To Azealia Banks

Dear Azealia,

First off, I would like to clear the air. I am a conservative, white American. I live in Missouri. I work a 9-5 and have a husband and son. I love my life. I am not a fan of yours. Your music offends me, as do your opinions. Please stay with me, because I know my whole life offends you.

I love you.

I love you because you are a human being. I love you because you are created in God's image. I love you because even though we are opposites and if we were to meet, we would probably clash horribly, we do have one thing in common. We are both horribly depraved sinners. I don't know what sins you would admit to, but I, for one, am a liar, cheater, thief, adulterer and probably a lot more that I've forgotten. I do not think I'm better than you. In fact, I know I am just a downright horrible person. But I'm a horrible person who chooses to love you.

I love you despite your offensive actions. I love you even though there is a possibility that you are going to accuse me of some kind of latent lesbianism (because you know that as a conservative, Christian, midwest American, that will probably offend me). I love you because of a choice I made, not because of emotions I feel. I love you, someone who offends me and is offended by me, because that is how God loved me before ever I loved Him (please see the PS), and I must share His love.

I know you are getting a lot of flak right now from "my people" (you know, the conservative, white American sector). They are offended by what you said about us and are letting you know about it. I didn't even know you existed before this whole Playboy article thing popped up, and I was shocked to hear what you had to say. But I am going to love you, not hate you. I am going to forgive you, not judge you. I am going to pray for your salvation, not for you to leave America or die or something equally rude. I am going to forget your offenses against me, instead of holding them against you.

I doubt we will ever meet in person. But if we do, you will see that my words are not just a clanging cymbal, a terrible sound in your ears. You may say awful, mean things to me, but I will be patient and kind to you. I will not boast of myself and my opinions pridefully. I will not dishonor you, I will not become angry. I will not be evil to you, and do not delight in others doing so. I will joyfully share with you truth, even truths you may not want to hear. I will protect you, I will trust you, I will have great hope for you, I will persevere in loving you. And through the power and strength of God, I will not fail (by the way, if you ever pick up a Bible, you will find this passage in 1 Cor. 13). And yes, heaven knows I am not perfect. I am terribly apprehensive about claiming all this, because I know all my imperfections and I do not want to let you down.

But looking around me, I cannot wait for others to tell you this. I do not know if they will. And these are things you need to know. There are people who disagree with you and your stances but still choose to love you. I am one of them.

Love,
Brittany

P.S. "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." This is recorded in Romans 5:8. Christ DIED for me before I ever heard of Him. And so I love you, before you ever even know I exist.

10 pointers on how to have a baby for the first time ever

So it's been a while since I have posted (give me a break - I'm not used to blogging here), but since my last post, I have given birth to the most beautiful little boy. We'll call him Mr. Blue because my husband's biggest fear is that his name will become overly popular in the next few years and we will have begun a trend name (perish the thought!). If you know my little's real name, just call him Mr. Blue in comments here.

Anyway, I'm a birthing PRO now, so I thought I'd give a few general pointers to people who need them.

1. Labor - not as scary as you think.

 My particular experience was rather maddening, but it came to a head very suddenly. Two days before Mr. Blue's birthday, my doctor decided I had to induce two weeks early. I was really hoping (and planning) for a completely natural birth (if that's what you want, get a midwife - doctors don't really roll that way). Anyway, there I was thinking I had a few more weeks of mental preparation, and that I would be able to ease into the labor naturally and all of a sudden, I was waiting for a call telling me what time I should be at the hospital in the next two days.  I was freaking out.

I don't know what it feels like for labor to come on naturally. I was induced, and what that means is essentially I went from 0 contractions at all to strong contractions every two minutes in about a half-hour. I wouldn't advise this if possible. The pain was pretty bad, and I ended up getting an epidural. But all the freaking out I did in the previous two days? Wasted energy.

2. Family - ignore them if you want

If you are part of my family, I apologize for this pointer. However, in the two days between the doctor and the delivery, our family was pretty interested in news from us. In those two days, I got phone calls from people who hadn't called me in months or years before then. I took the first one, and, after having to hold back frantic sobs while a relative who (meaning well) was trying to probe for "how I was feeling" and telling me all about "her birth experiences", I just ignored all the rest. I didn't want to spend all my time crying and pretending I wasn't, and I didn't want most of them to know that I was scared out of my wits.

