One month!!

Ahhh!!  How is it possible that I have (theoretically) one month left of pregnancy??  My due date is 3/31, not that I expect this guy to arrive on that day, of course.  I guess he could come early if he follows the example of my brother and me.  But my guess is that he's going to be late, simply because he's been measuring a bit small since the very beginning, so I suspect he might want to cook a bit longer.  :)

This past weekend was my baby shower, and it was fantastic!!  I am so thankful for my wonderful family and friends.  I am very lucky and blessed to know these women.  As I suspected, the attendees were by and large my fabulous Gamma Phi sisters, who mean the world to me.

To coordinate with the panda nursery (which should be photo-ready very soon!!) the shower had a panda theme.  I had so much fun!  I only wish that I were more photogenic, hehe.  

Yay, another panda for the collection!  Hehe.  The cake tasted even better than it looked, if that's possible.

One of the few pics of me opening gifts when I don't have a terribly awkward expression on my face.  :)

Preparing to stab the cake!

Gamma Phi Beta <3

Thank you so much to everyone who attended the shower, and to everyone who sent a gift.  Baby Jonathan will be very well cared for, cozy and comfy, whenever he does decide to make his grand appearance.  

Construction project

The hubster and I are DIYers somewhat by default.  Neither of us has the skill/patience/knowledge to do major work on our house ourselves.  But we are very fortunate that my dad and my uncle have a lot of experience building houses and doing major renovation work on existing structures.  A couple years ago we started work on our unfinished basement.  So far we've only done one room, a study, but hope to eventually finish the rest of it, with a full bathroom, family room, exercise room, storage room and laundry room.

We also built a large shed outdoors when we first moved here, since there is no garage and we needed some place to put tools and equipment.

Our current project is ripping up all the existing carpet in our house and installing new laminate floors.  (Five years and two or three dogs at any time can really do a number on carpets!)  At first we had considered refinishing the hardwood underneath, but we found it to be in much worse condition than we had hoped, and installing new floors was going to be both more cost-efficient and more aesthetically pleasing.  Thus, the new floors.

Over the past couple days the men-folk have finished the hallway and the nursery, with the exception of the floor trim pieces that will be cut and installed tomorrow.  Then we'll move all the nursery furniture back, move out the furniture from our spare bedroom, rip up the carpet in that room, and start again.  :)  I'm absolutely loving the new floors!!!  I'm so thankful to have family with the kind of skills that make things like this possible on a budget.  Can't wait to see the finished product.  :)  In the mean time, here are some pics in progress.

New floor compared to the underlying hardwood.  The existing hardwood has a lot of surface damage, as well as being warped in some places, so it looks like some of the pieces would actually have to be replaced.  Not good, and definitely not cheap.

Old carpet, old hardwood underneath the carpet, and the new floors.  I think the new floors are a pretty nice improvement!

Embrace the Gray

In light of the debate surrounding the whole Komen/Planned Parenthood thing, I was "inspired" to read the Donum Vitae, to get a better feel for the full extent of the pro-life argument.  According to this text, I violated the rights and physical integrity of my baby who is due in 8 weeks, by virtue of the fact that he exists.  The fact that he exists is something for which the law should provide legal sanctions against me.  The Donum Vitae further states that my state's civil legislature should ensure that the morally illicit act that was the creation of this baby is prohibited by law.  In other words, not only should abortion be illegal, but so should IVF.  And if IVF were illegal, I would not be almost 32 weeks pregnant.

The Donum Vitae is a text that was written by Pope Benedict XVI in 1987 when he was a Cardinal.  A more recent text, the Dignitas Personae, was written in 2008, and affirms the statements found within the Donum Vitae.  According to the Dignitas Personae, the medical procedure that is required for my husband and I to ever have a biological child of our own is "intrinsically illicit."

This is what I mean when I talk about gray area.  The world is not black and white.  It is gray.  Just because I have a huge issue with the Donum Vitae, doesn't mean that I hold it against my friends who are Catholic and who believe in the teachings of the current Pope.  He may think that I have done something morally illicit by becoming pregnant in this manner, but that doesn't mean I think he's a bad person or everything else that he says or does is wrong.  Nor do I think that everyone who supports the Catholic church is bad, solely because their moral code may be different than mine.  But, theoretically, every single person who has ever tithed to the Catholic church has supported the notion that I should not be pregnant right now.

If I followed the Komen Foundation's lead, I would have to ignore all of the good things that the Catholic church does, and only focus on the fact that the current Pope, and thereby the church itself, thinks that my soon-to-be child should not exist.  I would not be able to be friends with anyone who supports the Catholic church financially.

But I believe that life is gray.  I believe that the world is gray.  I am thankful that it is gray, because a black and white world would be a very uncomfortable world to live in.

