1. Get ready to be sleep deprived. Yes, you are sleep deprived in the last trimester due to being so dang uncomfortable. I remember waking up every hour or two to go to the bathroom. I thought it was neat how mother nature helped prepare me for sleep deprivation. But, that sleep deprivation in the last trimester is NOTHING like the sleep deprivation when little baby comes home. I didn’t sleep well for three months. That’s a lot of sleep deprivation and I see why prisoners of war are subjected to this type of torture. It is plain torture both physically and mentally. How moms of more than one do THIS with more than one child is beyond me… they are deserving of some sort of congressional award.

2. Because of the sleep deprivation, the mind doesn’t work normally. Things that would be no big deal are suddenly major big deals. That means if your husband is snoring in while you are getting up to tend to the baby, one cannot help but look at him in disgust. I remember thinking constantly, “Must be nice….” The baby crying longer than usual, choking on milk because it goes down the wrong way, a weird poop, etc… can all be interpreted as medical emergencies. Delusional thoughts of how frail the baby is and the thoughts of how easy it would be to harm the baby happen, too. Most women don’t want to talk about it, but it’s true. Thoughts of how frail Lucas’ neck was, etc… constantly bombarded me. It seemed to happen more the less sleep I got, and I learned to use that as a cue to get some rest. Call a friend. Seriously. The best baby gift anyone got me was coming to my home about 3-4 weeks out and keeping Lucas from 6pm-10pm while Jeff was out of town to give me time to catch up a little on sleep. It was the BEST GIFT. Kelley Work you rock! A break is all she needs. If her husband doesn’t travel, offer to help her during the day during the week. Take a day off work and go to her house and either help her with all the house stuff or have her go to bed and take care of the baby. I wasn’t able to ask for help because of my pride. Luckily Kelley being a mom of three was able to recognize what I needed more than another baby blanket…

3. LET YOUR HOUSEWORK GO. Seriously. Let it go. You will NOT be able to take care of the baby, yourself, and the HOUSE in the first several months. If you can let it go, it will make this experience so much better. If you can’t let it go, you are going to be completely frazzled and will look back and regret it. I let it go half and half. Wish I had let it go completely.

4. All babies, for the most part, are colicky. They spit up, cry, whine, and the like. Just be calm. Breathe deeply. Pray. Rest. It gets better every single day.

5. Take pictures every day. Don’t let it go by without pictures. Last count: I have over 2,000 pictures of Lucas. He’s only been on the planet about 330 days. That’s a lot of mammarazzi.

6. Get a good video camera. Some of my best memories are memories in motion. At count I have about 9 full video tapes of an hour each. I wish I had done more, but there’s only so many times I could capture a little coo early on. When Lucas started crawling at 8 months, it got a lot more fun and interesting.

7. Don’t sweat the milestones. Don’t sweat the decisions that seem to divide many moms. Don’t sweat the vaccines. Be informed and make a decision. No decision is correct or wrong. Seriously. I can argue that vaccines do NOT cause autism and I can argue that delaying if not in daycare is not a big deal either. If vaccines caused autism, we would have much higher rates than we do. That’s my personal opinion on it. I did opt to skip all hepatitis vaccines. Research hepatitis and how it’s spread and you’ll understand why. Hepatitis A is spread through food mostly. Last time I checked, Lucas isn’t eating McDonalds. Hepatitis B is spread through bodily fluids. All hospital staff are vaccinated against Hep B as hospital policy. Find out if you have Hep B. If you don’t, your baby won’t. The only other way he/she could get it as a baby is through blood, etc… I suppose if Lucas was in daycare I would go ahead and give Hep B vaccine because of cuts, scrapes, etc… that can happy and the sheer number of children there; otherwise, wait. If someone tells you to cloth diaper because it saves the environment? Last research shows that either comes out in a wash… in other words, yes it takes hundreds of years for our diapers to degrade. However, the amount of water it takes to wash the cloth diapers is wasteful as well. Probably the better choice would be to find a diaper that is environmentally friendly AND disposable. That would actually be the best choice, but high on the pocketbook and so far haven’t found one that didn’t leak for Lucas. I don’t know about you but a leaky diaper is not something I have the time for working AND taking care of him. Moms are SO opinionated, me included. Take some advice… try it out… find your own way. Don’t sweat it. We all love our babies.