So my husband and I texted our parents and told them what they needed to know and asked them to pass the info on, along with the request for everyone to leave us alone. Our excuse was that we wanted to spend our last couple of childless evenings with just us two (and that was true), but the main reason was that I didn't want to talk to anyone about it - freaking out was really tiring.

Also on a side note: Hearing the phrase "When I had [name of baby]..." precedes a story that has no bearing on the way you are going to deliver your baby. Chalk it up to a story on the level of "When I was a kid..." stories. Particularly the ones that are horror stories. Because people always like telling their horror stories. Just because it happened to someone else doesn't mean it's going to happen to you. Especially if the person is more than 15 years older than you. They did things differently back then.

3. Hospital staff - Be nice to them

They know you're in pain. They work with this everyday. I don't know the exact stats, but nurses in Labor and Delivery apparently have an extremely high job satisfaction. Considering they probably get screamed at a lot, that is kind of impressive.

However, it is generally better to have them be sympathetic than frustrated. So if you must scream (I was more of a whimperer when I was in pain), try to scream nice things at the nurses, like "WOULD YOU PLEASE MIND GETTING ME SOME WATER?!" and "I'M SO SORRY I'M SCREAMING AT YOU!" It will keep you on their good side and probably give them a chuckle in the process. If you don't make everything all about you, they'll try harder to do that for you.

4. Care about your Mom

My mom told me after the birth was over that she wished someone would have told her how I was doing. My birth actually went very quickly and easily on me. I was so okay that nobody thought to tell my family how I was doing - they only heard about the baby. But apparently my poor mom was sitting there in the hallway, worrying about me, and getting no news.

So if your mom is not in the delivery room with you, have someone tell her how you are doing. After all, you're a mom now, and someday, you may be going through the same thing!

5. It's YOUR baby

Our close family came into the L&D room about two hours after Mr. Blue entered the world. The first thing out of their mouths was "Can I hold him?" We did pass him around a little bit, and he didn't seem to care too much, but if you are uncomfortable with it, just say "No". Pretty soon, you'll be too happy to let others hold him and keep an eye on him, and he did just leave the comfort and safety of your womb only minutes ago (even if the number is 120, he's still really new).

Even now, when he's more than a month old, I still get antsy about BIG groups of people wanting to hold him and pass him around - like at church, or if my family is getting together for a birthday party. I don't care if one person holds him for an hour or two, but passing him around from person to person? Not on my watch! Not yet, anyway...

6. It's almost like they don't want you to sleep...

As soon as you possibly can, go to sleep. It's best if you sleep while others are still awake, because at night, when you are the only thing standing between your newborn and death, you will not sleep. And if you do, the nurses and PCAs and phlebotomists and doctors will come wake you up. My husband helped as much as he could, but we are breastfeeding, and he really couldn't do much in that area. Also, it turns out that sometimes, babies make noises while they sleep - noises that don't mean anything - noises that are similar to noises adults make when they're settling down to sleep. Every single time he made a peep, I was up and at his side.

I would tell you to calm down and realize nothing's wrong, but you won't believe me until you check for yourself. So during the day, get your mom or your husband or someone to hold him and make sure he isn't dying and allow you to sleep for fifteen minutes. You'll need it when the sun sets. This will continue for a little while when you are at home too, but you won't have the hospital staff getting in the way of your resolve to not worry about him.

7. Lactation consultants = your new best friends

If the lactation consultant shows up when you have visitors, make sure he/she will come back, or kick your visitors out. Even if you feel like you got this breastfeeding thing down, it's always a good idea to make sure you are doing it right. If the baby is latching incorrectly, your nipples will hate you, and the difference between doing it right and doing it wrong is pretty slight. So make sure you know what doing it right looks like.

You should also have them help you pump at least once, because pumping is different than feeding and it is more efficient if you're doing that right too. It's the difference between getting a steady stream of milk with each pump or just drops at a time.

And lanolin. Get lots of that junk.

8.  Don't let your diet go to pot

You are going to focus mostly on taking care of your new little one, and getting sleep yourself. But it is important to at least eat regular meals that include basic nutrition (don't subsist on snack foods). I've had a doctor mention that I need to be drinking milk to make sure I have extra calcium. I've been enjoying a snack of milk and cookies a couple times a day - but I have a sandwich for lunch and something cooked for dinner also.

On a related note, when Mr. Blue breastfeeds, it's as if he sucks every drop of moisture from my body and I immediately want a glass of ice water. Without fail. So be sure you are prepared when you breastfeed. You'll figure out what you need pretty quickly.

