Advice, really?!?!

My mom is a treasure to me. She has always had wisdom. I have asked her her opinion on countless things since I was a little girl. She’s not only wise, she’s comforting. She has that wonderful talent of offering an opinion with love, in a way that doesn’t make you feel like a screw up. I believe in the advice of women who have gone through this, one’s who’ve weathered the storm of childbirth and are finding their way through motherhood. They just know things. They know mommy things. They tell me I’m going to do okay and that I’ll figure it out and to not try to be perfect.
However.
There are some batty women out there who think that because they’ve just met you and know you’re pregnant that it is their god-given right to tell you how to live your pregnancy. It’s amazing. One woman I ran into in particular was absolutely RELENTLESS in advising me on everything from cloth diapers (“Ugh! Cloth!? You’ll regret that, and worst of all, you’re going to give your baby severe diaper rash”) to home birth (“You have no idea how fast everything will move. You’ll have no time to get to the hospital if there is a problem.”) Okay, this is coming from a woman who had a PLANNED Cesarean.  She has one 6 month old child, and she is a self-proclaimed expert on all things pregnancy, delivery, and post delivery.
I also had somebody say to me “CPR training is the difference between a dead baby and a live baby.” DON’T SAY THE WORDS “DEAD BABY” TO A PREGNANT WOMAN!!!! My god. Have some common sense.
So it continues. One of my friends is a fantastic help, and she’s so incredibly mellow. And it seems to me that mellow-hood is the key to making this all work. There are so many factors, so many variables on X, and everything requires infinite flexibility. You’re growing a child in you. That can either completely make you freak out and lose your mind and sense of perspective, or it can empower you to say “I’m definitely doing the best I can.”
I think about Baby growing in there constantly. There’s a new awareness in every moment of my life now. When I wake up at night, I’m in a pregnant mind, when I shower, when I go to work, eat, walk, write, do dishes…it’s all with this constant mantra or sense or something…”I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant.”  I think about the banana I’m eating and wonder what amazing things it will do nutritionally to help Baby grow. I hold my belly and shake it a little to tell Baby I know s/he’s there. When I rest, I think “this is good for Baby.” When I’m driving, I’m extra careful. It seems like this heightened state of awareness is something we all need in our lives, concerning just the fact that we’re human beings and we’re ALIVE. It’s a miracle. We all started as little miracles and here we all are, walking around, talking, driving, fighting, laughing…but I’ve lived and don’t think I’ve ever been this conscious of it. Somebody else is going to be here on this planet because of the miracle, the beautiful gift of life.
So it kind of helps to put all of the ridiculous naysayers telling you that there is a RIGHT way (their way) and a wrong way (my way) into perspective. Like everything else, you make the best choices you can and have faith that everything is going to turn out for the best.
Still hoping for a home birth, still waiting to see what life brings in the next few months. But I really feel, I honestly trust, that its going to be OKAY.