Second Trimester
Birth is the ultimate belly dance
Your pregnancy is starting to feel a bit like summer. Hopefully you’re not feeling as though you’re overheating too much, but feeling hotter is a result of increased energy in your body. In Ayurveda they refer to this as becoming more Vata (more of the fire element).
You’re showing more, you may have that pregnancy glow. You’re feeling the first little bubbly pops as your baby tests out his/her swimming abilities. Let’s use this time to dive into the physical wonder of exactly what your body is doing and what it’s capable of, as well as your energetic body. Being informed about this now and knowing how to support it will make the third trimester infinitely more comfortable, and one in which you enjoy the final weeks of going inwards, rather than willing them away.
JOURNALing
Continue to note your growth.
Journal any dreams.
Journal your emotions.
We’ll use this trimester to dive into understanding the multidimensional layers that will impact your birth… the physiology, the hormones of birth, the mind and what you can do to ensure birth unfolds in the a way that will leave you feeling physically, emotionally and spiritually expanded. We’ll begin by looking at how birth came to be seen as a painful ordeal and begin your journey of redefining it…
Redefining Birth
I’d like you to sit for a moment and - whether you’ve given birth before or not - consider what you know about pregnancy and birth. Ask yourself what you were exposed to as a young girl, as a teenager and a young woman and journal any thoughts that come up.
Some guiding questions…
Did you see your mother or any other women in your close circle give birth and breastfeed?
What did birth look like in films you were exposed to?
What did birth sound like to you when you heard women talking about it?
How did you feel about your body when you became a woman?
What does birth sound like now when other women around you talk about it?
It is most likely that the image you have looks something like this. Bright lights, mom on her back, pushing and puffing, while her partner hangs on helpless.
This media perpetuated image is so ingrained in our psyches as “normal” or even a biological inevitability that women who share images of peaceful, blissful and even orgasmic births are considered rarities, irresponsible and insensitive to those who have had traumatic experiences. The big question we have to ask really is, why believe women are supposed to suffer in birth.
Birth is an Emergence, Not an Emergency
When it comes to pregnancy, today you will still more often than not hear mothers-to-be saying things like: “I can’t wait for this to end”, “I just have to get through this”, “I just want this baby out now.”
The underlying thought process in these instances is that pregnancy and birth is a unit of time that we should compartmentalise and drug or speed up so that we don’t have to deal with it, because everything will be better when the baby is here.
This way of thinking, I believe, is not only harmful to the psyche of both mother and baby, it is one of the fundamental reasons why so many women are finding motherhood so hard. They’ve skipped a crucial step in their own evolution process, the step that switches on hormones and their brain for the job of mothering. The step that gives them the opportunity to learn how to nurture themselves before they nurture another. A step that, when they are prepared and supported will wake them up to an inner power they never knew they had. A resilience and a level of intuition that will support them through the challenges of motherhood.
This course is not a shortcut. It’s going to take you to through some challenging terrain. It’s going to work your motherhood muscles. It is also, however, going to open your eyes to a beauty you have never seen in full vivid colour.
Before we journey, let’s consider what we may already have in our bag and how that serves us.
JOURNAL EXERCISE
Note all the words that currently come to mind when you think of pregnancy and birth on a loose piece of paper and place it in your journal. We will come back to it at the end of the course.
What does society’s current pregnancy and birth dictionary sound like?
Here are words commonly used in pregnancy and birth today. Let’s consider how they sound and rephrase them to describe what they really are. Notice what your body feels like when you say the words normally used in birth settings. Notice how your body feels when we rephrase them.
The alternatives feel like an exhale rather than a constriction and a pathology.
Changing the way you speak about birth is one of the first steps to changing the chemistry of your body and ultimately how your pregnancy and birth feels to you.
Contraction vs Wave or Surge (hypnobirthing term)
The very nature of the word “contraction” is limiting. It creates the image that birth is a pulling away, when in actual fact it is an opening up and a powerful build up of energy that propels a new life into the world.
