Breast Milk or Formula? And Other Thoughts During My 3rd Trimester

I'm 33 weeks now. My last pregnancy post was the 20 week gender reveal. We have a name picked out for Princess #2, but we won't be sharing until she is born. 😃

Benjamin really understands that I am growing a baby, and that she will be born soon. About a week ago he said, "Mommy, I want to go to the hospital and see the baby come out of your tummy." I laughed and told him that he has to wait until after Christmas, and grandma and papa will bring him to visit. Benjamin loves rubbing my belly, hugging it, and giving the baby a kiss. He also seems to understand that baby girl moves and kicks and that it sometimes hurts me. When I suddenly gasp or cry out in pain Benjamin will ask, "Is (her name) kicking you?"

I'm still not sure if Luna understands. When I was pregnant with her, I know that Benjamin didn't understand, but Luna has developed faster than Benjamin, so she might. She doesn't talk about the baby as much as Benjamin does, but she does like to look at and tickle my bare belly. Every once in a while she does hug my belly and say, "baby" so she might know what's going on.

Baby girl started moving and kicking for Gerson a couple of weeks ago. Benjamin moved for Gerson super early, and Gerson simply putting his hand on my belly would cause Benjamin to start kicking and dancing. But both Luna and this baby have been a bit more shy and Gerson can only feel them if they are already moving and I get his hand on my belly in time.

Despite my attempts at exercising, I am the biggest this pregnancy than my other two. I've been told that you get bigger with each one, but I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't bother me. I just was so spoiled with Luna. I wasn't sick,  I was able to exercise, and I gained the least amount of weight. Right now I weigh as much as I did with Benjamin at 39 weeks! Gerson said that only my tummy is bigger than the other two times. He doesn't think my face, arms, legs, or back look bigger than my previous pregnancies. I'm glad  he sees it that way, whether it's true or not, it makes me feel better.

I get cramps and heartburn, and sleeping comfortably is a nightmare, so I'm physically ready for her to come even though I still have 7 more weeks! (give or take) But our apartment isn't ready. I still need to go through all of Luna's clothes and bring them in from the storage unit, and bring the bassinet in and the swing, and it doesn't feel like we have room for any of it. (Related side note: we just finished watching How I Met Your Mother and when Marshall and Lily are pregnant with their third Marshall says, "Marvin and Daisy are good sharing a room, and we'll put the baby's crib in... the shower." That's EXACTLY how we feel right now! But in reality, baby girl can fit in my and Gerson's room for now.) So since I have so much organizing to do, I'm glad I still have 7ish more weeks. (knock on wood)

As we get closer to my due date, I've thought about how I'm going to feed this baby. I didn't do anything to prepare for Benjamin, because I thought that breast feeding would come natural and it would all be good. It wasn't. After two weeks I switched to pumping. After a couple weeks of pumping, I wasn't pumping enough, so I did formula and pumping. And when Benjamin was 3 months old I switched to just formula. The whole process was really emotional and depressing. And when my milk dried up, I felt a huge weight lift off of my shoulders. (I know all of the opinions about "trying harder" and how much milk production really is enough. Just please accept that you were not there during those sleepless emotional nights, and so any "you could have/should haves" nipple nazi mantras mean nothing to me and my individual situation.) It was really embarrassing to feed Benjamin formula in public. One lady at church asked me if I nursed him at home and the bottle was just for public. I was so embarrassed that I lied and said yes. So when I got pregnant with Luna, I was determined to do things differently.

During my pregnancy with Luna I prayed every day that I would be able to nurse her. I asked my mom to pray for me, and I asked one of my cousins to pray for me. As I got closer to  my due date I read every article I could find about breast feeding, and explained my hopes with my OB and asked for advice on what pre-labor prep I could do to insure my milk came in. When Luna was born she latched right away and nursed for an hour! I had zero problems with her. No latching fights. No bleeding nipples - they weren't even sore, ever. When I did pump, zero problems with producing enough. I truly believe that my prayers were answered. And I also wonder if part of it is simply Luna's personality. She eats anything and everything we put in front of her, she even steals from our plates. Getting Benjamin to eat is still an exhausting battle. So maybe from the start, both of  their eating personalities affected how nursing went.

With this baby I haven't felt stressed, worried, or determined when it comes to feeding them. I haven't felt the need to ask God for it to turn out a certain way. I trust that things will turn out the way they are meant to. Of course plan A is to breast feed, but I'm hoping that if that doesn't work out, I won't be as emotionally devastated and embarrassed this time around.

I can't believe we are almost there! I'm so excited to meet her!

Be the First to Give Respect

Family Search's question for November 4th was: What motto or creed do you live by?

The first thought that came to my mind was, "You give me all of you and I'll give you all of me." That was my dating motto. But I don't really think that's what Family Search had in mind, and I don't really want to rehash old break up stories because I gave that ultimatum, and the only guy willing to accept it and follow through was Gerson.

The second thought that came to my mind was two memes about respect that I saw on facebook that I heavily disagreed with. Both, in summary, sent the message of: "I won't respect you until you respect me." Although I understand, and to an extent agree with the mentality that respect must be earned; I feel like if everyone is waiting for others to show respect first, no one will ever give respect.

So I have recently started working on making sure that I treat everyone around me with respect regardless of how they are treating me, on and offline. Being respectful is a variety of attitudes and characteristics. It's holding my temper when someone makes me angry. It's showing genuine love and care for someone when serving them. It's using kind language when disagreeing with someone. It's accepting someone's different opinion and valuing them as a human being.

In the most recent women's session of conference President Uchtdorf said:

"When someone opposes or disagrees with us, it's tempting to assume that there must be something wrong with them. And from there it's a small step to attach the worst of motives to their words and actions.

Of course, we must always stand for what is right, and there are times when we must raise our voices for that cause. However, when we do so with anger or hate in our hearts - when we lash out at others to hurt, shame, or silence them - chances are we are not doing so in righteousness."

He later goes on to say:

"We are responsible for our own discipleship, and it has little - if anything - to do with the way others treat us. We obviously hope that they will be understanding and charitable in return, but our love for them is dependent of their feelings toward us."

I'm not perfect at being respectful 100% of the time, but I'm working on it and doing much better. I think it would be beneficial for everyone to work on being respectful without the condition of others respecting us first.

Values for My Children

Family Search's question for October 28th was: What values do you feel are most important to pass down to posterity?

I decided to go back through my old posts and see what I had wrote about what I wanted to teach Benjamin and Luna. This is what I found:

• I want to give them the opportunity to make their own choices when it comes to school, extra curricular activities, work and other interests.
• I want to teach them to work hard in school, and that will lead to working hard in life.
• I want to teach them to eat healthy.
• I want to teach them to make the right kind of sacrifices. Sacrifices that help them follow God's plan for them.
• I want to teach them to value a temple marriage.
• I want to teach them to value families.
• I want to teach them to value education. (That one might be mentioned several times because it's that important to Gerson and I.)
• I want to teach them about money the way my dad taught me: a little bit of responsibility at a time.
• I want to teach them how to build their own testimonies.
• I want to teach them to value friendship and to be kind and inclusive.
• I want to teach them to find joy in service.

And the most important:

I want to teach them to build a relationship with Jesus Christ and to follow His example.