So, my heart rate – this is not true resting, but my average hesitate at any given point in the day – is about 60 beats per minute. Yes, it goes higher, and it is even lower when I am sitting around or lying down. For example, I just put in my retainers, used the bathroom, and put on oil and lotion before stretching and lying down in my bed. My current heart rate is 51 beats per minute.
Every time I have a prenatal appointment, the midwife tells me happily that she loves my blood pressure and heart rate. The first time she checked my heart rate, she sat there the full minute just to see for sure. I still remember her saying, “Nope. Not even sixty!” somewhat baffled and slightly chuckling. She was amazed, in a way. The highest mine has been in a normal appointment with her was, I believe, 64bpm.
However, the other day, we were moving me all around to check out some things, and I had been up and down and turning and talking, and all in a very short timeframe. So, she said she wanted to wait a couple minutes to check my vitals, so things could settle after such high level movements and efforts (getting up and down and moving around a bunch at 39 weeks pregnant is not easily done, to be sure).
But, as I sat on the sofa to ‘rest’, I ended up talking about something that had me very excited. I was quite animated and moving my arms around and even getting myself a bit out of breath in my excitement. (Naturally, I have no idea at this point what I was discussing, but I remember noticing afterward how excited I had gotten in talking about it.)
When she came over to the sofa to check my blood pressure and heart rate, I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be calming down, not riling myself up. So, as she starting pumping up the cuff, I quickly turned inward, closed my eyes, dropped my head to focus, and relaxed intentionally into slow, deep breaths.
Not long after doing this, I felt the midwife turn when head to look up at me, and so I opened my eyes and turned to look at her. ‘Well, according to this, you died for a second there!’ We both laughed, and I asked what she meant. She said that everything had just come to a halt, jumping from high and fast to low and slow. I told her what I had done, and she said it made sense, but was clearly still impressed.
Turns out, in a matter of seconds, my heart rate had gone from 74bpm to 47bpm. No wonder it sounded like I had died for a second there – that is an absurd drop in the first place, let alone to have happen in mere seconds.
Guess all my training in athletics and yoga and meditation kicked in very effectively there. Not only did I grow up with all sorts of sports and learning to manage and control my breath for optimum use and physical output, but I am a certified yoga instructor, and I have a certificate that basically says I spent 200 hours working intentionally on my breath (that’s pretty much half the point of the specific teacher training I did, after all). Haha
All that to say that it was really cool to see how being intentional with my focus and breathing could affect my body so clearly and directly and efficiently. And to have actual data to qualify the effort – that’s what was really cool about it all. It was awesome.
Okay, now I go to sleep. Goodnight.
Dear Lord, please, let this due date mean something for our baby’s birth – have it be born on this due date, please. Make us ready in any ways we have yet to be ready, and make the baby ready in any ways it has yet to be ready. Prepare us all fully, please, and guide us forward into this beautiful family you have offered to us. Make me and the baby and my husband well and safe and whole, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2025
hannah ananas 