Fetal-love breaks / My herbal pregnancy tea adventure

When I met with my Doula the first time, she gave me a bunch of literature and some advice about nutrition and how to take care of myself for the next few months. Included in this advice was to take "fetal-love breaks" intermittently throughout the day. The thinking goes like this; Your emotions occur as reactions to chemicals that are present in your brain and body (This is so radically oversimplified that I can't believe I'm repeating it, but we're talking about a fetal love break as explained by my beautiful and caring doula who knows a lot about pregnancy and babies. In just this one case, I'm ignoring the complex details). These molecules cross the placental barrier and affect the brain of your baby. So, when you are feeling anxious, stressed out, and frightened, you are sending negative chemical signals to your baby that cause your baby to have the same negative responses. And when you are feeling peaceful, loving and compassionate, you are sending positive signals that make your baby feel loved and secure. Basically, your body is the baby's universe and its brain will develop based on what the baby assumes the universe is like. The idea, then, is to cleverly trick the baby into thinking the world outside my body isn't such a crappy place. This is done by taking 20- minute breaks 3 or 4 times a day to relax and listen to some music, picture yourself on the beach or overlooking a mountain lake, and create a calm, peaceful, joyful mind set. This will help program baby's emotional temperament so that it expects peace and love in the universe for the rest of its life.

So far, I probably do this for about 2 minutes each day. The rest of my conscious hours are filled with FREAKING OUT. My body might be my baby's universe, but I currently live in the actual universe which has lately been a rather stressful place. I'm absolutely terrified that I'm programing my baby's emotional temperament so it will turn out to be some nervous psychopath. Ok, I don't actually think this will happen, but lets just say, I'm still working on mastering the fetal love break thing.

Luckily, I found something that is way easier to do; organic herbal pregnancy tea. I can guzzle tea all day! I'm good at that! And the pamphlet that my doula gave me had a recipe for the tea and even had a few pages listing all the health benefits of this concoction. So, I went online and ordered organic, bulk dried and cut  nettle leaf, red raspberry leaf, alfalfa leaf and oatstraw. I made the mistake, however, of ordering 1 pound of each herb, not realizing that this is a ridiculously enormous amount of herbs. After mixing the herbs together in the right ratios and filling up all the tupperware containers in the house, I have enough pregnancy tea to last me, ohhhhhhh another 3 years, perhaps. And that's if I manage to drink a quart of tea every day. I'd better get to work. It's actually pretty tasty stuff. After letting a big handful steep for an hour or so, it comes out a dark brown color and has a grassy aroma. It tastes like minty, boiled hay. Not half bad. Most importantly, with a large mug of my magical tea in my hands I feel like the healthiest and most virtuous mommy-to-be on earth, even if I don't spend an hour and a half a day in love-break mode.