The Half Hour Napper

Finding time to blog has been nearly impossible lately.

Because we're still having some sleep issues.

The good:

Baby goes down for naps.

And I can kind of get him down at night without going to bed myself.

The bad:

NAPS ARE ONLY HALF AN HOUR.

I feel like I've tried everything to keep him asleep for longer but nothing is really working.  The best I've managed is after a half hour nap in the afternoon, he starts crying and I go up there nurse him for a bit and he goes back down...for another half an hour.

I can do this 2-3 times so that he's taking a 2 hour nap...but I'm still tending to him every half hour.

It's hard to get anything done when you only have a half hour window.

And bedtime?  Same thing.  He will go down at 7-7:30pm...for half an hour!  So, once again I'm up there every half hour nursing him back to sleep until I'm ready for bed about 9pm.

I'm frustrated.

We've tried:

Tummy sleeping

Swaddling

White Noise

Crib

Bed

Swing

Vibrating Cot

Nothing keeps him down by himself for more than half hour. 

Once I go to bed with him HE'S DOWN FOR 3 HOURS.

WHAT THE HELL, KID?

I'm sure this is all because we co-sleep and he sleeps better when mama is next to him.  And I'm still not ready to give up on the co-sleeping because for the most part it means I get more sleep at night, but I would love to be able to have this kid napping for longer and going to bed before me and without me.

Anyone else dealing with something similar?  Any suggestions?  How long do your babies nap??? 

Milk, Milk, and Even More Milk

We all know and worry about low milk supply issues.

And while pregnant we all hope and pray that we will be able to breastfeed our children successfully and not suffer from said low supply issues.

But have any of you spent any time worrying about having TOO much milk?

I didn't even know such a think existed and if I had given it any thought it wouldn't have seen it as a problem.

And anyone who suffers from low milk supply can't see how it's a problem.  Because how can having TOO much milk be a problem?

Well...it's a problem.  And one that I don't hear discussed very often.

It turns what is supposed to be a calming soothing experience into a form of torture for your baby known as WATERBOARDING.

If you couldn't guess I have an oversupply issue.

And we're all drowning in a sea of milk over here.

You see, my body is convinced that it produced twins and has enough milk to feed those twins...and maybe a few other babies as well.

Do you know what happens when you make too much milk?

You have a crazy quick FORCEFUL letdown in which you milk comes shooting out of BOTH BOOBS regardless of which one the baby is on and tries to drown your infant.

My midwife compares it to having a firehose shoved down your throat.

DOESN'T SOUND CALMING OR SOOTHING DOES IT?

Well, my baby doesn't think so either.

In fact there is A LOT of coughing, sputtering, spitting up and burping every time we nurse.  Which is still roughly every 1-2 hours during the day!

IT'S ROUGH.

Baby latches on smoothly enough, but as soon as I feel that tingling of the letdown, off comes the baby choking and gagging on the firehose of milk while my boob sprays him and whatever else is in front of me with a geyser of milk.

I then have to somehow cover my geyser with a towel (without pushing on my nipple because I WANT the geyser to gush out into the towel to get rid of the excess milk and pushing on the nipple will staunch the flow) and soothe and burp the crying coughing gagging baby.

Really it requires 3 hands...at least

After the geyser is down to a trickle it's back to latching and sucking for awhile and then OH RIGHT THERE'S ANOTHER LETDOWN and we do it all over again.

Everyone INSISTS that around the 3 month mark the excess milk will start to calm down and my body will adjust the milk according to what baby actually NEEDS...and not try to feed all the babies in San Francisco.

I'm waiting patiently.   But in the meantime...

There are several "remedies" to this oversupply, all of which we've tried, but we're still drowning.

I feed on only one boob for 3-4 hour blocks of time, once we get close to that 4th hour the boob FINALLY feels like it's emptying and baby can nurse calmly without coughing and gagging.  But then the next feed is onto the heavy full boob and we start the routine all over again.  

I feed in positions in which gravity is NOT helping the milk flow.  Lots of getting baby latched and then leaning back so that the milk has to flow UPHILL.  We also do a lot of baby in sitting positions rather than laying positions so that he can better deal with all the milk.

Sidelying also works really well as the excess milk just flows out the side of his mouth and he doesn't have to try to gulp it down.  We both end up in a puddle of milk when sidelying but nighttime feeds are actually the easiest!

I'm also drinking peppermint tea everyday as peppermint is supposed to naturally help lower one's milk supply...so far nothing, but we're only 1 week in to Operation Peppermint.

