Dear Onyx,

I must have forgotten to post this!

Better late than never right? :O!!?

Your Grandma did an amazing 37 week pregnancy photo shoot for us. Up there, in that photo, is you! All snuggled up! It's pretty hard to believe. 

It's been so long since I wrote you last! I have changed my mind on so many ideas I had on how I want to be your parent! All for the good, I promise! Your dad and I have learned SO MUCH! We took 12 pregnancy classes and met some nice friends there. We changed midwifes, but I bet you already knew that because when she checks your position, feeling around on my tummy (she is the one with icy cold fingers) you always kick/punch her away. Haha

Here are some things we have learned about you:

I have learned you are an intense meat lover and I have no idea where that came from. I only started regularly eating meat again since I became pregnant. You dance and dance when I eat it. That's well, kinda gross little dude, but I love you anyway.

You don't like being touched, at first it kinda hurt my feelings. I am not gonna lie. I realized though, that doesn't mean you don't like me, (which I did have a total crying breakdown over, but your dad calmed me down) that probably just means you will be independent! Good for you! Just no running away from me into the road or something like that. I'd probably have a heart attack! I promise to give you space and freedom as best I can though.

Along with not liking being touched you tend to smack away or hide from any hand that touches my belly. This leads me to believe you might have adopted your father's childhood pickiness. Well who better to have a fussy son than a fussy father? Karma sucks! Heehee. Did you know your dad used to freak out and cry every time he put socks on as a kid because he could feel the "linty balls" poking him? To this day he still wears his socks inside out because if it. I wont knock it though. I tried it a few weeks ago and, yeah, it feels preeeetty good!

Your bedroom is all set up and waiting for you. Even if you're not going to be sleeping in there at first, it was really important to me to have a room waiting for you. I am 5 days passed my "guess date" for you being born and still waiting little guy! Everybody is! I keep getting texts, messages and calls all the time asking if it was your big day! Nope. Still waiting on you love. You can come anytime now. Even tonight! Tomorrow morning! Lunch time! Dinner! As soon as possible? Please? Please? Pretty please?
Oh fine. No pressure... I guess.

We just really want to meet you and kiss your little face.
See you SOON????? You are 39 weeks old after all! :)

Love, your Mum.

It's Good To Be Back

Back to normal that is! 

For the last 9 months I went from too nauseous to write posts, so I posted pictures. (Tri 1)

Too tired to go many places or make many new things, so I took pictures of the life around me. (Tri 2)

Then finally, to so uncomfortably immobile that my blog took the back seat. (Tri 3)

It's amazing the weight a pregnancy veil puts over you. Your eye lids are heavy, even though all you do is sleep. 

Your mind feels like lead, and we all know lead can't think. Your body may only gain 35 pounds, but it might as well be 350 because doing anything is difficult physically not to mention emotionally and mentally.
...and just when you start getting used to it...

Suddenly labor pulls you in like a fishing lure you can not pull away from. 

Then a thousand of the most intense years of your life go by, 

(or what seems like 1000 years but is really only a few hours of hard labor) and suddenly you're light again. 

You feel like, like you! Like a you that you forgot existed!

 And look! This beautiful, wonderful, tiny person is here now and you are their world. 

Birth?

THAT WAS A TRIP.

Pt.1 With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility - Uncle Ben

Back to even more positive stuff.

(It's good stuff, you know!?)

We have learned SO MUCH during this pregnancy. 

Everything from "The Butterfly" exercise, 

what your Kegel muscle is, 

under what circumstances should you give your newborn eye drops, 

how to tailor sit,

why people choose to circumcise,

are vaccines worth it?

And a ton more.

Fortunately and unfortunately with some of this new knowledge comes a lot of

 freedom, 

empowerment 

and hardship.

What it comes down to for us, is what we believe is right and wrong...

Now how do we tell family and friends who are going to disagree with us?

It seems simple.

We are the parents of this child.

Not anyone else.

So why is it so complicated?

So here is the bad-ish stuff.

But it's all about good stuff! 

Let me explain?

The Circumcision Decision.
Ooooh. Touchy subject! I know! Because I have been on both sides of the fence. Our entire pregnancy we felt that it would be best to circumcise our son. We based this primarily on what we thought the Bible said. However after digging deeper into God's words regarding circumcision, we found that we don't need to anymore! Why? Because after Jesus, the final sacrifice, God's only looking into what's in your heart, not judging you based off your hoo-ha as well! Yay!!! We found so many verses backing this up and you could ask me if you're interested where in the Bible these verses are. Medically we thought circumcising him would be best as well. Doesn't it help prevent STD's or something? Well, that's what I have always thought but I figured I'd check just in case. As it turns out there is no proof circumcising prevents STD's. Okay then, aren't intact penises just bacteria traps? Aren't they dirty? Firstly, little boys are generally dirty little goobers. (Gotta love 'em though!) We are simply going to focus very hard on teaching our son how to keep himself clean. Just as you would teach a circumcised boy to clean himself right? It's not even a very different "how-to". So if he does try to keep it clean, there should be zero problems. The skin itself doesn't even fully retract for a good long while, sometimes not even until the teen years, so no! It's not a dirt trap, it should stay clean given the proper care. However if an infection did arise the likeliness of it being able to be treated with antibiotics is very likely! I am just saying there is only a tiny tiny tiny chance he would ever even need his skin removed, so there isn't really a reason to do it to start with! I had many ear infections as a child and my ears were hurting me SO BADLY. The thing is, even though I was already having problems with them at that point, they never suggested chopping my ears off. You don't *need* ears to survive, they are just really nice to have! So I am glad we are choosing to keep him intact. This would be really great for him as an adult because when he has a wife there would be so many benefits for them both if he was to keep it natural! I don't want to think too deeply about it, but I guess it's pretty great for the married life! *wink*wink* So there is a little insight to our choice. I could go on for hours, but I'd rather not. So how do we tell people that are going to disagree with us? Most of their reasons are really not even valid for wanting to do it, and most of those those ideas are totally based on assumption. I know that's why we wanted to in the beginning. We assumed, but after I looked at the facts we changed our minds. Plus, this is what WE, HIS PARENTS think is right. If we or he decides it would be best to circ. down the road we/he can always make the choice then, but none of us can undo it. So we are just going to leave it natural, as God intended and go from there taking full responsibility for our choice.

