a nest undone

i am 28 weeks pregnant with this baby boy and there are still so many undone things. i am feeling less of the need to physically nest as i did the first time or two ago and more of an understanding that the nesting that needs to take place is more in our heads. a mental, emotional nesting, if you will. mental nest #1... what were we thinking having 3 this close together!? did we lose our minds? we must have just been at an easier spot when making this decision.


yup, that must have been it. look at how angelic they are pretending to be.




seriously, how do you keep them all well-fed, accounted for, and safe? yesterday in the church parking lot as lucy was crawling up into the mini-van, she lost her footing majorly and dove head first into one of the weird-o exposed mechanisms on the sliding door. the sight of blood gushing from your baby's head is a very unnatural one if you haven't discovered yet.

the doctor was able to glue it closed since it had cut her perfectly horizontally. you can kind of see it on the left side of her forehead, just up from the watercolor paint on her upper lip. this happens to her accidentally, olive usually paints a body part on purpose every paint session. anyway, scary stuff for parents that have been second guessing the soundness of their own minds lately. but he is on the way and according to God's plan so it will work out. and things will get done and settled eventually.

i know now that he doesn't need his room all set up and just so like i thought the girls did. he just needs clean clothes, a blanket or two, a safe place to sleep, a source of food, diapers, and a family that wants him. third babies don't even need all of that stuff in designated places and in cute little baskets that 3 and 1 years olds will dump out and use for their baby dolls crib or something. sometimes its best just to let things find their home as you go.


olive at 3 months in her perfectly organized pink and green room. you should see her room today. less pregnant, nesting, new mom cute and more 3T sized panties on every baby doll kind of cute.





no, he'll most likely sleep in this little basket by our bed for the first couple months like the girls did. and hopefully i'll run across a crib bumper that i like before he's in his crib full-time.





look at sweet little lucy bea, 3 days old. she was so happy in this moses basket. but we kicked her out at 9 weeks so we could all get some sleep. she was such a little lu-bird back then.






yes, he should be just fine there. it's the decisions that need to be made that are stumping us. what will his name be for one? i know that will dawn on us eventually here soon enough. this doesn't bother me that he is unnamed the way that it does robbie. he explains that its part of his nesting process and a way for him to connect to him. to have a name that he can call him until he's here. so that when we pray for him, we can call him by his name. i can see that. he doesn't feel all the movements that i do, reminding me that he's here and coming and forcing me to be aware of his presence several times a day. so i guess we need to get that figured out for robbie's sake. i actually saw the name "lowlife" in our baby name book. can you imagine?

but even more importantly than that is another hot topic in our household. to vaccinate him according to the mainstream schedule or not. so many, many things mulling around in our heads. it seems that a peaceful decision is not out there for us. whatever is decided is truly going to be us being led in one direction by hopefully the hand of God. because at this point, we are frustratingly unsettled on the matter.

we vaccinated these girls. i'm slightly embarrassed to say that we really didn't give it much thought, discussion, or prayer. just did it. it was and is the beaten path and it works out just miraculously for most. there is just a handful of those that it doesn't for and so it would seem that the scientific thing to do would be to assume that we are in the majority. but there is a factor that makes our case different than most. especially since we are having a boy.

this is our nephew, micah, when he was almost 3 and just before he was diagnosed with autism. i love his face in this picture. at this age he could run miles without stopping. it was unbelievable.



here at 4 with his dad. he's a very happy little man.







he's six now. he's the one on the far right. this was just a few weeks ago at lake lure. those are his brothers joshua and elijah. and on a side note, i am so thrilled to have this picture of the three of them together actually looking at the camera. i've never accomplished this before, but i also never tried ice cream either. anyhoo, we love this guy dearly. he smiles and sings and loves to be by himself and loves to line up rocks and shells and study things intently. he's fascinating to watch and i pray as the years go by, he allows us more and more into his world so we can know him even more.

we all know that they don't know why this happens. they argue about it. but i work with adults with disabilities and happen to believe the school of people that insist they know for certain that there child was different after a vaccination. and researches are pretty unanimous that a genetic predisposition triggered by an environmental factor plays at least somewhat of a role. i feel like this time period that we are in is right on the cusp of a wealth of understanding on the subject and that maybe we need to hold off a few years to see what is learned. i'm just so not sure though. neither of us are. are you? what did you do for your children? how did you come to the decision that you came to? or what would you do if you had children? we'd love your feedback on the subject.