In the back of my mind I had this lengthy list of things to address or accomplish before our baby boy arrives. It has stayed back there behind the other lengthy list of things going on. So last month I basically had to sit down and pencil in “START NESTING” on my calendar. Since then I’ve made a tangible to do list and I’ve been able to check things off little by little and I finally feel like we’ve got some momentum.
J hauled all of the baby related stuff that was in storage back to the house. When we moved 7 months ago I packed away everything “baby” thinking we wouldn’t need it, but then… surprise!
I wrote up my first hospital birth plan, and I filled out all of the paper work that was given to me by the hospital. This whole hospital experience is so different because I am having to address issues like not wanting an episiotomy, pitocin, forceps, or a newborn Hep B vaccine. These were non issues at my other births. The cool thing is though, my Kentucky midwife and I have discussed all of this and we are on the same page with my birth philosophy and ideals.
While I am on the topic of earthy mama philosophies I might as well bring up circumcision. Finalizing our circumcision plans was actually another thing on my list. We knew that unlike many “crunchy” alternative medicine parents we would choose to circumcise, however we really wanted it to be after the 8th day and without the vitamin K shot. With Z we actually had the procedure done by a Mohel, and we wanted to continue in that tradition, but being a gentile in new city finding a Rabbi that wants to work with us has been a bit of a challenge (I do realize how weird this is all sounding right now). In the end we are going to go ahead and have our midwife do it. She is very experienced medical professional and has been extremely informative in exactly what will take place so we feel comfortable going this route.
On a less awkward note we registered this weekend. That’s always fun. I love getting freebies just for signing up.
 We already got a present with cute little booties and bibs. I am full term TOMORROW which just seems crazy to me. This is all finally sinking in. Even though realistically there is probably about a month left before he will be here I could go into labor at any moment. The baby is done cooking and ready for a healthy delivery. That’s exciting stuff! It’s also a little scary since there are still plenty of other things left on my to do list, but I’m sure it will all fall into place and probably just in the nick of time.

I took my 8 month photo at the very end of August. It wasn’t convenient. It was more like ‘okay, if I don’t do this RIGHT NOW I will not have an 8 month picture.’ All parties involved, photographer (J) and subject (me), were in grouchy moods. Anyway, there is my big o’ belly.