One month ago, my husband and I started our Lamaze class. I was 33 weeks pregnant and loving it. Mine has been an admittedly easy pregnancy with minimal morning sickness, no complications, and weight gain centered where it should be—my middle. At 33 weeks, I sometimes struggled to catch my breath or maintain my balance, but I was wearing any pair of shoes I wanted, delighted in watching and feeling my baby move inside me, and eagerly decorating a nursery. I remember that first day of class hearing some of the women further along say, “I just want it to end” and thinking to myself that I could never possibly feel the same way.

Well, I was wrong. The class is now over, the nursery is finished, and all the gifts from our baby shower have been put away. It’s a little like those days between Christmas and New Year’s: a state of suspension waiting on the “Next Big Thing.” And yet, it’s so much worse than that! Not only am I suspended between events, but I’m uncomfortable to boot. My feet and hands and face have swelled with excess fluid and, far from wearing “any shoe I want,” I’m stuck with the same pair of Croc flip-flops day after day. I sleep on a mound of six pillows every night to keep the fluid from pooling in my face, and I spend my evenings with a hot pad wrapped around my back and three throw pillows beneath my feet. I pout regularly.

And yet, I know this is a time to treasure. A time to revel in my husband’s closeness and my little girl’s still-developing life inside of me. I know that all too soon, my “couple time” with my husband will be much rarer and my little girl will one day grow up to tell me all the things I did wrong in raising her. But for now—despite the swollen feet and sore back—I have my husband all to myself and my little girl is still safely and lovingly stowed away inside me.  These things alone are worth putting off the Big Event a little while longer.

Posted by Stacy, a Dot-arilla Blogger

With a little over three weeks to go until D-Day, I’ve spent increasing amounts of time in my baby’s new nursery. A large bay window lets in lots of sunlight, brown satin drapes shimmer against pale pink walls, and a light aroma of baby powder  drafts from the diaper cake I received at my baby shower. A white metal bird cage with toy canaries hangs from the wall in the corner, the Moses basket holds fluffy blankets and a set of three cloth ducks, and the new shag rug invites toe curling. But by far the highlights of the room are a dark wooden toy box and matching rocker. These were my husband’s contributions to our little one’s nursery and I’ve never seen him so proud of anything in his life.

I’ll admit I wasn’t sure how he’d take to the idea of building a toy box and staining a hand-me-down rocking chair. Though he eagerly took every other shop class available to him in high school, he avoided woodworking class like the plague, too impatient to bother with carefully sanding each piece of wood. But within an hour of me broaching the idea to him over dinner, he had me packed in the car and on my way to Home Depot to shop for lumber, circular saws, stain finishes, and other supplies.

The projects ended up being more involved than I think either of us anticipated. For nearly an entire month, my sunporch was requisitioned as a workshop and fumes from the stain and wood managed to creep in despite closed and locked windows and doors. My husband sanded and stained only to find that he needed to sand and stain all over again. But he didn’t complain. Far from it. He rather seemed to enjoy himself sweating out in the sunporch getting fume headaches. It was his way of nesting, the best thing he had to begin bonding with our soon-to-be daughter. Each minute he spent working on that toy box and rocking chair was another minute he spent thinking about her and how she would use the furniture and the kind of person she would grow up to be. And now, spending a part of each day in her room, these are the things I most enjoy touching.

Posted by Stacy, a Dot-arilla Blogger

When we first decided to start a family, my husband and I were foolish enough to think that the hard part of raising baby would be sharing our religious beliefs with her, teaching her how to love and respect others, instilling within her a proper moral compass. We spent hours talking about how we wanted to approach discipline, what we would answer when asked questions like “Where do babies come from,” and which examples from our parents we wanted to mirror and which we wanted to avoid.

Silly us! We have since learned the hardest part of raising baby may very well be how to glean important safety information while weeding out unnecessary causes of panic. It started with the H1N1 vaccine. My OB said, “Get it.” My family practice doctor said, “Get it.” Almost 100% of the mommy discussion boards (as well as most of my friends) said, “DON’T get it!” After doing some research ourselves, we got it.