Labour vs Birth
The brain equates “labour” with hard, unpleasant and often unrewarding work. This is not what birth is. What you will be experiencing is an intense physical transformation that will birth your baby and you as a new woman.
Deliver vs Birth
There is an old saying that “pizzas are delivered, babies are born”. While other people might like to say that they will be delivering your baby, they will not. They are supporting you, you will be giving birth to your baby.
Braxton Hicks (false labour) vs Birth Warm Ups
The terms Braxton Hicks refers to the uterine surges that a mother feels in the days or weeks before her birth. Note: Some women who have have previous pregnancies may feel them much earlier on.
Unfortunately many women unaware of what these are will consult their care provider only to be told it’s “false labour” and are left feeling as though their bodies are failing. These surges are in fact warm ups in which your muscles are gently toning themselves, nudging the baby and preparing for actual birth. See them as warm-ups, and think of them a little hugs for your baby and the experience is very different. They also give you a beautiful opportunity to tune in and breathe with them. If they are uncomfortable, ask your body what it needs… hydration, nourishment, movement, a warm bath?
Mucous Plug vs Womb Seal
Let’s be clear, you are not a dyke in Holland! And you have not been plugged up. The mucous seal closing your cervix is in fact one of the many wonders of pregnancy. It forms at the moment of conception, nature’s guard created by your body, to ensure that your womb is protected from pathogens.
Birth Canal vs Birth Path
The term birth canal conjures an image of your baby having a very long journey down. It is in fact a very short path of just a few centimetres, which we will look at later in the course.
Due Date vs Birthing Month
Due date, is another limiting term that adds pressure to pregnancy. Read The Low Down on Due Dates to understand how this date is calculated and how you should look at it.
Waters Breaking vs Waters Releasing
Again, this is another term that makes a woman feel as though birth is a “falling apart”. You are not breaking. When the time is right and baby’s hormones and yours send their cues, the membranes will release. Note: It is also perfectly normal if your membranes don’t release and baby is born en caul.
Pushing vs Breathing Down
While we look at this in more detail later in the course, pushing is a term that should no longer be used in birth. Just as you do not need to push out your menstrual flow, you do not need to push out your baby. Your birthing muscles are involuntary muscles and in the course you will learn how to breathe to support the easy flow of your birth.
Foetus vs Baby
You would not refer to your baby this way and there is no need for anyone else to.
Stalled labour (or Failure to Progress) vs Resting Labour
I have attached the link to my blog Progress at Your Own Pace for more information.
Was birth always this way?
Here is a brief history of birth, as we currently know it. While caesarean birth has been increasing exponentially over the past few decades with many women being led to believe it was the safest option and the best way to “save” your lady parts, evidence is revealing that this is not the case. While surgery can indeed be lifesaving and has its place, it should not be the norm, and no woman should be denied the experience of physiologic birth if she so wishes.
(Add history of birth images)
JOURNAL EXERCISE
Before we move on to the next unit, I’d like you to take some time to write down how you as a woman would like the rest of your pregnancy and your birth to be. Don’t hold back. Write down any emotions. Write down how you believe it should be.
Awakening as a mother comes from an increasing awareness of the stories we keep telling ourselves and how they influence us - Colwyn
The power of your body
We live in a time where women have never been more educated in any field they desire, yet birth has become someone else’s business. with the result that many women are arriving at this pivotal life experiences feeling disconnected from their bodies and believing that everything related to pregnancy and birth is best or easier left in the hands of the “experts”.
Pregnancy and birth, however, is a time in our lives that calls for us to connect deeply with our bodies and the lives we will be bringing forward. When we have no idea where to even begin and how to connect, the experience can be overwhelming and uncomfortable. If we give ourselves gentle time to learn the wisdom of our bodies, however, the experience is not just joyful and exhilarating, it is profoundly empowering for you as a woman moving forward into motherhood.