P.S. 

Our bags are packed and ready for Onyx's arrival. (Is it real yet?)

Car seat in the car? Check.

And I have almost all the food I want for labor as well!

Ill check back in soon!

My next post will be about our vaccine choices, 

and then I promise it will be the last of the grim info posts for a long while! 

Almost 34 Weeks!

 So happy but starting to feel pretty huge!

Scenes From The "Surprise" Baby Shower

Firstly, I would like to admit my insane love for baby booties,

in little baby pants or not. In my book, they are probably one of the cutest things of all time.

Here was our little venue. My mother set the whole thing up as a surprise in this little tea shop! 

 

Before and after.
The cucumber tomato sandwiches were my favorite by far! 

We had a mixed Jasmine tea with all the goodies in the pots,
so we had to strain it with the charming little strainer above. 

I am pretty sure the only person who remembered to do it every time was the only guy there.

Jared. 

As seen below, having a hard time lending his fancy camera to my sister to take pictures. 

Does anyone else feel extremely awkward posing for pictures?

I always feel like I look like a bit of a goob when I am doing all that posey stuff.

I consider these our modeling shots. 

Want some balloon string or cups? 

Too bad! I like the stacker cups, they're cool! You could have some string though.

 

Jared bending his paper clips from our game, into a bracelet.  

He is pretty imaginative, which will come in as a pretty useful trait when he is a dad!

See? It's the baby butt thing again.
Love me some duck butts. Hahaha

These are my two (not so little anymore) sisters. They are really growing up into lovely ladies.

Growing up their nick names were Squidly and Goo. 

I am not even telling you what I was called! 

 

She seems to be under the impression that Onyx belongs to her.
Onyx is not lacking in loving aunties, that's for sure.

 

Above is the little locket my best friend "Spiffy" gave to me for my birthday. I LOVE it!

This is their pregnancy impression. I really did not have to do much. ;)

Can you tell I am kind of excited to meet him?

Here is Jared's shower gift to me. I have been wanting an Ergo baby carrier forever! SO thankful!

Golden Gram. Mum. Me!

... and the sisters. 

I was 26 weeks then.

27 now.

Suddenly time seems to be flying!

Like Jared always says, "Be. Here. Now."

25 Weeks Pregnant

And so here we are.

 In front of some dandy new "curtains" I made yesterday.

Is it weird to admit I forget I am pregnant a lot?

No, no... this mama has not been boozing it up or anything like that!

I just hardly feel "different" anymore.

It's pretty odd when feeling normal involves a little boy,

inside my belly,

head to the left,

facing front,

knees in,

and kicking my right side prrrretty much all day and night.

Yah. This is what normal is starting to feel like.

So it will be odd when in just a couple months I go back to being just *me!*

15 weeks to go... 

(Give or take. I am betting early because he seems like he already wants out! With all this pushing and kicking!) 

 I feel like my tummy has gotten pretty big but last time my midwife measured my belly
I was actually 2 weeks smaller than average.

Crazy right?

But don't get me started on the outie belly button.

I love it, because it's something I will only have for a short and wonderful time.

However I can't hide it. Even through thick shirts (and why would I want to wear those in July?) you can still see the obvious imprint of a popped out button and everyone and their mothers take this zippity quick look at it and then their eyes shoot in a totally opposite direction, as if they just saw something they were not supposed too. 

It's not dirty, or sexy or an alien or whatever the heck!
That is probably my only complaint at this point. Everything else has been just golden. 

 The only other "out of the ordinary" thing I can think of that has been happening lately is for the last 2 weeks or so I have been nesting, with explosive force. 

I can't rest until every shelf has been robbed of it's knick-knacks,

every desk moved and mopped under,

every unmatched sock gone to sock heaven,

every lame movie I ever bought from a clearance bin purged,
every "just in case I need this" shoe box ripped from under my bed,

every book I will read "when I get the time",
gone.

Everything is going away in a yard sale
(and until then all this stuff is sitting to the side of our living room and I can not stand it!)

and anything we don't sell we are bringing to a Goodwill.

Oh clean and uncluttered bedroom of mine, 

you feel so peaceful to be in.
Nesting can really get things DONE!  ;D