The Power of the Bendy Straw?!

You know what I LOVE?

SUMMER!

Yes, that's right.

I don't care that I am 32-33 weeks pregnant and the heat index hasn't even ATTEMPTED to go below 100 for days and days and days (possibly a month?) on end. I don't even care that I look RIDICULOUS in tank tops and maternity pants these days. (I even broke down and bought some... maternity shorts. Shudder: I hate shorts.)

The heat is ridiculous, right? It really is. The main reason I'm loving summer this year is that people see THE BELLY they feel so sorry for me being all knocked up and enormous in this heat that's all they want to talk about and they don't even ask me questions like "Boy? Girl? Name? Nursery?" and all those other baby questions I can't seem to answer! They are just like "September? OH YOU POOR DEAR!" all the time.

See? It just keeps GROWING. Maybe the baby really IS coming out.

I had to take several pictures as a "ghost" in order to get Nate to even attempt to pose normally for me. Ahem. Like so:
I'm feeling pretty great to be honest. Like, I'm still definitely in denial that a baby could be here in the next couple of months, but I've hit this point where I'm enjoying the end of my pregnancy and we've been building up our birth bubble. Instead of a birth plan, Karl and I just decided to call it a birth bubble - deciding things like who we want at our birth (answer: NO ONE. Well, we want our midwives there this time!) and how I want to labor (answer: standing, standing, standing or really, anything but laying down) and where we would go (and at what point) if we need to transfer to a medical facility and when we want to go to the pediatrician.

We did get our birth kit in the mail this week. Nate helped me open it. Birth in a Box.


Wondering what is in a home birth kit? Gloves, gauze, chuck/bedding pads, herbal baths, a peri bottle, um... what else? A footprint kit, some other stuff I can't think of right now, A PLACENTA PAN, er BED PAN , er WHATEVER THIS IS USED FOR THAT I don't really like to think about so I'm sharing it with you! (You're WELCOME.):

What else? Bendy straws. HA. For real. There are bendy straws in there. A girl in our birth class was VERY concerned about what the bendy straws (secret hippie midwifery weapons/tools?!) were for but the midwife teaching our class assured us they really are just for drinking (and sometimes you need water or labor-ade and you're in super-weird positions or in a birthing tub (where I will NOT be) and ONLY A BENDY STRAW WILL DO THE JOB PEOPLE!) (Also recommended to have a SIGNIFICANT supply of bendy straws for outside baby nursing sessions if you are like me and feel an INSANE thirst when your milk lets down!) (What? You know you wanted to think about breastfeeding and boobies today, right?!)

I WILL be glad to get my brain back and to start remembering words like CHAIR (it's REAL awkward to be like "Hey, babe, can you drag that thing over here? You know the one with four legs and that you sit in?"). AND AND I WILL be glad to get some sanity back and stop crying when Karl does things like bring me a glass of water and THERE IS NO ICE IN IT. (The horror.)

32 weeks, 2 days.

Nate delivered at 38 weeks, 4 days and is currently 3 years, 1 month and 2 days old.