31 weeks + home birth

Yesterday we had another amazing day in Berkeley and Oakland. We saw a couple of great houses in Oakland with our realtor, enjoyed a veggie burger at Smart Alec's on Telegraph, saw Life of Pi at the Grand (trying to take advantage of being able to go to the movies while we can), and spent a wonderful night with close friends celebrating a dear friend's birthday. Great company and our friend's homemade enchiladas and cheesecake made the evening! We also finally got to play Cards Against Humanity, which was pretty redonkulous.

Today Eric and I are going to a 2.5 hr prenatal yoga workshop with my favorite teacher. It's our second time doing the workshop, actually. It was really useful the first time and we figured a refresher would be good as we get closer to our due date.

BTW, did I mention on here that our meeting with the midwives went super well and we decided on a home birth?!  The decision feels really good and I feel so fortunate to have found such great women to help us through this huge next step in our lives.  We are also just 1.5 miles from UCSF in case we do need to go the hospital route for whatever reason.  We've already been able go to a centering group with other couples who are doing home births with our midwives and it was so much more informative than the centering meetings I went to through the hospital.  We are just going more in depth into topics that the hospital took for granted that you would just do, like testing/antibiotics for strep b, and immunizations for the baby as soon as s/he's born.  I'm not saying we are or are not going to do these things, but it's nice to be informed ahead of time, get a chance to read up on arguments for both sides, discuss with others, then have time to come to a decision.  Plus, we take turns hosting the groups in each other's homes and it's so much more welcoming than the meeting room in the hospital.  At the last meeting, our midwife showed us how to tell what part of the baby is moving and now I'm extra happy to know if I'm rubbing little feet or a rump through my belly!  She also showed us how to feel for the baby's head, but Eric has an easier time with that as it's more difficult for me to push on my own abdomen that way.  But Eric can now give the baby little massages on his or her occipital bone!  This also means the baby is now head down--ideal for birthing--so hopefully they'll stay that way for a couple more months.

Last, I've been thinking more and more about taking more time off before the baby is born (1 full week or dare I imagine, a full 2 weeks?!) to have time to wind down and mentally prepare.  Everything is so busy and hectic when teaching full time.  I basically spend 1 weekend day lesson planning or doing other prep for teaching.  It doesn't leave much time to read the birthing books I want or make other preparations.  Plus, I am very much enjoying my big bump and pregnant body these days, but I have found myself slowing down considerably in the past 2 weeks or so.  I get winded far more easily by walking up flights of stairs and getting ready in the morning takes longer since bending over and getting up take so much more time now.  My original plan had been to work right up to or very close until the due date in order to properly prep my students for their state test.  I still want to be able to do this and am struggling with my new thoughts of possibly altering this plan.  I'm not sure yet, but guess I'll need to decide pretty soon.