your heart beat

I heard your heart beating at 135 beats per minute with the midwife today. 
While you rest inside me our hearts are entwined and yours beats twice as fast as mine.

We bought an iphone application called My Baby Beat that lets your pappa and I listen to and record the sounds of your heartbeat at home. Its amazing to be able to hear the rhythm of your tiny little heart.

xx

Leo

We've almost settled on your name:

Leo Lachlan Philemon Fullagar 

 Leo is both a cute name as well as a strong one with a some significant cultural namesakes:

Leonardo Da Vinci
 Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer.

Leo Tolstoy 
Tolstoy a Russian writer of the last 1800's is considered by many have been one of the world's greatest novelists. He was a noted moral thinker and social reformer.

And of course, Leo comes from the Latin meaning lion!

"A Child is Born"

Dearest Jnr, Your pappa bought us a beautiful book called "A Child is Born" which follows in gorgeous, intimate, photographic detail your development from egg to sperm, to embyro, to growing feutus. We read it thinking of you and exclaimed over the pictures of your growing heart, your perfect tiny hands and feet, veins and bones, eye and ears you've grown. You are more than 35cm long now, and weigh at least a kilo. You're tiny! And yet so large! And you can hear! You waken (into active sleep) each time you hear your father's voice. While we read we played Rockabye Baby tunes for you through Lullabelly speakers; and you kicked along ....

Day 94: "My baby and I are flourishing together"

At one of my first prenatal yoga classes the teacher saked us to form a sankulpa (which is a Hindi term meaning sacred intention or resolve) for myself and you, junior. The first that came to mind was "My baby and I are flourishing together". And I have held this intention ever since. The prenatal classes create a lovely sanctuary of stretching, preparing for labour, and meditation space to tune into to you and I flourishing together. I love the yoga nidra body awareness meditation at the end of class which directs attention to the "perfect baby forming in your womb". I see you curled, perfect, and waiting for the right moment to open a passage through me and enter the stream of this life. And I see your heart deeply connected and in sync with mine, and yet separate, pulsing with your own life, love and will.