Carefully orchestrated

Lately I feel like I'm conducting a symphony with my body. Here are the instruments:

A healthy, balanced diet: obtain lots of protein to grow a new human being, vitamin-rich foods for my health and baby's, healthy fats; make my body strong for labor and postpartum.

Exercise: Make my body strong for labor and postpartum.

Cravings: Recognize what my body is trying to tell me about my nutritional needs and respond appropriately. (Still haven't figured out why I had to have that decaf mocha frappuccino two days ago, but the occasional useless craving can be fulfilled, too.)

Iron: Take twice daily, preferably with foods containing vitamin C but absolutely nowhere near foods containing calcium. To prevent even mild anemia (which had developed at 24 weeks), reducing risk of certain labor complications and/or postpartum anemia (BTDT, NOT going there again).

Calcium/magnesium: Take once daily, nowhere near the iron. To combat leg cramps.

Probiotics: Take once or more daily, preferably with food. To prevent yeast infections, improve digestion/immunity, and provide the baby with healthy bacterial colonization at birth, giving him a good start on the above.

Cranberry juice: Once or more daily, to ward off UTI's.

Red raspberry leaf tea: 3 cups daily if possible, to tone my uterus, hopefully making labor easier and reducing risk of postpartum hemorrhage. (Eliana - no RRL tea, 25 hour labor, excessive pp blood loss -> pp anemia. Kesenia - RRL tea, 6 hour labor, normal pp blood loss. Coincidence? I'm not willing to bet on it.)

Butcher's broom: 2 doses daily, to tone veins and improve circulation.

Chiropractic care: As needed, currently needing it once a week. To keep my sacrum where it belongs between my ilia, help me walk comfortably and sleep decently, and perhaps even help baby start labor in a more favorable position.

Acupuncture: Twice weekly - in Berkeley! - to help with my varicose veins.

Immersion in water: Once daily if possible, spend 1/2 hour in the birth tub, to help with my veins and ohhh the comfort of weightlessness.

It's a lot to think about, a lot to schedule given the things that can't be done concurrently, but I have got to say I feel amazing for being 36 weeks. So many discomforts which were obvious months earlier with my last two pregnancies have only now started cropping up. And on the other hand, these veins - which were not a problem in previous pregnancies, but arrived at 14 weeks this time - are annoying and worrisome... but I'm so glad to have an arsenal of treatments available to try. All in all, this health symphony is well worth the time and effort - the results are fabulous.