Are We Ready For Our Baby to Come? // Hump Day Q&A

Foreign. You know what time it is, sweetie?

It's hump day. Q and A time.

Hump day.

Q and A. Hump day Q and A.

Welcome to the Naked Marriage Podcast. Hump day Q and A. We love answering your questions. So every Wednesday we're dropping a special podcast episode focused on one of your questions. You can submit your own marriage related question online@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or by sending us a message on Instagram aveandashleywillis. We've got a great question today, so let's dive in.

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Today's question is such an important question, and it's this. It says, what kinds of things should we consider before giving birth to our child?

Yeah, I mean, what are those things you need to talk about before that baby comes? And whether it's, there's a lot, first baby or, you know, second, third, whatever. It's. There's a lot to discuss. And I think just top of the list, some of the things to discuss are baby names. Like, what are we gonna name this child? There's the significance of what a name means. And if we're gonna have family heritage involved and then like, are we gonna be fair to kind of both sides of the family and how we do that and talking through all that. Number two, I would say, like, birth plan, you know, which really needs to be probably more up to the wife. I would say, like, how does she want to give birth?

Right. Because there's a lot of choices. You know, these days, it's not just hospital birth or at home birth. I mean, you have a birthing center where you're with a doula or a midwife. You know, we know a lot of people who've kind of done a combo where they meet at the birthing center for all their appointments, but then the midwife and doula comes to their home and they give birth at home. Do you want to be medicated or non medicated? And I agree with Dave, as a woman who's given birth four times, let.

The woman decide that.

I think the woman has more, the wife has more to say with more weight on this because she's the one who's enduring this. But, you know, we've, we've talked to couples where having a medicated birth or non medicated birth is like a real issue. And it could be just in your personal beliefs about medications and so just talk through that. But no, it's, there's really no right or wrong way here. I mean, that you want that baby to come into this world healthy. I mean, that's the ultimate thing is you want the mother and the baby to be healthy, right?

Absolutely.

And so know that you just, you know, you're on the same team here, you know, and, and try to talk through those things. What else do you think is important?

I think practically you need to decide who you want at the hospital with you, if you want anyone in the room with you besides the two of you, you know, a mom or, you know, talk through that ahead of time. The more things you can pre decide, the less stressful it is. And then I think for after you get home with the baby to talk about, you know, how, how you can best kind of try to establish some kind of a routine together of making sure that you're both getting as much rest as possible. And it's going to be hard in those early weeks, but you'll get through it. And then beyond that, how's life going to change in terms of work schedules? Like is, are we going to take maternity or paternity leave? What financial decisions do we need to make to kind of help make a way for all this? I mean, having a baby, it's, it's one of the greatest gifts in life. I mean, such a gift. Children are a blessing from the Lord, the Bible says, and they really are, but they are also, they're a, they're a complicated blessing because they will change every part of your life instantly. And so I think that you just have to kind of, kind of be ready, be ready for that. If it's your first child, I think that you need to pretty quickly decide, like, who are we going to trust to watch this child? Because you've got to keep focusing on your marriage. You're not just parents, your husband and wife first. And you got to make sure that you get those date nights. I mean, early on in our marriage, our first baby was just a few weeks old and my mom was like, all right, I'm going to come and watch this baby. You guys need to get out of this house. And I'm so glad she did. And it felt weird and awkward at first to leave and go, go Grab some dinner somewhere. But it was so important. She was very wisely reminding us that you've got to get in a rhythm of connecting as husband and wife and not just his mom and dad.

I love that. And that's, I mean, that's something that we were kind of challenged to do right from the start. And we've kept up with that with each of our kids. And even now that we have kids that are growing up. You know, I want to say too, one of the biggest things where we see husbands and wives really not on the same page is all the different duties that need to happen, all the tasks that need to happen. And I would say you both, you can, you know, it depends on kind of how your relationship rolls, but everything should not fall on the mother, right?

Oh, yeah.

And dads, I mean, you have such an opportunity here to really enter in and really help your wife. Because, see, not only, I mean, I know you both are exhausted, but like, her body is also trying to go back to normal. And that in and of itself with the hormones and just the physical changes is a lot of. And so just changing diapers and cleaning and like, you know, there's nothing, there's no task that is beyond either one of us. But this is where we both need to say, you know what, you look exhausted, Let me do this. Or, you know, just, just being all hands on deck all the time. And if you have older kids, putting them to work too, and saying, hey, can you go and take out the trash right now? Can you go and be with your little sister right now so I can nurse the baby? You know, try to get the whole family involved and say, like, this is how we can help each other during this time because it's going to take every bit of help that you can have. And I would say too, you know, there are certain people that have said hiring a, an in home nurse for a short amount of time in those first few weeks has been really helpful for nighttime, you know, for the mother to get more sleep. And so there's like maybe one nighttime feeding. Both, both of you can sleep and that nurse can do it and feed the baby. You know, I've heard a lot of different people talk about this, and I was always of the belief that that was something that was very expensive. But from what I understand, there are affordable ways to do this. I mean, we know people who've, who've done that. So just look at your options. Yeah.

And congratulations.

Congratulations.

You know, or if you're deciding, you know, thinking about starting a family Congratulations to that too. It's really an exciting time and we are praying for you and cheering you on and we hope that this ministry, both the parenting and the marriage aspect of XO's ministry can, can help you. You can go to xomarriage.com our ministries website, to get all the resources and, and just to throw out some baby names you might consider. I think Ashley or Dave would be, would be great.

Well, Dave's a classic David. It's bible name. Ashley is like, I mean, I love my name but it's, it's very.

Well, your first name is actually Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, which is very classic.

I mean, that's as classic as it gets.

That is very classic.

So, you know, just some ideas. So feel, feel free. Feel free.

There you go, guys. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks so much for tuning in. We will see you next time.

Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com you can submit your question right there or you can follow us on Instagram avanashleywillis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time. Hump Day Q and A.