Many people see pregnancy as a time of weakness in a woman. Indeed, you do become more vulnerable in many way as you undergo rapid hormonal, mental and physical change that can destabilise you. These changes are, however, are physical and energetic shifts that are gearing you up for the most mind-blowingly powerful feat of nature. BIRTH.
Energetic
This is the part that is often overlooked in pregnancy and birth. Each one of your energy centres (chakras) is a spinning disc through which universal life force flows. The flow of each chakra impacts the functioning of the organs in that specific area, but ultimately they are all connected. What is important is ensuring that energy can flow freely through each of them. During pregnancy your chakras are overactive and you are working not only with your own energy field but that of your baby(s). Your body is also constantly shifting with new physical growth, so it is very important to rebalance them daily to keep yourself centred and balanced, mind body and soul.
The secret to optimal physical comfort and energy flow during your pregnancy and birth is alignment from your roots to your crown.
How Can We Align?
Osteopathy or chiropractics - On a physical level, ensuring that your spinal column and pelvis are aligned and nothing is restricting the flow of communication through the nervous system is important.
Yoga - Practicing prenatal yoga is a wonderful way to tune in to your body, breath and energy levels. More than just physical exercise, each movement is designed to ultimately bring you back to centre, exploring the sensation of your body stretching a little further each time and unblocking any energy blocks that may be holding you back.
Meditation - Meditation, while it may appear quite complex or “out there”, but it is truly the most simple thing. Our body knows exactly how to do it, we are just not good at allowing it to go there and nurturing this vital practice. It is, quite simply, changing your consciousness using just your mind, body or breath. The more you do it the more you will see a shift in your state of consciousness to one that is more present, non-judgmental, more empathetic and more intuitive. During meditation you will shift from reactive mode or stressed state to rest and repair in which you are able to unblock energy blocks, ultimately improving the flow of vital messages in your body and between you and your baby, improving flow of hormones, and improving the cellular health of you and your baby(s).
I explain the benefits of meditation for pregnancy and birth in more detail on the meditation page which also has links to each meditation featured during the course.
We will look at each energy centre and how you can support them during birth in more detail, but first there is one foundational skill that every mother needs to learn. Learning how to breath. Knowing how to harness the power of your breath is life changing and will change how you experience your pregnancy, your birth and how you move through challenging times in motherhood.
Chi or prana
You want to do any activities that support the flow of this energy.
Meditation, movement, nourishment, breathwork.
Healthy thoughts that support this energy - this includes staying away from negative people who want to draw you into their lower vibration, or knowing how to maintaining your high vibration in the face of individuals like this.
I talk about honouring your physical space in my blog Honour Your Nest, this is one level of honouring an even bigger space… your energetic space, your force field. As a pregnant woman this is far more sensitive. Feel into it. Once you do, you will be far more intuitive in knowing how to balance the elements in yourself: fire, part, air, water.
Earth: Through grounding. Connecting the the universal chi. Nourishing ourselves with the minerals from the earth. You are simply a mirror of Mother Earth, you are an earth body. The best way to maintain the health of that is is by connecting with her daily. See the free Daily Ground series.
Fire: Through the light, the sun
Air: Breath. Movement.
Water: Replenishing the element that has moulded you.
As you expand in your pregnancy, your organs shift, your pelvis expands, you will be constantly feel your centre of gravity shifting. For centuries this has been seen as a weakness and women have been encouraged to do as little as possible. This only serves to weaken a system and create stagnation. I am, however, also not saying you should be out doing as though you are not pregnant. I am saying that you should use this time to connect with your shifting body, feel what it needs and listen to how you can keep realigning and rebalancing in a way that will not lead to any feeling of stagnation, whether that is physical or mental.
As you go through this expansion, your body will also be releasing energetic blockages in your body. That may come up in surprise ways, tears. Even more reason to enjoy practices that support this release… pregnancy yoga, massage, osteopathic adjustments, reiki, meditation etc.