That decision was fairly easy to make; two very trusted physicians recommended I get the vaccine (one of them was pregnant herself at the time and had also gotten the vaccine). Others are more tricky. For instance, there’s the range of options in baby monitors. Do I want a monitor to tell me my baby’s breathing movements or am I okay with sound only? (I decided I’d be worried enough without laying awake watching the movements monitor.) After reading that used breast pumps are an absolte “no-no,” I returned the one I’d borrowed from a friend and added a new one to my registry. If I really scrubbed all those tiny tubes well enough, it’d probably be okay. But I know me; those tiny little tubes are not going to be scrubbed well enough. Then there’s the issue of paint. We’d found some paint samples we liked but a friend told us we really should get VOC-free paint for the nursery; it’s a little more expensive but not much and we figured it’d be alright. And it was—except that when we put it on our wall it was definitely not a “pink reef” shade but more a “lilac fields.” So, VOC paint it is; hopefully the room will be aired out and our daughter won’t be a wall licker. We’re still on the fence about our used crib mattress, though. Some sources say new mattresses off-gas, which may cause SIDS; others say used mattresses have bacteria in them, which may cause SIDS. I’m in favor of buying a new one but my husband, the finance guy, is in favor of keeping the used one. We’ll have to see what other expenses add up before we decide.

Ultimately, parents can’t control everything. Sure you can buy that all-natural organic wool rug for the nursery, but what will you do when you’re visiting out-of-town relatives with (gasp!) synthetically dyed rugs? It’s a balancing act, and all you can do is your best.

Posted by Stacy, a Dot-arilla Blogger

With today’s modern technology, every parent-to-be finds themself wondering whether or not they should ask to learn the baby’s gender before giving birth. When I told my grandpa at Christmas that we intended to learn our baby’s gender, his response was, “Oh, c’mon now! Don’t do that.”

There’s a lot to be said for the fun of suspense and the playfulness of making the announcement. But just because you want to know your baby’s gender (after all, there’s a lot of shopping to be done!) doesn’t mean that you have to miss out on any of that. Since neither of us are phone chatters, my husband and I agonized over how to tell everyone what we were having…until a friend of mine told me about “Gender Reveal” parties.

The concept is very basic. Bake a cake using the color that corresponds to what you’re having (pink or blue), frost it all over with gender-neutral frosting, and keep the gender a secret until the big cake-cutting moment arrives. Everyone had such a great time at my Gender Reveal (we titled ours “A Celebration of Chromosomes”), that other pregnant friends have also decided to throw their own cake-cutting parties. And we got a few small gifts out of the deal.

Posted by Stacy, a Dot-arilla Blogger

(Our friend’s Gender Reveal party featured these cake balls, catered by The Sweet Touch.)

My husband and I decided last summer that it was time. Time to take the plunge, create a life, dare to be parents. I thought I was ready. I read all the fertility books, adjusted my diet to include lots of Omega 3 fatty acids, and worked out diligently.

Two months later, when the pregnancy test came back positive, I realized I wasn’t ready. My knees buckled. I couldn’t speak and cried when I handed the results to my husband.

Now, almost 8 months after that momentous day, I feel more confident but no more prepared. I laid in bed last night counting Braxton-Hicks contractions and thinking, “Oh my God, I’ve gone into per-term labor and I don’t have a bag packed.” (I hadn’t, of course; I only had two contractions in 30 minutes.)

What I’m worried about isn’t my ability to raise a little girl (yes, we’re having a girl!). I’m not worried about my husband’s ability to play dolls with her, teach her to throw a softball, or scare away unwholesome teenage boys. I’m worried that we’ll bring her home from the hospital and be missing something vitally important—that there won’t be enough onesies, that the breast pump won’t work, that our savings account will run dry and we’ll end up on the streets. I’m worried we’ll run out of diapers at 2am. I’m worried the synthetic dye in our rugs or the chemicals in our walls’ paint will send her into fits of epilepsy. I worry over whether I’m supposed to put a bib on her when she breastfeeds. I worry that not having a wipe warmer means I’m a bad mother.

But ultimately, our little girl will arrive. And ultimately, we will meet her needs and she will turn out just fine. Because ultimately, I know that we are responsible, mature adults with hearts so full of love that we needed to create another person just to keep from bursting.

Posted by Stacy, a Dot-arilla Blogger