Embrace the gray.

(For anyone interested in the Donum Vitae, you can find it here.  The Dignitas Personae can be found here.)

Cloth Diapers!

You are officially warned.  Baby boy is due two months from today, and my blog will probably be mostly baby for some time to come.  Why?  Um, probably because I'm a total bum these days, so I don't have much else to talk about.  Haha.  I will say that I am *so* glad that I am on a leave of absence from school right now, it's a true blessing to be able to rest up and not stress over my final classes when I'd much rather be planning for this precious little guy.

Anyway - - this post is supposed to be about cloth diapers.  So, here goes.

When I tell people I'm going to be using cloth diapers, some think it's great, some think it's crazy.  I'll be honest, I decided to go with cloth before we were even pregnant.  And the very first "yay I'm pregnant" present that I bought for the baby was a cloth diaper.  (Or, a handful of dipes, since there was a sale that I wanted to take advantage of.)  Over the past few months I've waited for sales and checked out any bargains I could find, and I am happy to say that I think I have a pretty good set of diapers that should fit this little guy from the time he comes home from the hospital until he is about 35 pounds.  (Which isn't to say that I'm done looking for diapers, and I still need wipes, a sprayer, wet bags, and things like that.  But, I'm happy about all the deals I scored so far!!)

And no, these aren't your momma's or your grandmomma's diapers.  These are fun, modern, easy to use diapers that function very much like disposables.  Yes, they have to be washed.  But I'll never have to drive to the store at midnight because I ran out of diapers, and they are more than cute enough to totally warrant letting the little guy run around in nothing but a diaper from time to time.  And I can use them on more than one child, so if we are ever blessed with another baby, I can reuse these.  Or, I can sell them and recoup a good portion of what I paid, since cloth diapers hold their value if they are well cared for.  Bonus!

For those of you who know nothing about modern cloth diapers, here are a few pics of mine.  Please note that I don't have a huge variety of styles, because I wanted to support local business and some of the most popular cloth diapers in the country are made by a locally-owned company, http://www.cottonbabies.com/.  As a result, almost all of my "stash" is comprised of brands made by Cotton Babies, like bumGenious, Flip, and Econobum.  And I tried to stick with mostly gender-neutral colors, just in case we do have another baby some day and it's a girl.  :)

This is the bumGenious 4.0, which is a pocket diaper.  It's a one-size diaper, which means it is designed to fit the baby from around 8 to 35 pounds, depending on how you have the snaps set.  This pic is at the tiniest size:

And this is at the largest size, same diaper:

It's a pocket diaper because it's not all one piece.  There is an insert (they come with two, you can use either or both at a time, depending on how big the baby is and how heavy of a wetter he is) that goes inside the pocket.  This makes them easier to wash and dry, since it's not all one piece.  But, of course, you have to stuff the insert back in before you use it, so what you save in drying time, might be used up some in stuffing time.  :)

This is the Flip System, which is a cover with a stay-dry insert.  They actually make two other kinds of inserts, one of which is disposable.  (Nice for vacations, so you don't have to bring home all the dirty diapers or do laundry on the road, but it's not 100% disposable so you aren't creating as much trash.)  Or, you can use a prefold diaper, which we'll get to below.  It's also a one size diaper, with the various snaps to make it fit different size babies.

This is an Econobum, which is the less spendy kind of diaper, as the name suggests.  It's a waterproof cover, like the Flip cover, and inside you use a prefold diaper.  This is more like your momma's or your grandmomma's diaper, where you fold it in thirds and either lay it into the diaper, or use diaper pins or something called a snappi.  (I don't have any snappis yet, so you'll have to rely on google for a pic!)  With any covers, you don't have to wash the cover every time you change the diaper, not unless it gets poo on it.  That makes them a lot cheaper than pocket diapers, because you only need one cover for every 4-6 inserts or prefolds.  But, not quite as convenient for putting on the baby.

Finally, here are some of the newborn-sized diapers that I got.  The one size diapers don't always fit in the first month or two, depending on how big the baby is at birth.

bumGenious newborn size (these are all-in-one diapers, or AIO, because there is no pocket or insert, it's just all a single piece of fabric):

Various covers from Thirsties and Bummis with a newborn size prefold:

Thirsties size 1 AIO and Fuzzibunz XS pocket diapers:

So, that's my not-so-little tutorial on modern cloth diapers.  I know that diapers aren't the kind of things that most people get excited about, but don't you think my little guy is going to look absolutely adorable with all this cute fluff??  :)

Random musings on infertility, religion, medical intervention, and being overly sensitive.

You know how sometimes people say things that are unintentionally insulting?  And sometimes, we are just way too sensitive to a certain issue, so we take umbrage with innocuous comments that were never meant to be insulting and wouldn't be insulting to the vast majority of people?