Anyone else out there dealing with an OVERSUPPLY issue?  And if so, what did you or are you doing about it?  Anything work?  Or do I just have to give it more time?

And please no one tell me to try pumping as I do pump occasionally but anymore and it is only going to increase my supply!

Oh, and look who smiles finally!

Things I Never Knew About Newborns

I'm learning so much about babies, I never knew...

...that their umbilical cord stump stinks before it falls out!  And I mean STINKS!  For like 3 days my baby boy smelled GROSS, every time I'd go to change him this horrible stench would just come wafting up from him...EW!  In case anyone is curious why it stinks it's because baby's digestive juices are eating away at it from the inside-out...I never knew this.  Once it's off though baby is back to smelling like a delicious baby!

...they pee ALL. THE. TIME.  I had no idea a baby could pee so much!  He literally pees at least once an hour BARE MINIMUM.  And almost always you can get him to pee when you change his diaper.  SO MUCH PEE!

...baby boys pee EVERYWHERE!  Their little penis is like a hose and no matter if you point it down in his diaper or not somehow he can still pee everywhere.  He's peed out the side of his diaper, out the back, out the front, all over me, all over the bed, through his diaper, his clothes and his blanket through to the mattress, he even managed to pee on himself and cover himself from HEAD to toe...yes, he peed on his own head.  Again, there is SO MUCH PEE!

...because of all the pee, there are SO MANY DIAPERS!  We've started cloth diapering now that baby is bigger (he started out way too small for the cloth diapers!) and even with my 12 that I have we go through SO MANY DISPOSABLE DIAPERS!  I'm stocking up on more cloth so that we can get out of disposables completely, but HOLY HELL...I had no idea just how many diapers a newborn could go through in a day.

...they sleep A LOT.  A newborn is actually really boring!  I rarely see my baby's eyes.  They don't do anything except sleep, PEE, poop and eat.  It's a neverending 2 or 3 hour cycle of feed the baby, change the baby, baby sleeps for 1-2 hours and REPEAT.  I've never been so bored and yet so overwhelmed at the same time.

It's a good thing babies are cute because otherwise I don't know why we, as humans, would continue to procreate!

We call him...The Burrito. 

Look how tiny The Burrito is in the big bed!

One Week

I should be 39w2d pregnant right now...instead my baby is 1 week old.  Still so weird.

At one week Baby Jett:

Has diaper rash already!  Ugh, we tried so hard to avoid diaper rash, changing him ALL the time but alas...it seems it is impossible to avoid.

Is a champion nurser.  He's what's called an "efficient" nurser because he latches on, guzzles down half a boob in 8 minutes, gags, burbs and spits up for a bit, sometimes a la exorcist style (projectile baby spit up at 2am is awesome)...and repeats on the other side.  Nursing sessions should only take about 20 minutes at this rate but...

He is also a very picky eater.  If he has gas, needs to burp, needs to pee, has a wet diaper or dirty diaper, if ANYTHING is amiss he won't latch until the problem is fixed.  Thus nursing sessions take much closer to 30-45 minutes because mommy and daddy have trouble figuring out what's wrong before Baby Jett will nurse.  There's also a lot of latching, sucking, pulling away, figure out what's wrong, change what's wrong, problem fixed! back on the boob, latch, suck and repeat.  It's a game of trial and error.  

Is back to his birth weight already!  This can take anywhere from a week to a full 2 weeks for them to get back to birth weight, but because he's such a great nurser Baby Jett accomplished this feat in just 6 days.  Which is completely awesome because babies under 6 lbs. are too tiny!

Is also a champion sleeper.  We spent the first 6 days waking baby every 2-3 hours to nurse, which can be quite exhausting, especially when baby doesn't want to wake up!  But as of Day 6 when he reached birth weight again we can now let him sleep for a 4-5 hour stretch every 24 hours.  Of course we choose to let this happen at night and Baby Jett has put up no fuss about it.  I end up waking him up in the night to feed because my boobs are engorged...I have no idea how long he would sleep if we let him.  You know you're a parent when you think a 4 hour stretch of sleep is a LOT and you're super excited about it.  We, by the way, get a good 2 hour stretch and then the 4 hour stretch at night now and if we're lucky an hour or two nap during the day...it's not bad, totally doable.

Sleeps in bed with us.  I honestly don't know how I could possibly put him in his nursery all by himself when he's so teeny tiny.  I also don't know how I'd know to wake up and nurse if he wasn't right next to me.  He doesn't really cry, he just sort of wakes up and starts moving and grunting, it wakes me right up because I'm next to him but if he was in another room I imagine he'd have to get all the way to crying for me to hear him!  I love waking up to see him right there next to me...we will be co-sleeping until he moves around too much in his sleep as to annoy the shit out of me.

