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.

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! 

Good Stuff!

Growing, growing, and more growing...!

Many things in my life have really turned around lately. 

Many -if not most- for the better! And for that, I am truly thankful. 

However life has a funny way of balancing itself out.

       I have gained 30 "mama pounds", or at least that is what I am going to call them. (It makes me feel better!) Jared has been so sweet about it. For some reason, he thinks I look beautiful in a whole new way and seems pretty genuine about it! So I'd count that as a plus because mentally, emotionally and physically, I think I am doing pretty well for having this lil boy in my stomach for 34 weeks now. I have not even had a breakdown! Unless you count crying over silly little things like cute pictures on the internet a breakdown, because then I've had many, many breakdowns!

      In the past I brought up that we did not like our midwife. Well ya know what I did? I finally got the courage to change our care provider! With the support of our new Bradley Class friends (Bless our classmates and our teacher for being so wonderful!) Jared and I said enough was enough. We let it go on too long and now I wish I changed sooner! Our new midwife is only 15 minutes farther then our last and she is so comfortable to be around! I even feel a little sad because I will only get to see her for appointments during the next month or so until we have our baby and then *poof* she will be out of our lives! I think I am going to bake her some awesome pastries when this is all over.

Speaking of which, I never posted pictures of the carrot cake I made for my father in law!

Yes, it was amazing...

and yes, I am getting off topic but if you made a carrot cake this good, you too would be proud!

I'll be posting more good stuff soon, but it's but deeper and for now you can just enjoy some belly pics and a close up of cake. Hope you like it!

Almost 34 Weeks!

 So happy but starting to feel pretty huge!

28 ... 29 Weeks!

Happy happy 

Joy joy 

Foreals.

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."