Yep.  I'm that person right now.  Finding insult where none was intended.

Some completely random woman on a pregnancy discussion board just announced her pregnancy, and posted this:  "My doctor told me I would not be able to get pregnant without medical help. Well, we believe God has children planned for us and we refused to listen to the doctor."


And me, in my excessively-sensitive way, automatically leapt to the conclusion that she must think that God doesn't have children planned for anyone who does require medical help.  Now, I know that's not what she said.  I also suspect that she would never have meant for it to sound like that.  But, for some reason, I have a hypersensitivity to this type of comment.  To me, it's tantamount to telling a cancer patient that he or she should forego medical treatment because God doesn't have a longer life on earth planned for that person.

I am so, so very happy to be pregnant.  I cannot wait to meet this charming little boy who is kicking up a storm as I type.  Only 12 more weeks!!!  But I have a feeling that it will be a long time, if ever, that I can move past all the emotions tied into infertility.  Someone else I know initiated a discussion this past week about whether having a baby "cures" the emotional aspects of infertility.  I suppose it might for some people, but I don't see how it can for everyone.  Having this baby doesn't change the fact that we will need to do IVF if we ever hope to have another child.  And, although I'm not always the most religious person, I really cannot buy into the notion that God doesn't "want" us to have kids.

I don't dwell on infertility.  But comments like the one above will probably always trigger a heightened, overly sensitive response from me, whether or not it should.

On Friends and Friendship

I've always felt like I didn't quite have a knack for the whole interacting-with-friends thing the way other people do.  I adore my friends.  But, I am not an exceptionally social person.  I love to interact with people, but I am always a bit self-conscious, no matter my level of comfort with that person.

When I was a kid I was super, crazy shy.  I always had a book with me on the school bus because I was too terrified to talk to anyone.  The older I got the better I got about interacting with people.  Now, I can mix and mingle at a work function and not stress over it too much.  And I've been told that I come across as outgoing (which truly surprises me).  I've gotten good at meeting people, making acquaintances.  But developing real, genuine connections with people is still difficult for me.

I think sometimes I'm a homebody because it's easy to be one.  If I'm hanging out at home by myself, I don't worry about whether I'm talking too much, not enough, not being entertaining enough, acing overly needy, etc.  It's safe to be by myself.  Actually going out and spending time with someone is not safe.  I wonder whether I'm being annoying, whether I'm any fun to hang out with, whether I'm saying or doing the wrong thing.

I've been thinking about this lately because over the next few months I won't be working, I won't be in class.  I'll just be taking some time off.  And I know that my natural inclination will be to stay home 24/7, and to withdraw a bit.  So I'm going to challenge myself to reach out to my friends, maybe to invite people over for dinner (gasp), or try to schedule more lunches out.  Who knows?

I cherish the friends that I have.  I realize that they may not know that, because I am not good about making it known how important my friends are to me.  It's way easier for me to come across as self-sufficient, as though I don't need friends.  But I do.  And I know some truly amazing people, people that I would love to spend more time with.  It's just not easy for me to tell them that.  If you are reading this, it's a virtual certainty that you are one of those people.  So know that you mean the world to me, even if I've never told you.

Photo Credit

Break! For many months...

It's funny how one can agonize over a decision, only to later find that the decision made is universally applauded by friends and family.

Our little baby boy is due in March, and I've been EXHAUSTED the last few months.  No energy.  None.  I've got 17 hours left until I graduate from law school, and had every intention of powering through the spring semester so I could be done in May.  I also had every intention of taking some time off after that, and not taking the bar exam until February 2013, just so I could stay at home with the little guy for a while before starting work.

But, a few weeks ago I started to rethink the plan.  Discussed it with the hubster, with other family, with student services.  And I decided to take a leave of absence from school this spring.  I'll go back in the fall to finish things up.

Which means I've got a couple months coming up when I will be gainfully unemployed and can nest to my heart's content.  I am available for temp work, so I might do an honest days work or two.  But in general, I'm pretty darn excited about having the time to rest up, grow a baby, and then be able to fully devote myself to him in those first few weeks/months.  No running back to school right after he's born to take finals.  No worrying about walking around campus in the snow and ice.  No worrying about missing classes if I don't feel well, or if I am put on bedrest or anything of the sort.

The most surprising thing for me has been that everyone, and I do mean everyone, that I have told about the leave of absence has thought it is a phenomenally great idea.  I am so surprised!  I really agonized over the decision.  It means I'll need to find people to watch the little guy when I go back to school in the fall, and that I'll miss out on some of that time with him when he's older.  But still, everyone thinks it's great.

So, seems as though I made a good decision.  Nice to have everyone's approval for the fact that I'm going to be a bum for a few months.  :)