I said good bye to my first round of little dance students yesterday. They’re all 3 with the exception of one 4 year old. We had not really discussed my pregnancy as a class before, and while I was explaining that I wouldn’t see them for a couple of months, one girl looked dismayed, “I am so sad you have a baby in your tummy.”

Post-Halloween blues combined with the time change have played havoc on most 3 year old psyches–as it has with mine. Similiar to the first trimester, I’m feeling less and less like myself. Of course, this is mostly due to my almost humorous physicality. My old self could certainly navigate around doorways without bumping her belly or soiling the front of her maternity shirt. The old self could give normal hugs and do dishes without standing sideways. A strange copper taste resonates in my mouth after eating, making food not as pleasurable as I had hoped. My lungs feel constricted and my ribs are sore. Often, I don’t answer phones because it takes too long to get up.

The old self also had no interest in watching an hour of “Birth Story” on TLC or reading countless birth stories in Ina May’s Birthing book. Lately, I consume birth stories like candy (which I eat to get rid of the copper taste). What once used to intimidate me has become a soulful addiction. If I can ingest a wide enough scope of birth examples then perhaps I can get a general IDEA of what my own labor and birth might be. I would rather go in over-read and extra knowledgeable with the hope that it might remove some of the fear. However, my doula is waiting for me to email her my birth plan…I don’t have it or know it yet. I have a list of things I’d like to avoid…but otherwise I’m trying to remain extremely flexible.