You might think, how on earth is sitting in meditation going to prevent stagnation. Meditation is in fact one of the most powerful ways to unblock stagnant energy (including trauma) as you support the body in various ways to get life force flowing through each energy centre. Body, mind and spirit all come together in harmony.
The act of birth is quite simply a process of life flowing through you. The more density and stagnation you have in the body, the more challenging that will be. People always think of stretching and making space as the final part of the puzzle. It is the most important part and pregnancy is the process of you making that space. Birth is simply the final act in which the force of the universe quite literally powers through you.
One reason women become hotter during pregnancy is that increased light flowing into you. In birth you will experience that too, a feeling of your body overheating. This is the point at which the highest frequency of light is entering. This also explains why many women who feel cold or shiver after birth and why it is so important to restore warmth in a woman’s body after birth.
With our thoughts we create the world. - Buddha
As a pregnant woman you are quite literally creating the world.
And your birth is supposed to be blissful. Stop replaying an old outdated story that you’re not supposed to enjoy it.
The aim of this course is to get you to a place of seeing and innerstanding that your goal is to have maintain optimal energy in your body during pregnancy and for the birth. Any time you unconsciously hand over your power to anything external, whether that is your doctor, your mother in law, a cup of coffee etc, is a time you reduce this energy. Every time you consciously make decisions that are best for you, you will feel that confirmation in your body, you will feel your energy rise.
The perfect cocktail
the mind of a mother
For me, this is the part of a woman’s body most ignored when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth. When we look at what is buzzing below the surface, however, one begins to see that mastering this may just be the most important thing you can do, and what happens to a mother’s brain(s) is in actual fact evolutionary brilliance. I say brains, because, thanks to research into the heart-brain-gut connection, we now know that there are millions of neurons in each of these areas communicating with each other constantly. In fact, these three areas are already firing messages to each other now in the baby growing inside you.
While changing the terminology you use when talking about birth is an important part of changing how you view birth. Another vital step in this journey is working on how you talk to yourself about pregnancy and birth and the narratives you have running through your mind.
While dietary detox is not recommended during pregnancy, a mental detox can only benefit. Releasing fears, doubts and other messages from the ego that will hold you back.
Where intention goes, energy flows
Social conditioning, media, the medical industry and concerns of others coming from a place of fear, gear us towards thinking about everything that could go wrong with birth. Allow these to become part of your internal dialogue and you begin to create the very condition for yourself to experience exactly that. For every thought we have there is a corresponding chemical reaction in the body. Let’s shift it to think about everything that could go right?
Social conditioning, media, the medical industry and concerns of others coming from a place of fear, gear us towards thinking about everything that could go wrong with birth. Allow these to become part of your internal dialogue and you begin to create the very condition for yourself to experience exactly that. For every thought we have there is a corresponding chemical reaction in the body. Let’s shift it to think about everything that could go right?
Waves of Consciousness
Where do these doubts come from? And why, despite all your best intentions do they just keep coming back? The answer lies in your subconscious.
Conscious vs Subconscious
Have you ever seen a termite mound? If you look out over a grassland, you will often see giant mounds, astounding feats created by tiny creatures that stand exposed to all the elements. What lies hidden beneath the ground, however, is beyond comprehension. A vast network of tunnels that extends for metres and metres. Our minds are much the same. Conscious thought occurs on the surface. Subconscious below, which impacts our lives in far greater ways than we are aware.
the Conscious mind
This is everything you are aware of right now. Your present moment awareness. This is your rational, logical mind that can solve current problems as well as look at old patterns of thought we may have that are limiting us. The conscious mind is essentially the captain of your ship.
Meditation is one of the best exercises to strengthen our ability to be in the present moment. The more we practice it, the more it becomes our default state of being… unflustered, calm, confident, grounded.
