orienteering

(gyroscope image found here)

(doll map of acupuncture points found here)

At these late weeks of pregnancy, I was just made aware that my fellow traveller is sitting up straight-- head under my ribs. This is comforting, thinking of him staying close to my heart, and it's fun to know that when I feel around for the shifting bumps under my skin, the tennis ball shape that I can cup and pat is my son's crown. But it's also time, they say, for him to flip head down before he runs out of room. I'm pursuing treatment under a branch of acupuncture called moxibustion, which has been known to flip breech babies with high success. It's non-invasive-- actually just a stick of herb burned by the pinky toe (!).

First of all, I love the word moxibustion, though it's close enough to combustion and "you got moxie, kid" to make it feel like it's lighting a firecracker at the baby's feet-- "pow!" But this and the other suggestions (downward dog, swimming somersaults) have also reignited my wonder at this crazy process of carrying a body in my body--the ways he is part of my electrical-biological system, the ways he's independent, even now. I think of myself as the outside of a gyroscope now, turning myself in order to allow his sphere to spin in new directions.