appreciated. It has sparked some great questions that, to be honest, have me feeling a bit melancholy. I’ve been contemplating alot on what it means to be a mom. What kind of mom I want to be. How I am going to balance being a wife and a mom. What my fears/hopes are about labor. It is alot for a hormonal preggo to think about, that’s for sure :)

It also has a big focus on pregnancy art. I’ll be honest … I’m not running out to get a bellycast. I mean, seriously, if I got one where would I put it? It isn’t like I can sell it at a garage sale years down the road. I think I am much more into photographer as a memory preserver. On that note, I’m pretty sure mom and I are going to do a little 30 week photo shoot this weekend. The last one was at 17 weeks … that sounds like forever ago!

Back to the art … Birthing from Within wants moms to draw a sketch of how they feel pregnant, how they feel about labor and their idea of motherhood. It isn’t really my thing, but I am going to give it a try. If it isn’t awful embarrassing I just might scan/post it when I’m done …

Back to this whole melancholy thing. I’m usually a pretty upbeat person, but man-oh-man, the baby to do list is overwhelming. Thinking about being a mom to something that lives outside of my body … kind of earth-shaking. I think I might just take a week off. The first week of August sounds like a wonderful week to go on a little mental hiatus. I’m going to try and do relaxing things … no home organization projects, no worrying about laundry. It’s like … the baby will come when the baby comes and God will give me the strength to be ready whenever that is ready. I’m obviously not in control, so the whole pain-staking to-do list probably won’t effect much.

That’s that for Thursday.

Tomorrow I have a midwife appointment, a visit from a far-off friend,and packing for a trip home (which, you guessed it, means there is a baby shower on Saturday)! All wonderful things, all things that should wipe away this little spurt of third trimester blues :)