9. Paper plates and cups

Before we left the hospital, my dad told me he wanted to go get some easy-to-cook meals for me to use the first couple of weeks at home. He asked if there was anything particular I wanted and the four most beautiful words proceeded from my lips.

"Get some paper plates!"

Not having to deal with washing plates after every meal was amazing (with my husband home, we would have been doing dishes at least once a day). All we had to worry about were our glasses and we have a lot more of those than plates. Finish a meal, throw the plate away. I would so highly recommend doing this. Especially if it is your first baby, you're going to be SO tired (see number 6) and focused on other things - dishes will only add stress to what is arguably a pretty stressful time.

10. Take lots of pictures

We don't actually have a camera (I'm getting one for Christmas if I have to... do something extremely unreasonable for it), but we have our mobile devices. Get them out and keep them charged. They change SO quickly at this age, and I personally want to remember all of the stages Mr. Blue's little face has undergone. We are starting to get some smiles from him that aren't gas, and as soon as I realized this, I grabbed my years-old iPod and took some really grainy, shaky footage of him mimicking my grins. Even if you don't have a camera, find something to take pictures of your baby and save them.

Albums (such as they were when I was little) are not as popular anymore - now it's all Instagram and Facebook and Twitter (probably synced). But make sure that you have more pictures than just what you post online. Some should be special just for your family.

The Shed... and a little more information

Last Monday, we had a big, beautiful shed delivered to our house. If there's one thing you need to know about my husband, it's that he is interested in guns and reloading. This means that our second bedroom has been occupied by a lot of reloading equipment - the sorts of things that won't really mesh with a baby. So we got a shed to store his equipment and give him a place to work.

My husband's parents came into town this weekend so his dad could help him get the shed set up. We're really excited about it - it now has electrical wiring, insulation, an air conditioner and a more sturdy counter for my husband, Andrew, to use for his workshop.

I have my first baby shower on Saturday - My mom is throwing it for me with the help of my grandma and I'm excited to start putting together a room for our little guy.

In other news, I'm still looking for a work-at-home job and I have gestational diabetes. Hmm... maybe the shower won't be QUITE as much fun as I thought... all that cake...

This little more information to which I alluded in the title is just what I'm planning on doing with this blog. I am going to use it to give people who are interested in our lives a little information about what is going on with the baby every day (it'll get more interesting a couple of months after he's been born, I think), because we have family scattered all over the world.

But I also think I'll have a section that I call "The Philosophical Shower" where I post some of my thoughts about all kinds of different things. You see, I realized a few nights ago that (for some reason), I like to wax eloquent to myself while I shower in the evening. The topics are wide and varied, whether it's musing over a blog post I read that day, or my in-depth analysis of a fight I had with Andrew that day, or what I think of a particular song's lyrics. It could be anything.

My disclaimer for this section of posts is going to be this:
I do not care if you are offended by my opinions. That probably means I'm offended by yours. But my opinions are based on rational logic that I have deliberated in my own mind and heart, not based on what institutions around me are simply telling me to think. So if you want to have a discussion, I'd love to. Don't yell at me (IN ALL CAPS) or call me names, and I will not pay any attention to your use of curse words. Saying things I disagree with very loudly isn't going to make me want to agree with them more (or make me like you better).

Another part of this section is that it will probably be very personal. A lot of my opinions have been formed from my own experiences, and what I've witnessed in my family and friends. Your anonymity will be protected as well as possible.

Our growing family

As a seven-month pregnant new mommy-to-be, my world is changing.

My husband and I were married in May four years ago. I've been a student, then a dropout, then a student again, then a dropout again... all the while maintaining a generally low-income student job. But there's a game-changer now.

We're having a baby.

So recently I've been putting time in trying to find a slightly better paying, less temporary job where I can work from home.

I've also been dealing with a wildly changing body. I don't think any amount of reading books or wise advice can prepare someone for what pregnancy does to you. I'm sitting here right now, typing while our little one is placidly rolling around in my tummy. I can see it, and feel it and it is so weird.

Yesterday I learned a little bit more about what I can take and what I can't. We had guests over for dinner last night, so I cleaned our whole house in one day and cooked a meal. We had a wonderful time, but after our guests left, I completely froze up! Turns out I have a too-much-work threshold now. Who would have thought?

I wish I could communicate better how excited we are for the arrival of our little boy. Every time he moves inside me, I want to show people (but by then he's still, of course). And it would be a little silly anyway:

"You'll never believe the cute thing my baby just did!"
"What?"
"He MOVED!"