MIND-BLOWING FACT: You only spend about 5% of your day in this state of mind. This means that we spend about 95% of our day operating from our subconscious… in autopilot.
the Subconscious mind
This is often referred to as the mind’s garden. A bed of soil in which seeds are being planted constantly. Some seeds were planted while your mother was pregnant with you. And even more were seeded during your foundational childhood years while you were wide open to every possible lesson the world had for you (good and bad). You can consider the subconscious mind to be the crew of your ship.
You may also hear this referred to as our primal brain, and research indicates that some of the seeds in this part of our memory are in fact ancestral memories passed down over centuries.
The thing is… any thoughts we’ve ever taken on about ourselves become the basis for habitual thinking.
The subconscious mind is dominated by emotion and cannot tell the difference between real and imagined. Whatever your conscious mind tells it, it believes. It also responds to that stimulus without distinction. For example… you watch a movie and in that movie there is a scary scene, your subconscious will believe you are physically experiencing that and responds accordingly and strongly influences our sympathetic nervous system.
Let’s look at some other examples:
You drive down the road and see a police roadblock - even though you are driving the limit and have a valid licence you still fell a little pang of panic.
INSERT LEMON VIDEO
From both of these examples you will notice that the message your subconscious receives is able to elicit a powerful physical response.
Let’s stop for a minute and think how you felt physically as you worked through the first journal entry thinking about birth. Did you notice any tightness, energy, warmth or feel as though you were holding tension anywhere.
Your body hears everything your mind says
What this quote means is: For every thought we have there is a corresponding chemical response in the body.
This all plays out through our Autonomic Nervous System.
The Autonomic Nervous System
This is made up of two parts. It receives signals from neurotransmitters in the brain and responds accordingly.
The Sympathetic Nervous System (Our emergency room) sad coffee
It serves to protect you from any danger, triggering your protective mechanisms the moment it receives a message that you are in danger. It prompts you to do one of the following: Fight, Flee or Freeze.
Hormones produced here: Catecholamine, Epinephrine, Adrenaline, Cortisol.
While it is a vital part of our system, our bodies should only have the ANS activated for 2% to 5% of our life. The issue today is that, with our go-go-go lifestyle and info overload, most are living in this heightened, on guard state of awareness for most of their day.
The downfall of this system is that it cannot tell the difference between real and perceived danger. This means that seeing a car accident, watching a scary movie, hearing a traumatic story or thinking about a work deadline will trigger the same chemical response in your body as actually living that stressful event. While wild animals are highly efficient at coming back from stress state to rest state, we have lost the ability to a large extent.
That is when breathing and meditation come in to save the day.
The Parasympathetic Nervous System (Our healing room) Smiley coffee
This serves to keep our body in a state of calm, joy, love, trust and general peace and ease. When we are in this state our body is in rest and repair mode, healing our cells and boost our immunity.
Hormones produced here: Endorphins, Oxytocin and Dopamine, Melatonin, Prolactin.
While this state is desired, we have to work harder to keep this system dominant. Oxytocin for example is a very shy hormone, it is our hormone of love and it easily goes into hiding when we feel like we’ve been disturbed. Endorphins are extremely powerful pain killers, but we have to practice building them up.
What does this mean for pregnancy and birth? Your thoughts have the power to influence how you experience your pregnancy and your birth.
How does this impact pregancy?
Pregnancy is a time in which a woman’s body undergoes immense change. Change that is geared towards our growth, our baby’s growth and our protection. The result is a heightened state of awareness and essentially a thinning of the veil to the subconscious. While we have evolved immensely over time, birth remains a primal act that sees our primal brain (subconscious) come to the fore.
On the downside, in this openness negative programming easily comes to the fore and we are also extremely susceptible to new incoming information that we feel relates to our safety. Any negative thinking about birth (intentional or not) will impact our pregnancy negatively. It has been found that the brains of babies exposed to constant stress and trauma develop differently. Their frontal lobe is more developed and they have decreased ability to trust and feel safe throughout life. New studies are also revealing that stress has an impact on gene expression.
