WEEK 26 – BYRON BAY YOGA & FEMININE VS MASCULINE

Weekly Baby News

Baby Size: 30-33cm Head to Toe

This week your bub is now recognising voices and music. Excitingly his/her eyes are now starting to open, will respond to the brighter light and even start blinking. If you haven’t already, this is now the time to add a particular chant, song, or meditation into your daily routine as bub will remember it post birth and may help to calm him/her as it will remind them of being in the womb, a safe secure place. It is also important to have the father talk regularly to the bub, so he/her is familiar with this voice and also finds it soothing out of the womb to sooth and calm the baby, rather than it only being mum that has the magic technique.

Naturopath Advice

The haemoglobin continues to be more prone to drop this week, therefore the iron and blood building foods from last week are still very important (you will read below that my haemoglobin seemed to drop and affect me which wasn’t very nice). Also keeping up your B vitamins to assist these iron and haemoglobin levels, so if your energy is low in these weeks, ask you naturopath about adding in the extra B vitamin or even iron supplement to support.

This week is also a good time to check in for mineral deficiencies, signs such as restless legs, fluid retention and dehydration. Be mindful of your water intake and you may want to take my hydration formula once a day and increase magnesium foods or supplement if necessary.

Baby Growing Nutrition – DINNER

• Salmon Fillet- sweet potato mash, and asparagus

• Organic Chicken Breast- Quinoa flake crumbed, pan-friend haloumi with rocket, sheep’s feta, walnut, sunflower seed salad

• Burrito Bowl- Organic beef mince cooked with tomato passata & Mexican spices, grated carrot, shredded cabbage, spinach, tomato, avocado, full cream sour cream

• Slow-cooked lamb shank and vegetables

• Oven-baked fish with stir-fry Asian greens

• Thai Beef Salad with Kelp noodles (for iodine)

• Coconut Fish Laksa Soup

• Zucchini Pasta Lasagne

• Bone Broth Vegetable Soup

• 200gm Grass-fed Steak, roast sweet potato, Portobello mushrooms and side of steamed green vegetables

My Journey

 This week I was in Byron Bay for the rest of my post-natal yoga teacher training with Bliss Baby. This had come at a perfect time for me to focus on simply bub, our relationship, and what a beautiful setting at baby yoga in Byron. To be honest I was actually quite anxious to be leaving my man and fur baby for the week, it will be the longest time we have been apart since before we were engaged over 3 years ago. Seems weird as I use to always do solo trips to Byron when I lived on the Gold coast. Once I arrived however it was fine and I got to catch up with one of my best friends Tia, which was well overdue. That evening I attended dinner with fellow yoginis and also the opening circle. I got chatting to other ladies who a lot were already mums and they expressed it had been difficult for them to be away from their children, as much as they were trying to embrace the free time. It got me thinking about my original intention and outlook of my week in Byron and how it would be the last solo holiday before I have the baby, therefore the last time away for a very long time. It was still a strange feeling however a good reminder for me to really embrace this time, and really how great to be away surrounded by baby teachings, mammas and pregnant mammas, probably couldn’t have planned it any better.

This week away I learnt so much about motherhood and insight of the experiences/ challenges to come, plus of course all the ins and outs of yoga around pregnancy and babies. It was very empowering to acknowledge the connection needed to us as mums and the importance of the 4th trimester. The 4th trimester or after the labour doesn’t get spoke about that much when your pregnant it seems to be more about the pregnancy, so I will write a blog on the 4th trimester later in my 3rd trimester to help prep you for it. I also became present to listening to our intuition as a mother more than 1000 peoples different advice. Something simple like laying on your back and side. It is recommended that you don’t sleep or lay on your back or right side from 14-16 weeks as the baby can squish your vena cava, resulting in shortness of breath or light-headedness etc. However for me I have been still lying on my back and preferring to sleep on my right side and I’m 26 weeks, and when I try and lay on my left side I envision my baby squishing my bowel affecting my digestion haha, so I have given up and decided to sleep where comfortable and trust that my body or baby will tell me if I need to change positions. Really tapping into my intuition has become VERY important with this pregnancy, as when I’ve ignored the signs, I have always reflected seeing how I could have done things differently. However perhaps these instances have happened to help me realise and really cement in to follow my intuition.

Due to being at a yoga course, all week I was fed amazing vegetarian food. Don’t get me wrong this was awesome to not have to think about what I was going to cook all week and know that I was being served organic locally grown goodness. However, vegetarian food also means high grains and difficult to get adequate protein and iron for baby growing needs. So I had a interesting digestion as my usual diet is 90% grain free to keep inflammation to a minimum, at least it helped push my baby belly out. On the Wednesday the low protein and iron intake took its toll and I felt rather horrid. I felt lightheaded, nauseous and super tired, not nice at all when you’re away from home. However nothing a bit of further rest and a trip to the health food store to grab some extra iron didn’t fix. It was also combined with long 10hour days, which I thought would be easy just sitting all day compared to my usual running around days at home. Maybe the combination of diet, long days, and slowing down finally all caught up with me and also got me thinking that I actually do need to start slowing down and not pushing as much as I’m use to, nothing like a scare to make me slow me down. Even coming home I found I needed a few hours sleep each day over the weekend to get the rest my body was demanding. Seems that my pregnancy has taken a turn and forcing me to go within even more so.

Also this week in Byron I experienced my first recognition from a random person of being pregnant! So I finally look pregnant not just questionable-pregnant. I was buying some chimes and the lady asked if I planned to chime my baby out haha. I was a little shocked that someone had finally recognised and didn’t really know what to say so just laughed. YAY I look pregnant finally with 14 weeks to go. I have also started to rub my belly unconsciously, which I thought was always weird when my sister would rub her pregnant belly but now I get it, you just seem to do it unconsciously when you feel a movement or are thinking of the baby, or in my case also to try and distract myself from the stretching pain that is going on. Another symptom this week that is driving me nuts is having blocked ears! Supposedly it is very common in pregnancy and loosely due to extra blood flow, fluid retention, changing hormones. Not that these explain to much and seem to be the excuses for most symptoms in pregnancy however is nice to know I’m not going through this alone, it just adds more humour to accompany my baby brain for my husband.

Extra thoughts from my week in Byron:

• Steady Breath leads to a Steady mind

• Compassion towards ourselves is the foundation for any compassion towards others

• Pregnancy/ Motherhood helps us cultivate self-awareness

• Every contraction is a progression and step forward

• Every day we begin again

• Honour the baby making body and its limits

• 50% of attention to bub and 50% attention to yourself

• We give birth the way we live our lives

• Pregnancy embraces feminine qualities and helps step out of masculine.

• Feminine qualities = ability to go within, listening, energy to inner self rather than outward to others, give to self, contentment within, trusting, slower (in a good way), inward focus. 3 Chakras = heart, solar plexus, sacral

• Masculine qualities = outcome and outward focused, ideas, external creation, being heard, being seen, numbers, fast paced, busy, pushing, search for contentment. Top 3 chakras – crown, third eye, throat.

From these teachings of masculine and feminine helped me realise I lived in more of a masculine space prior to pregnancy and also why since being pregnant I’ve drifted from some relationships and energies which may be more masculine while I’ve been unconsciously embracing the feminine = Very interesting insight igniting many thoughts around fertility, pregnancy, happiness, society and life in general. Especially the chakras, the feminine chakras are about feeling more than seeing or thinking.

Yours in Health

Talita x