MaternityShare

Today I continue my doula search. I find my feet dragging every time I mean to research, call, and interview doulas. I am afraid. I don’t know if I will find the right person to be my doula (I really need to feel comfortable with my doula). Will I ask the right questions?

I am afraid to give birth. I will mostly likely, at this point, give birth in a hospital, and if I am less than 36 weeks, by a MD. I am afraid of time limits the hospital puts on labor and on trying to give birth naturally. I am afraid of the medical interventions that they are accustomed to using. I afraid that I will not feel comfortable or be able to relax in a hospital, or even if I were to have this baby at home. If I am afraid and uncomfortable my body will not open easily and I will not enjoy the birth

The uncertainty of who, how, when, baby’s health, and finances surrounding the birth are unsettling to me.

I do know that midwives and doulas will be supportive to my philosophy which will help matters a great deal. I do not want to live in fear. I want to enjoy life and accept the challenges gracefully and with appreciation.

I wish could practice yoga. I know that would soothe me as well as help prepare me for birth. I think, if I make it to 36 or 37 weeks that my doctors might allow me to do yoga. That is about 7 weeks away. So, now I will have to figure out how to soothe myself, live gracefully and enjoy life in other ways. The first thing that comes to mind is turning to my breath.

In my doula search I found this poem that had the effect of improving the quality of my breath and the state of my mind:

I am a willow tree,
Strong, yet fluid
graceful.
I can bend with the wind,
but my roots are tough,
indestructible.
Opening to birth my child
is flowing with the wind:
from a soft and gentle breeze
to a stormy gale
back to a soft and gentle breeze.
My body is strong, but flexible.
It is my friend, it knows how to open.
I am a friend to my body
eating well, walking, and loving myself.
I shall birth safely, freely, openly . . .
among my loved and trusted ones.
I am the willow, flexible
beautiful resilient
endowed with the power of surrender
to the wind rustling through my leaves,
my branches.
My roots reach deep into Mother Earth
Anchored in Her strength
I bring forth life
In joy!

—Author: Anonymous

I read a little article on Common Ground Magazine’s website today about kid yogis that had picture of an adorable and serene looking baby sitting in the lotus position with hands at the heart. When I practice this pose I feel relaxed and I “come back into myself”. I am often “go-go-go” if even just in my head. It feels nice and right to get grounded again with yoga.

I think it is a marvelous idea to teach kids yoga. Kids do it naturally anyway, similar to the way in which cats and dogs do (think about the pose Downward Dog for example). They just intuitively know how to move their bodies to keep feeling good.

There is a yoga pose named after something that babies naturally do: Happy Baby Pose

I plan on becoming a yoga teacher. I hope to take a teacher training within the next year. I am not sure how that will work out with a baby about to come but, having read this article, I now feel like I can share my yoga adventures with my baby. The thought of this is very satisfying.

~namaste~

My Mom sent me this baby picture of me yesterday. I am running around in my dad’s shirt and looking very pleased about it.

I am attempting to restore this picture in Photoshop but have come across some difficulty with the biggest flaw that runs across my noggin. Once I am done I will post my results. I have done simpler repairs in Photoshop. This one will definitely challenge me and help grow my skills.

(You can click on the image to see a larger version.)

I saw this picture on the I Can Has Cheezburger site, thought is was oddly cute and sent it to my mom. She agrees upon its cute-ness and asked me what kind of animal I thought it was. I don’t know. I just call it “cute” and that’s good enough for me.

The JPEG is called “funny-picutres-otter-children-bucket.jpg” but I just don’t know… IS that an otter? I guess I have never seen one that was dry. I have only seen them wet, and only in pictures.

I did a google image search on the word “otter”. Some of the otter pictures that came up looked nothing like the little cuties in this image, while a couple of them looked very similar, albeit wet.

Is this an otter mama holding its baby otter?

We have this long, quite nice, concrete wall that spans our hallway that we wanted to adorn. We don’t have the means to put pins or nails in the concrete but we did notice some points in the wall that we could run some string on and create a place where we could display a multitude of images. We used small wooden clips (a mini version of clothes pins) to hold the pictures on the string. It is easy to change out, add or, move any of the pictures.
Project cost: $3 for the mini clothes pins bought a craft store, the string was virutally free.

