watanabe clinic gave me a cd with new age music and a guide to lamaze breathing. you know, a woman's voice guided you through the hee hee hoos and hooooonnnns of lamaze. not that yoshi or i had time to take a lamaze class, and the midwife pretty much had me saying 'hooooo' and then we went straight into the 'hooooonnnn' and skipped the 'hee hee hoo' (i was a little disappointed!) anyway, this cd has ten tracks. the first is an introduction. since it's in japanese, i usually skipped it. then it goes through the breathing, and which stage you would be performing it. then there's a practice track. well, the very last track is 24 minutes of new age music--waves gently crashing, random notes on a keyboard and ethereal chords. it was meant as a time to visualize a smooth birth (or something), but i usually used it for relaxing and falling asleep (hiro kicked so much that last month!) the other night just before new year's eve, when i was feeling particularly stressed and hiro was fussy, i put on that cd and listened to that track. before i knew it, hiro was asleep! i tried it again the next night, and it worked! i insisted we bring the cd and cd player to yoshi's parents' house. i don't know if it's relaxing, white noise or just something he remembers, but it just conks him out! LOL if i turn it off after he's asleep, he wakes up! we might be listening to this cd for a long time to come....