High levels of stress during pregnancy are also linked to pre-term labour.
On the upside, planting seeds of positivity and confidence and joy in the experience, and releasing fears will impact birth in the most powerfully transformative way. You will be telling your baby the world is safe and that they will be arriving to a secure, loving environment.
The very fact that you are pregnant and blooming in this moment right now is the result of miraculous manifestation. Let’s build on that, lovingly planting more seeds that will nourish you and your baby and the vision you have for a beautiful birth.
How does the nervous system impact birth?
It was Dr Grantly Dick-Reid, an obstetrician in the early 1900s who noted (to the criticism of his colleagues) that the state of a woman’s mind may impact her birth. He was called to the birth of a woman in the slums of London and when he got there she was in a corner of a room in established birth. Doing what he was trained to do, he went to offer her chloroform. She asked him what he was doing and he told her it was for the pain. She replied: “It’s not supposed to be painful is it doctor?” And she went on to birth effortlessly and without drugs. He had a similar experience while in the trenches during the war which prompted the question…
WHAT WERE UNEDUCATED WOMEN BRINGING TO THEIR BIRTHS THAT ENABLED THEM TO BIRTH CALMLY AND WITHOUT EXTREME PAIN?
The answer was not what were they bringing, but rather what they were not bringing and that was FEAR. And he came up with the theory of the FEAR TENSION PAIN SYNDROME
A look at the history of birth will highlight how that fear evolved.
It is now decades later, but Grantly Dick-Reid’s hypothesis has indeed been found to be true and forms the basis of any childbirth education program… A recognition of the vital importance of a mother being in a relaxed, calm state in which she feels safe and her birthing hormones are flowing optimally and her birthing muscles can move without restriction.
Below is an explanation of what happens when a mother’s “emergency room” is dominant rather than her “healing room”.
Sympathetic Nervous System Dominant
Mother will have raised levels of stress hormones. While spurts of adrenaline when necessary is healthy and functional (and we do in fact produce some naturally during birth), constantly raised adrenaline wears us out and depletes us.
In that high alert state our body does not produce melatonin and our love and trust hormone, oxytocin goes into hiding. Both of these hormones working together is vital for smooth birth.
When a mother is in a state of fight, flight or fear, blood, oxygen and energy are diverted to defence muscles. Our uterus is not a defence muscle, which means that vital nutrients and oxygen are not reaching the baby
Digestion is arrested and inflammation levels increase.
The muscles in the cervix area constrict meaning dilation cannot occur. Birth becomes longer.
When this happens in established labour, longitudinal uterine muscles are tightening to push the baby down but the baby cannot move through the cervix. Birth becomes painful.
With this combination of painful contractions, and energy depletion, mother and baby go into distress,
Surgical birth is usually an inevitability
Parasympathetic Nervous System Dominant
Stress hormones are inhibited
Endorphins produced during birth are a natural pain killer that are 500x more efficient than morphine
Oxytocin is produced which ensures birth flows. Your production of natural oxytocin also turns on your baby’s oxytocin receptors, which means you are setting your baby up for love and connection
Melatonin can be produced which signals to the body that the environment is cosy and safe and it is a safe time to go into restorative, healing mode… birth.
Body goes into rest and digest state which means that not only are you absorbing nutrients better, your body’s peristaltic muscles move efficiently and in the same way, birth flows efficiently
The need for painkillers is reduced
The first and second stages of birth are shorter and easier
JOURNAL EXERCISE 2: Write down all your fears and anxieties surrounding this pregnancy. They could be any concerns surrounding the birth. Fears around being a mother. Financial fears. Write down anything now that comes to mind that you think could create blocks in your pregnancy and birth. You don’t need to share them with me or anyone else. If you would like to, however, please do. This course will be a process of unblocking anything that is holding you back.
