WEEK 20 – ACCEPTANCE & ALIEN MOVEMENTS

Weekly Baby News

Baby Size: 22cm head to toe

The permanent teeth are now forming behind the baby teeth, crazy that they are formed this early in life before they are needed.

The top of your uterus is now around the height of your belly button, your midwife or obstetrician may feel for this at your next visit.

Naturopathic Advice

Teeth nutrients are highlighted this week being calcium, vitamin C, magnesium and vitamin K. Your calcium should have been checked in your Week-18 pathology and your naturopath will be able to advise whether more calcium is needed to reach optimal levels, so much growing still ahead.

Vitamin K is found in foods such as the ever-beneficial dark green leafy vegetables. I hope you like green vegetables when your pregnant, as they seem to hold everything we need. You can get creative rather than sticking with Kale and Silverbeet. Head to your local farmers market or fruit shop and grab some beetroot greens, mustard greens and dandelion greens, this will help jazz up your salads and give you some variety while you increase the many needed nutrients for you and bub.

(see pictures, from top to bottom, of alternative greens: Beetroot + Mustard + Dandelion)

My Journey

My sister and her family came to visit this weekend. While my brother-in-law and husband worked on our renovations, plastering 3 rooms, my sister (Amy), her 3 girls (Kya, Ariah, Izzy-Mae) came with me as we ventured out and did our first proper baby-shopping trip. Not to buy anything, more just to kick-off looking and identifying what it is that I need to get. Now with 3 girls and my sister, who does like to shop, combined with me being tired, resulted with me feeling completely overwhelmed and freaking out how crazy that I am actually having a baby.

The options and choices are insane and due to being my first bub I have no idea what I want or need or would even like. The things that you have to start thinking about such as stroller attachments, if you want your capsule from the car to be able to click onto the stroller, then do you need a bassinet on the stroller as well, which then the baby can sleep in it when you are staying away from home, then there is how the stroller folds up and if it will even fit in your car! There is also the cot/sleeping choices, which got me quickly realising this is more decision making, will we be doing co-sleeping or will the bub be in a bassinet in our room, or in his/her own room. You also need to slightly plan ahead and how the cot will convert to a bed with the sides coming off and the mattress lowering. See what I mean!!! It is so outrageous and extremely difficult to be able to get my head around all these decisions before I even know what the baby will be like. It’s not like going camping and you need to get a tent, esky, tarp, camp chair and DONE, away you go. Hence the need to take someone shopping who has experience, however even with my sister we still have different ideas and preferences. The following day after they left, due to me being quite lost with it all, Sheeds (my husband) took me down to some different stores and we were able to take our time and look at all the stroller options, we then were able to narrow it down to 2 options. He also did some research with his friends who have kids already asking their recommendations. Quite funny really having males discussing strollers for babies, main tip was to ensure it has the option to attach, or already have a coffee cup holder haha (Dad priorities).

On the Monday night of this week I was still feeling overwhelmed and had become quite frustrated with symptoms of slower digestion and broken sleep. With being a naturopath, symptoms of pregnancy were not only annoying but also challenging as usually when my body goes off track I can recognise it and then fix it with herbs, nutrient, diet whatever is needed. However in the instance of pregnancy that isn’t the way it works. And I didn’t resign to this until I had an appointment with my Acupuncturist, Paul Shields. Paul has known me for over 2 years now and he has got to know the way my over-thinking mind works. He gave me some awesome advice around ACCEPTANCE. Now I thought I had accepted the pregnancy however not the level needed especially around symptoms. Accepting what was happening to my body as ‘pregnancy’ and that they don’t need to be ‘fixed’, rather acknowledging it is apart of the journey. Sure I can call upon my knowledge to assist these symptoms and prevent worsening however me pushing and stressing about not feeling normal, whilst I’m also growing a baby is silly. The stress I was putting on myself for not having the ‘optimal’ health could be more harmful than the initial symptoms.

From accepting what my pregnancy IS, has been a huge help and unloaded a lot of pressure I had put upon myself. And healthy food choices are actually easier for me to make when I haven’t put a rulebook upon myself, so food has become enjoyable again instead of a drag hitting walls everywhere. Interesting though as prior to being pregnant I needed it all laid out with the list of do’sand don’ts and a lot of strict boundaries put in place for me to keep to a way of eating or cleanse etc. Again a lesson of how things change with pregnancy and remembering to accept these changes, as they may even benefit in the future.

With all the ACCEPTANCE floating around, this week was the first week I felt my baby move! Such a interesting time to happen and wow what a crazy feeling it is. The thought of feeling my baby move use to freak the hell out of me, as I’d think along the lines of a alien living inside me. But now after feeling the little flutters as some call it, or I felt it as air bubbles just under the skin, it has changed my perspective. I now too have that awe of being a mum-to-be and having my baby blissfully growing and moving inside of me. Sheeds even felt her/him move when he had his hand on my stomach. Such a special time and a complete spin out that we made a baby, and I carry it around all day and it is growing to be a little us!

Wow Acceptance hey, what a week!!!

Yours in Health

Talita Sheedy