30 weeks

Hi son,

After 7.5 months, I've discovered a way to really make pregnancy fly by... 1) Convince your mom and sister to visit your city for a week, 2) spend those days in the lap of luxury, swimming in the hotel pool and dining in the some of the best restaurants in the northwest, and 3) talk incessantly about the little boy for whom we are all waiting! This is how your 30th week came and went.

The whole family came to the midwife visit on Thursday. Twelve hands on my belly trying to guess where you are in there! You are endlessly entertaining.

Last night over dinner at Dahlia Lounge in Seattle, the conversation turned to food and ethics, as it often does with your aunt Marion studying food anthropology and flirting with vegetarianism. In a way, having you adds some urgency to the task of becoming the people we want to be. Now, with a set of teeny tiny eyes about to watch us for the next two decades, is when we have to start actually living by our principles.
I feel this way not just about coconut oil and locally sourced dairy, but about everything. Having a newborn is one of those rare seasons when all of your existing habits are severely interrupted - the end of life as we know it! - and in this, there is both real danger and incredible possibility. As we establish a new routine as a family, I want to do things well - for our sakes and for yours.

Your dad and I got you a little something at the flea market in Olympia this week. Other than the prenatal vitamins, this is our first baby purchase: a high backed, red wood antique glider chair. Sitting there this week, I try imagine rocking you, although since I've never rocked a baby before I may well be envisioning it all wrong! Perhaps my utter lack of experience with babies should unnerve me, but there is something sort of beautiful in that you'll be the first baby either one of your parents diapers or feeds.
We may well be diapering and feeding you soon, since your due date is just two short months away! But I have hunch you'll hang around a bit longer and be a June baby.

Whenever you come and whatever you do and whoever you become, we sure do love you...
From your very pregnant mama (see photo for evidence)

letter from Joy

Dear baby Keil,

This is your Great Aunt Joy!  I live in Spring Hill, Tennessee with your Great Uncle Bob and two cousins Hannah (age 11) and Nicholas (age 9).  Your Sweet T is my sister!!!  Can I just say we can't wait to meet you.  Our hearts have been filled with love since the day your mom and dad told us they were going to have a baby.  You have two very special parents and a HUGE family to support you and love you always unconditionally as Jesus Christ loves us.  I will be patient and wait my turn to meet you, but know that it will be hard and I will live on the pictures and stories of you until its my turn to hold you and meet you face to face.  I love you. - Aunt Joy

28 weeks

                                                                                        your mama @ 28 weeks, self portrait at work ;-)
Dear baby,

After so many weeks of bragging about how great I feel, I'll admit that I'm starting to be a little uncomfortable. I try not to complain, but I am oh-so tired and a bit overwhelmed, what with the job and the house and the body that is just plain awkward. I keep having anxiety dreams about breastfeeding in which I forget to feed you and everything just dries up. My entire pregnancy has been full of very vivid dreams, and they are only getting stranger in this home stretch.

Hopefully you're comfortable even when I'm not. You move every morning about 3 minutes after I have my first sip of coffee, as far as I can determine these are happy wiggles. At night, we can SEE you moving... You are fast and furious with those drum rolls on my abs. At work I rest my hands on the giant shelf that is your bump. Thanks for the arm rest, kiddo!

We spent a while looking through the baby name book this morning. I made your dad practice using all the options to see what sounded right:  introducing his son "___", telling stories about his son "___" and yelling sternly to "take that thing out of your mouth, ___!"

Nurse Brenda tells me it's time to start singing to you now that your hearing is fully developed. As a newborn you will probably recognize melodies and voices from the womb. What a great responsibility it is to have such profound influence over your music tastes!

Your grandparents and aunts are buying their plane tickets for your birth. Brace yourself, little guy - only three short months until you arrive and get completely smothered in coos and kisses by your doting family! Don't worry, I think you'll like them. :-)

Love from your mom.

letter from Rosie

It’s says Great-Grandmother but that means that I’m really GREAT as a grandmother and I need to see you a lot as you grow up. You are just a darling, darling child and we need to see you. You will be fun and sweet and good and sometimes you’ll be hard to handle but we don’t care, we’ll love you anyway . I want to see you as much as I can. Remember I really love you and can’t wait to start holding you and loving you. Actually I already love you. I just need to see you and play with you.

