All. The. Things.

It took a while for me to recover from my panic attack about the way that this baby would have to exit my body. But I eventually calmed down. It's not like I had a choice anyway. As I've said before, you can't stop a train. Joel and I arrive at the shore, walk in the door and are greeted by my parents. The first thing Joel says is "yep, it's real, there's a baby in there!". I hang the sonogram picture up on the fridge. My father is over the moon, I didn't know until this point, but he'd always wanted to be a Gramps. His name was already set in stone as we'd been calling him "Gramps" for some time now in reference to his relationship with my two doggies. My Mother pretended she was indifferent.  She kept saying "I won't be that kind of grandmother" which later would prove to be a huge lie. The one thing she was adamant about was that she would NOT be called Grandma or any variation of that word. So "Sudie" it is.

We settle in and start talking about what we need. Lists. So many lists. I made the mistake of googling "new baby checklist" and oh my goodness. ALL THE THINGS. There are SO many things that the internet says are must haves for welcoming a baby. My Mother immediately squashed more than half of the items that the internet said we'd need. Of course I wanted the best of everything for our baby, sparing no cost. My Mother kept reminding me that people have been having babies and raising children just fine for hundreds of years without the help of luxury baby items. A "wipe warmer" for example. Because clearly my baby is too good for a cold butt wipe and it was essential we spend $24.99 to remedy that. A "pee pee teepee" was another good one. This is used to prevent a baby boy's pee from spraying all over the place during a diaper change. Really? I'm sure there is nothing else that can be used to prevent that and it was imperative that we spend $9.95 for this revolutionary invention.

We needed essentials and we needed them now. Technically, once I got to 37 weeks I'd be considered full term. Still, our baby was already viable outside the womb even at 35 weeks. We had to move quick. Car seat. Crib. Diapers. STAT. My Mother had already gone on amazon and ordered us a top of the line car seat that would last until baby was 90lbs. So that was amazing. One thing crossed off the list! Once word was spread everywhere except for social media, the outpouring of love and support was amazing. Joel and I got a beautiful crib and an awesome off road stroller from a co-worker of my Father. My friend Rachael gave us an infant car seat, a baby Bjorn carrier, and a ton of clothes. My other friend Lauren gave us a Rock 'n Play and a bunch of toys. The Amazon boxes started piling up at the house filled with gifts from all our friends and family. Side note, WHY is everything for a baby end in "'n Play"? Rock 'n Play, Pack 'n Play, Pop 'n Play, and Sleep 'n Play. I don't get it. These are items for infants. How much "playing" do they really do?

The next morning my Mom went to the store. She returned and proudly announced that she had purchased me my first baby related item. My excitement quickly dwindled when she handed over my "gift". I was expecting a cute onesie that said "Worlds Greatest Mommy" or something along those lines. Nope. I should have known better. Boob Pads. My FIRST baby related item was nursing pads, 100 nursing pads. Because as she so eloquently put it, "You're gonna leak milk everywhere." Thanks Mom. My amazing sister came to the shore later that day and brought me what I consider my first REAL baby gift, a Baltimore Ravens onesie. Thank you sister for understanding whats really important. My Patriots fan baby Daddy wasn't so happy, but he said he'd tolerate it because it came from my sister.

I know I've been giving my Mother a hard time in all my posts, but in reality, her humor really helped me get through the times where I felt totally unprepared and out of control. She was truly my rock through it all and I'll never be able to thank her enough. That weekend she took me to Target for my first experience in the baby department. Holy baby stuff Batman. It was unbelievable. To say I was overwhelmed would be the understatement of the century. I left Target with a greater understanding of how expensive a baby is, a few unisex onesies, and Joels first baby gift, a Star Wars tee shirt for the baby. I wanted his first Dad gift to be better than something comparable to boob pads.

That weekend our relationship status on Facebook went from "in a relationship" to "engaged".  Now I'm sure some of you are thinking that we only got married because of the baby. Even IF that was the case, which it was definitely not, it's not your place to judge so you can STFU with that noise. Joel had literally asked me to marry him every single day since January. I knew I was going to marry him, I just didn't know when. My being pregnant had no bearing on my decision to say "yes". Joel had already been in talks with my parents, asked for their blessing, and my Mom even gave him a family heirloom engagement ring to give to me. He proposed in a beautiful way in a beautiful place, and this time, I didn't say no.

The first REAL baby gift

Engaged! July 4, 2017