During the rest of your pregnancy you will be adding positive affirmations and meditations along with daily practices that will strengthen your connection to your baby(s) that will align you with an empowering birth. Note that I do not say “align you with your birth plan”. After having three births myself that all played out in very different ways in very different settings, I know that, despite all preparation, building birth pools and reading a billion books, if you are aligned with your own soul and your baby’s soul, birth unfolds in its own perfectly magical way that will transform you in the exact way it needs to transform you.
Am I saying that you should just stop the course here and stop preparing and that it is all out of your hands then?
NO NOT AT ALL. But right now your birth plan may be filled with expectation and with that a strong desire to control the outcome right down to colour of the candles. It’s an “I want”, rather than “My baby and I need”. Put the “I want” aside and you will find that you effortlessly start to see the vision. You step into the flow of pregnancy and will flow powerfully through your birth.
To put this in other terms that might make it a little clearer. Think of two brides planning their weddings.
Bride A: writes all the lists, has the files, reads all the books, schedules everything, creates a gift registry and knows exactly how she wants this wedding to look and tells everyone how it should be.
Bride B: looks at her wedding as a union, a spiritual day that will bring together everyone in love. She plans with her partner, chooses a dress that feels just right, embodying who she is and they invite people they know will honour that space.
Wedding A: Bride A looks at the flowers she thought she had to have but they still aren’t quite right. She doesn’t relax the entire day, she’s always worrying about the next step and who’s doing what and anything that goes wrong sends her into a spin. Even if it was perfect she would not be happy.
Wedding B: Bride B the flowers, what dress feels right. It’s not necessarily the wedding everyone else would have liked but it’s perfect for her and her partner. On the day, the cake is not precisely what she envisioned but everyone loves it and they dance and that’s all that matters. The couple head off on their honeymoon grounded in their love and knowing that yes, things aren’t always easy but they are committed to growth.
This birth is the birth of your family. Honour your soul and you will honour the soul of your baby and your family.
Your mind will believe everything you tell it. Feed it faith. Feed it truth. Feed it with love.
By giving yourself a deep knowledge of your body and birth and knowing all your options you are able to visualise a beautiful, healthful, empowering birth. By incorporating regular affirmations, visualisation and other meditations into your pregnancy this will manifest itself because you are pouring energy in that direction and mentally preparing yourself for exactly that.
Let’s now get to know your marvellous pregnant body more closely.
Letting your mind take the driver’s seat in your pregnancy and birth is never the optimal choice. When you let your soul take the driver’s seat, you will have to work through all the ancestral karma and baggage that comes with that. When you let your divinity take the driver’s seat, then you’re truly experiencing birth for everything it is.
When you birth in your divinity, everything is possible and you discover what it means to transcend space and time. This is birthing in 5th dimensional consciousness.
Nap
Baby begins to react to energy of others touching your belly.
Start feeling kicks and movement
Cramps? - check magnesium levels
Get quality sleep - no blue light, meditate, time in nature. Ensure your circadian rhythms are healthy
20 weeks baby is producing vernix
Think about posture - hips, back, alignment.
Your baby’s liver and pancreas are continuing to develop. Ensure you reduce your toxic load.
Now that you are showing, the advice from others will start flowing in.
?? Glucose screening
NO kegels
Squats
Growth
This is the trimester in which you will really start to see the physical growth begin to show. I like to see this as also the perfect time to acknowledge the emotional growth that is occurring.
BABY BRAIN and OFFLOADING BAGGAGE - In the same way that we looked at why your care provider should not bring baggage to your birth. It is equally important that you are not bringing unnecessary baggage to this next phase of your life.
It is time to be deeply honest with yourself. Write list of fears, hang ups, traumas.
Transmute.
Read blog on Thank Hu.
Affirmation - This pregnancy and birth is here to help me grow into the next level of me.
Routine Ultrasound
To do or not to do? I have attached an article “Universal ultrasound in late pregnancy did not reduce serious harms to babies” with the current guidelines and research behind these guidelines from The National Institute for Health Research (NICE) .