Love, love, lots,

Great-Grandma Rosie

letter from Jaynie

Dear, sweet baby! I’m another excited family member that can’t wait to see your little toes, fingers, snuggle into your little neck and smell your sweet baby scent. I won’t get to see you as much as I want to because I live so far away from your home, but I will be thinking about you constantly and treasure any time that I do get to spend with you. I can tell you funny stories about your Mama and her sisters and about your grandparents and other family members. I enjoy that kind of thing and maybe you will too. You are already lucky in the parent department. Your mama and daddy are going to love you to itsy, bitsy pieces!

Love,

Aunt Jaynie

To Baby,

It is March 1, 2012, and I am sitting in a coffee shop in Seattle, Washington. I am 21 years old, and yesterday was Leap Day. I just finished writing a journal entry for a class I’m taking about animals and the ethics of eating meat. I talked about you, and figured I should be talking to you, too.

I think about you a lot. Your mom writes about you in her blog, and every time I read it, I can’t help but cry. I live in a sorority, and it’s hard to cry in a sorority. People always see you, and question your red eyes. Sometimes my friends read it with me, and they cry too. Because life is so precious. I show everyone the pictures I have of you (really, they are of your mom, because you are still a baby bump). I am proud of you, growing so quickly! Lillian says you are in the 60^th percentile for your growth.

One day you will be old enough to read this. But today, you are not even old enough to see this. You are 26 weeks young. You are viable! Congrats! I can’t wait for all the milestones, and all the things you’ll do. I better be your favorite aunt. If I am not, or if you think I am crazy, I promise you that I’m not, and that I love you, even if I seem mean. I can’t imagine why I’d be mean though.

Miles, there are so many things I want to tell you, so many lessons I want to teach you! I want to tell you that life is full of beauty, and that it’s all around you, even when you don’t see it. I want to tell you that, usually, it doesn’t matter what people think. I want to tell you that the future isn’t bleak. I want to tell you that the future is waiting for you with open arms! It can’t wait for you to arrive! It can’t wait for you to start. I want to tell you that you probably can’t be the President, the Prime Minister of England, or a Prince, but that you can be pretty much anything else if you want to be. I want to tell you that you probably shouldn’t eat meat, because animals are cool and humans aren’t always superior. And cherries are delicious.

There is so much more, but I know you will figure it out. Lillian always had it figured out before me, and I’m pretty sure Jason had it figured out before both of us. So with their genes, you can’t go wrong. Hopefully you’ll get my attractive-ness and awesome-ness somewhere in your DNA.

I love you, Miles, or whatever your name is, and I’m always here if you ever need me.

Marion

27 weeks

.... that's your mom @ 27 weeks

Well, son, you're probably too busy developing to wonder much about what pregnancy is like for me, but I'd like to tell you about my experience of carrying you anyway. Someday you'll likely find out you're about to be a dad, and maybe some of this will come back to you as you prepare to be a parent.

I always imagined that the pregnant belly would feel like a natural extension of the body. In fact, I thought  pregnancy in general would feel more natural - organic if not effortless. Instead it feels like just what it is: like sharing your body with another person for nine months... which of course is very, very weird.

The worst parts for me have been that unbelievable tiredness the first few weeks and the food aversions, which linger still in the 3rd trimester. Everything tastes different now, and most things taste significantly worse. There have been days where all food is nauseating yet I've felt so hungry I've actually cried!

The best parts are the camaraderie I feel with moms who smile knowingly at my roundness and the ease of obtaining restroom keys even when the sign says customers only. And let me tell you, there are days when that key sure is a life saver.

In the beginning I would forget I was pregnant for hours at a time, mostly bustling around at work. Now your movements make it hard to do anything other than remember, and I have to consciously remember to talk about things other than pregnancy so as not to utterly bore those around me.

Some other news from your 27th week: we have a contract on a house now! Yesterday was the home inspection, and Becca came along to see the place. I thing I've finally gotten used to the idea of me and Jason having a baby, but imagining you as a toddler still feels so wild - Becca and I laugh as we talk about your little feet across the living room floor. A little boy running through my house, into my arms! Your dad and I are so, so excited.

I'm off to work, and like always you'll come with me. Let's make it a good day, no?
Love you, Mom

26 weeks

Today is the last day of our 26th week, baby boy!
Jackie and Dave got married last night. I got to take you and your bump out on wedding dance floor for some serious swinging. I should probably warn you that both your parents are both completely shameless dancers. You have so many hours of embarrassment to look forward to...