I recenly saw a Photojojo project that is another version of a photo wall Bulldog Clips + Photos = Stylish Photo Wall. They suggest variations you can take to customize it for you.

This is a more complex project with the simple way or, a more complicated way. But its a fairly cheap project: $60 for a lot of photo displaying real estate. It was inspired by a theater who displayed cast bios and other information on little boards.

Get out your photos and enjoy them! Try one of these ideas or, invent your own.

We just ordered the Netflix Instant player by Roku. It is an add-on service to our Netflix account that is included in the package we have set up already (the one where they send you DVDs in the mail). You do have to buy a box for $99 that enables you to choose from a growing list of over 10,000 titles whenever you want. You can choose from movies, TV episodes, special interest, etc. They even have language programs. I plan to watch the Swedish ones so I can brush up on my bambi-level Svenska.

This is another one of our schemes to keep me entertained while bed resting. It should arrive in 2 weeks.

Here is what some of the tech-savvy peeps are saying about it:

- Doug @ the movie blog – sneek peak: “…with access to more than 10 000 movies and television episodes. I am certain this number will grow rapidly and I would guess that we may see some programing rotation as well.”

- Ryan @ Engadget – sneek peak: “…we’ve quickly discovered, it’s pretty easy to learn to love this little hundred dollar bugger, even despite the fact that we need another set top box in our living room like we need a hole in the head.”

- Peter @ Clarity Consulting – sneek peak: “…navigation is easy and usability is high: it passed the “non-geek user” test with flying colors…”

As part of my never ending quest for entertainment and spirit lifters, the last two days I have been searching and watching a lot of dance videos on YouTube. My search has been centered around ethnic dance as well as looking for videos posted of last week’s Tribal Fest 2008 performances since I was unable to go this year.

Billy suggested that instead of watching YouTube that I use Vimeo. (Vimeo is the site I used to post my Baby Shower Apology video on maternityshare.) I tried replicating my dance search on Vimeo but have noticed that there is way less of the dance I was looking for. That needs to change because Vimeo’s user experience is WAY better!

Vimeo’s site is much more pleasing on the eyes than YouTube. And, the quality of the videos are better. First and foremost, they allow you to upload video at a larger bandwidth so the videos are clearer and, you can watch them full screen without losing image quality. (Watch this for example: http://vimeo.com/692562). Being a visual person and enjoying the little details of life, I really like this feature. Unfortunately, not all users who post video utilize this (which makes me cranky!). Here is what Vimeo’s site says about uploading:

Uploading video:

Vimeo makes it easy for you to upload any kind of video you make. You get 500 megabytes of storage every week, and we keep the original files so you (or others) can download them at anytime. We really pride ourselves with our video quality so your videos will always look the best on Vimeo. We even support High Definition. Yeah, that’s right, HD.

Go to Help / Vimeo 101: The Basics to get the easy details on how to create an account in seconds, and to learn more about Vimeo, as well as learn how to share, create, discover, and connect.

Bonus: Vimeo is a smaller, cooler company based in New York City and Portland, Oregon (my hometown).

I invite you to share your videos on Vimeo. C’mon, lets make the video sharing world a better place and use Vimeo instead of YouTube! And, pass it on!

Let me know what you post!

Today is my dear friend Nicole’s birthday. So dedicated to dancing is she that she is spending her birthday evening dancing at a gig. She is a beautiful dancer who I have the the pleasure of dancing with for many years when I lived in Portland. We have performed together quite a bit. (I looked all over for a picture of us dancing together in our more usual costuming but am sad to say that I could not find one! The picture here is of us backstage at The Fez Ballroom of a special one-time themed performance.)

I miss dancing. I attempted some belly rolls today. (Unfortunately I contracted soon after.) It feels strange having not done it much for a while and now being so big. It is pretty cool (and odd) to watch the pregnant belly belly-rolling. I had hoped to pick up dancing again while I am pregnant. So far, that is not going to happen. But who knows, if I make it to 39 or 40 weeks or so, perhaps I will give it another go.

Dancing is a beautiful thing, especially belly dancing. If you are in Portland, go check out Nicole’s classes and performances. She is very passionate about dancing both in performance and as an instructor.

Check out her website www.severina.us