WEEK 25 – BLOOD BUILDING, GIVING & RECEIVING

Weekly Baby News

Baby Size: 28cm Head to Toe, approximately 600g

Bub can now start to respond to touch and light, due to the further development of the brain. This week your baby is starting to have a sleep /wake cycle plus also REM sleep and dream vividly. Maybe your baby is dreaming about you while you dream of him/her.

Naturopath Advice

Foetal development requirements this week are magnesium and fat development. It is important during the next few weeks to be mindful of anaemia risk. Ensuring your diet is rich in iron and blood building foods. For example: lamb, beef, beetroot, dark green vegetables, molasses, goji berries and bone broth. I use Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions Bone Broth Recipe. If you don’t already have the Nourishing Traditions Book, here is a link to Sarah Wilson’s website that has the recipe. I highly recommend that all households have this book as an essential kitchen item, I love it for its endless traditional recipes.

Baby Growing Nutrition – LUNCH

See below pregnant nutrition lunch suggestions:

• Roast Vegetable Quinoa Salad

• Bone Broth Soup – chicken or beef. Can be blended with vegetables

• Paleo Coconut Wrap – protein source, spinach, alfalfa sprouts, cherry tomatoes, carrot, tahini

• Frittata with green salad

• Tuna Bowl – feta, sprouts, spinach, seeds, avocado

• Quinoa fish cakes

• Wholegrain Rice Cakes – option of toppings: avocado, tuna, ricotta, hummus, tahini

• Quinoa Homemade Sushi

My Journey

Great news! My blog is becoming up-to-date. It has been a lot of work doing these blog posts and recommend to anyone who is thinking they should write a blog to truly evaluate if they have the time. While I love writing these blogs they do take up a huge chunk of time, like HUGE. And since week 12 of my pregnancy I’ve been trying to play catch up to get them up to the date with where I am currently in my pregnancy. I am nearly there as I write this blog at the end of my actual 26th Week. Most weeks I write the ‘my journey’ section then do the other bits before posting. This helps me stay present to what is happening. However for this week 25 I was super busy trying to get ready for Byron plus doing end of quarter bookwork for my husband’s and my own businesses before I left. So there was no time for me to write this blog. Then I was in Byron for my 26th week at a yoga course so again no time. So here I am sitting here with my scatty baby brain and can’t remember what I was feeling in week 25 haha. I thought I took down notes somewhere, but can’t find them in any of my diaries or phone apps. So this blog entry is going to be a little short.

This week I did attend 2 prenatal yoga classes, which was difficult to get to at the end of my big days however glad I did attend once I was there. Even though I’m a trained Pre-Natal yoga teacher, I have chosen to be the student with a beginners mind, for this pregnancy and embrace the goodness other Yoginis have to offer. I went to Karen at Fitmums in Noosaville on Monday night with a fellow pregnant friend and then Tuesday night I went to Danielle’s YogaNRG Prenatal Class in Currimundi (both a bit of a drive from Coolum). I feel it is super important to connect with other mums during pregnancy as it helps to become more connected to my own bub. The classes are so nurturing! You get to sit in pregnancy bliss surrounded my other mums who are going through similar feelings and learn extra little tips of pregnancy and also helps get you thinking about birth and what baby life will look like. The poses of prenatal yoga enable you to experience movement that will assist in birth and also reduce strain that you may have been carrying, all of which you wouldn’t usually do throughout your days. In early pregnancy I did honestly find prenatal yoga a little slow and boring, due to still being able to do normal yoga comfortably, however at this time I also wasn’t feeling very pregnant and was ignorant to the benefit of the other aspects prenatal yoga delivers. Now though I am a HUGE advocate of prenatal yoga for the physical, emotional and spiritual aspect.

Another thought I’ve been sitting with is giving and receiving. This week I did become more mindful of this at work, relationships, and of course through yoga. I have greatly appreciated receiving in these prenatal yoga classes, as if I were to hold a prenatal yoga class I would be giving rather than receiving which during pregnancy I feel it is more important to receive and nurture. In traditional cultures a time of pregnancy and post birth is when the woman is looked after by the rest of the village and given the space and time to grow her baby. However in today’s society we don’t have the time nor do we make the time to embrace this special moment in life. Instead we carry on pushing through life and trying to keep up normal functioning, regardless of how we are feeling. I have found it interesting to observe others around me in pregnancy, with me giving less how it has changed relationships, not in a bad way necessarily however just interesting to observe. During this pregnancy I have found it hard to give so much of myself as I use to. Giving all day to clients (which I love), and to friends, family, to my blog and to Sheeds and Meeka, it has become quite taxing, then at the end seeing what I have left to give to myself and bub, which isn’t much. Priorities do change when pregnant and I do feel I’ve taken a step back and gone more within lately so I am able to give to myself. Not only when pregnant I do feel it is vital to frequently check in with yourself and acknowledge how much you are giving and receiving in life, as the constant giving is not going to serve you in the long run. And while you may be like me and find it difficult to receive, perhaps pregnancy will be the time it finally slaps you in the face of how important it is. This brings me to my week in Byron where I become present to the difference of masculine and feminine….

(OK wow this week’s blog didn’t end up being that short after all hehe)

Yours in Health,

Talita Sheedy