8. Get ready to discover that you never knew what love was until you met your child. It goes beyond the love you have for your spouse… not that it’s more, but that it’s different. You suddenly understand the love that God has for you and that God had for His Son. Just today, I have to add as I type this, a technician was here to put in a new phone jack so I can move my home office downstairs later, and he told me before he left that he had been under the house praying for me. I suppose in his line of work he finds a way to incorporate his faith, which I appreciate, into his work. He told me as he prayed for me that God told Him to tell me how precious I was to Him… like the love that I have for Lucas. I have been thinking about that love lately. I’m super glad that he felt comfortable to share that with me today because in this world, a lot of people would meet that word with skepticism and negativity.

It actually made my day.

Having a child is going to change your life for the better. You will discover how to be less selfish (hopefully). You will be amazed at the amount of love your parents showed you and how much they loved you. If your parent was not in the picture you will wonder how they could even leave.

It has been amazing.

Surrender: Let Go and Let God Work
by Rick Warren

Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Psalm 37:7 (GWT)

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Surrendering your life means:
· Following God’s lead without knowing where he’s sending you;
· Waiting for God’s timing without knowing when it will come;
· Expecting a miracle without knowing how God will provide;
· Trusting God’s purpose without understanding the circumstances.

You know you’re surrendered to God when you rely on God to work things out instead of trying to manipulate others, force your agenda, and control the situation. You let go and let God work.You don’t have to always be in charge. Instead of trying harder, you trust more.
You also know you’re surrendered when you don’t react to criticism and rush to defend yourself.
Surrendered hearts show up best in relationships. You are not self-serving, you don’t edge others out, and you don’t demand your rights.

The supreme example of self-surrender is Jesus. The night before his crucifixion Jesus surrendered himself to God’s plan. He prayed, “Father, everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine” (Mark 14:36 NLT).

Jesus didn’t pray, “God, if you’re able to take away this pain, please do so.” He began by affirming that God can do anything! He prayed, “God, if it is in your best interest to remove this suffering, please do so. But if it fulfills your purpose, that’s what I want, too.”

Genuine surrender says, “Father, if this problem, pain, sickness, or circumstance is needed to fulfill your purpose and glory in my life or in another’s life, please don’t take it away!”
This level of maturity doesn’t come easy.In Jesus’ case, he agonized so much over God’s plan that he sweat drops of blood. Surrender is hard work. In our case, it requires intense warfare against our self-centered nature.

It’s very difficult and has been in the past for me to do exactly this. I have always been the type of person to try to “make” things happen on my timetable. Trusting and doing nothing while waiting is definitely against my personality. I like results yesterday!

The struggle when finally getting to the point of surrender is an exhausting one. It’s “what can I do to do this…”? On and on… trying to make things happen, trying to see the result we want (even at the expense of what is truly best for us), etc… Sometimes we don’t even know what is best for us. I’m always trying to remember that everything happens for a reason. God uses those things in our lives for good. I wonder if I’ll truly ever learn this lesson rather than struggling for a period of time and then FINALLY releasing it. If I could ever learn to just release it from the beginning, it would save me a lot of heartache.

There’s nothing sweeter than baby feet. He definitely has his father’s toes. The big toe and second toe can split apart pretty far, almost as if he could stick that big toe out and flag down the next car on the road!

We’ve been working hard on naps in the past couple of days. This is a tough one for me because I definitely have very little patience, but today it paid off using the techniques another new mother taught me.

What a sweet baby he has been, and I feel so lucky to have him in my life. I did some reflection today remember how badly we wanted this child.

We feel very blessed right now.

I’ve never known love like this. It’s quite overwhelming actually. I go back to April 7th when L made his appearance into the world and the wonder I felt. This baby. Half hubby and half me. Amazing. A miracle. I have many times gone back further in time to the miscarriage on 2/2/06. Twins. Two Ls! Imagine it, but I would never have known this L. The miscarriage had its purpose in my life. It helped me appreciate the miracle of life. It helped me grieve for someone I loved (someones actually) though had never met. It made my desire for a child that much stronger.

I think about the love that God has for His children. I heard all about it growing up. “God loves you. You are a child of God.” I never knew what that meant to the extent that I do now. If God loves me the way I love L it is no wonder He could die on the cross for His children. It’s a love like none other.

It’s amazing to just sit here and watch the two of them sleep. Father and son. Hubby, the father he never had. L, the son we desperately wanted for a long time. Hubby’s chest is rising and falling as he is sleeping very deeply. L is resting as well rocking to and fro with his Daddy’s breathing like a little boat on a moving sea.

What a blessing I’ve been given with them in my life.