You made everything about the wedding a bit more sentimental. You, little boy, are the lens through which I watched the slideshow of childhood photos of the bride and groom. I got a bit weepy imagining your wedding, and you aren't even born yet!

Your grandparents have been here all week - Sweet T and Pop, Jason's parents. The four of us shared a beautiful suite near the Seattle wedding venue and got to enjoy the market and Dahlia bakery donuts together. Jason's dad says being around us brings back so many memories of when they were in our position, and Jason was the wiggling baby inside someone's belly. His mom tells me that although they were married for five years before they had kids, it felt like time began when Jason was born... Being pregnant makes me feel a little like that, like time has truly begun. For the first time, I see the weeks passing right before my eyes - I see the passage of time every time I look down at my growing lap. Seriously, baby, the last six months have flown by. All of the sudden I look and feel like a bonafide pregnant woman.

Everyone's begging for belly shots but my phone camera got water in it and I've been a little self conscious about modeling. But between the visiting Keils and my little sister, a few photos were finally snapped this weekend in Seattle. Your first portraits! Maybe we should make you a scrapbook, although it will probably be a few years before you can appreciate it.

We sure do love you, little one.
From your mom.

25 weeks

Son-
Your mom is 25 weeks and as round as a Chinese Buddha! This is what I thought when I looked in the mirror Monday morning. My friends coo and touch and laugh about how HUGE I am, but strangers and acquaintances still raise their eyebrows suspiciously. "Aren't you a little small for 6 months?"

At a Valentine's Day party last weekend, half the women in the room are pregnant. I cozy up to the hostess, a first time mom of a one-year-old. I work up the courage to ask if she enjoys parenting. I tell her I know how good it is, how blessed and rewarding, how miraculous and wonderful... but I what I really want to know is if she likes the day-to-day work of rearing a little tot. She hesitates before saying that yes, yes, she does enjoy it... But then she blushes and admits that she didn't enjoy it at first.

Nurse Brenda says she didn't enjoy parenting until her firstborn started to smile at her. She said after six weeks of manual labor, when she saw that little crescent spread across her daughter's face, she finally felt known and appreciated! Maybe you could start practicing your smiles now so your dad and I have an easier time of things this June?

In our meeting Wednesday, Nurse Brenda told me something I haven't been able to forget. She said you cry in the womb, but of course your cries are muted by all the amniotic fluid, placenta, and flesh that separates us. I can't tell you how much this distresses me. I picture you trapped and bawling silently, like a goldfish in a Ziplock bag on the way home from the fair. We'll get you out of there soon, I promise!

As usual, we never quite stop talking and thinking about you, little one.

Always in love, your mama.

24 weeks

Hey baby-

As of Monday, you are 24 weeks in the making!

I keep seeing bump-less women around town, jogging effortlessly down the road, eating sushi, wearing adorably tight jeans. I watch them and feel these intense pangs of jealousy... but then I remember that the frumpy leggings and lingering food aversions are an integral part of this process that brings you into our little family, and nothing can steal my joy.

Now that I've (mostly) got the whole pregnancy thing down, we are thinking more about parenting, gobbling up the relevant podcasts and articles. In so many ways (mostly my age and punk-rock haircut), I still feel like such an unlikely candidate for parenthood. I try to picture myself with you as a newborn. I tell Jason, "He needs us so much."All that love and all that anxiety... how will I bear it?

Your dad and I celebrated our first anniversary this week. The weather was beautiful, so we took a boat to Seattle and tromped around the sunshiny market eating French pastries before we meeting your aunt Marion at the aquarium. We wanted to go snowshoeing up in the mountains on Sunday (our actual anniversary), but we didn't have tire chains for the car and it ended up being an uncomfortable (read: big wiggly belly) day for me. We ate pizza and cake at home instead, laughing because we never in a million years imagined ourselves discussing baby names on our first anniversary.

Last night I dragged Jason to the Vagina Monologues at PLU. I felt a hot and breathy excitement during the monologue about childbirth. I cannot believe that that is how it happens, how people happen, how you will happen! I am awestruck, literally. What a miracle.

As usual, we are smitten with you. You and your little 1.5 pound body just going about your business inside of me... it's utterly unnerving and altogether wonderful. The midwife says that size-wise, you're in the 66th percentile. Keep up the good work! I am very proud.

Love from your mom.