Is just being way too good of a baby for me to accept.  Instead of relishing in the moment I'm looking to the future and thinking about all the ways in which things could change and make him a fussy baby.  I should stop and just take in the moment and enjoy the fact that we slipped into this thing called parenthood relatively easily.

And because I never got to do my 38 week bumpdate...cause you know...we decided to just have the baby instead...I give you my final pregnant photo, taken just an hour or two before we headed off to the hospital.

And Baby Jett on the outside!  Curled into the exact position he was in utero.

Homebirth Childbirth Class

As we wind down and get ready to HAVE A BABY I thought I would chat a bit about homebirth, what it entails, what I've done to prepare, etc etc as I've had several people ask me for more info.

If you're not interested in homebirth than you probably won't be interested in my next few posts.

Just warning you.

Today, let's talk childbirth class.

Because today is my last class of a 6 week homebirth childbirth class.

I'll start this off by saying again that SF is kind of an amazing place to be having a homebirth.  There is no lack of resources and support if you've made the decision to have your baby at home.  Yes, your close friends and family might still think you're crazy and ask you weird questions like "What if you want an epidural?" the answer of course being...I don't, that's one of the reasons I've chosen a homebirth.  But if you're looking for other like-minded individuals it's not hard to find them here.

My homebirth class has 18 couples, all of us due in the next few months...and my instructor does one of these every 6-8 weeks and they are consistently full.

That's a lot of homebirthing hippies all nestled together in a fairly small area.

I've heard a lot of you say that your childbirth class was fairly useless and you feel like you could have skipped it because you didn't learn anything new.

If you're having a homebirth I highly recommend a childbirth class but one that is tailored SPECIFICALLY for homebirthers.

The main reason?

FOR YOUR HUSBAND.

I know and have known for a long time most of what we've gone over in this class, but if your husband is anything like mine he was fine with homebirthing conceptually and the more he learned about it the more he was all for it but he didn't know what HE was supposed to do and as the weeks passed he started to get a little anxious about what he was meant to be doing come the big day.

Enter homebirthing class.

The class goes over everything from the anatomy of pregnancy, WHY we have to pee all the time, WHY we aren't hungry when baby gets huge, WHY we get constipated etc. (my husband felt enlightened and I could see the little light bulb went off in his head when he saw a picture of the inside of a pregnant person and was like OH, I GET IT) to all the stages of birth to complications and what would constitute a transfer to the hospital.  We watch birth videos, we get down on the ground into birthing positions, and we sit around chatting and eating for half an hour in the middle of class.

The class lays out what's NORMAL about childbirth, how moving, breathing, making noises such as moaning, and warm water can actually help both with pain management and with moving the baby out of your body.

We also learned what positions are most helpful in labor and how to use gravity to help get baby out.  

And then the icing on the cake, THE CLASS GIVES YOUR HUSBAND SOMETHING TO DO.

Our instructor has literally given all the husbands tasks for when their wives go into labor such as:

1. Make sure she stays hydrated

2. Make sure she pees at least once an hour

3. Make sure she stays nourished, especially when dealing with a marathon labor.

I can't tell you how much better MY HUSBAND feels about the homebirth now that he has "jobs". 

The husbands are also asked to be active participants and they learned different massage techniques both to try out before the labor and during to see what mama likes and doesn't like.  They are also asked to be mama's "support", not just emotionally, that goes without saying, but we learned lots of pushing techniques that involve the husbands literally as support.  Husband supported squatting, husband supported rocking, husbands need to be strong for birth too!

The last class dealt with complications and what would push your birth out of the realm of "normal" and thus out of the hands of midwives and into the hands of Dr.s and hospitals for both your and baby's safety.  This class was of course the scariest and most uncomfortable, but it's necessary to know what can go wrong and why it would require a trip to the hospital.  I can tell you I did NOT enjoy hearing about a retained placenta having to be removed manually and I would happily take a ride to the hospital to have this done under anesthesia!  

And of course these aren't decisions that YOU ever have to make by yourself, your midwife would be making them WITH YOU during a homebirth, but the class lays out things that CAN happen so in the heat of the moment you know what she's talking about when your midwife says hey we need to go to the hospital for a piece of retained placenta.

I'm so glad I took this class and I know my husband is too...at this point I'm honestly more excited than anxious for labor to start.  I feel more prepared, my husband feels more prepared, we both feel like we KNOW what we're supposed to do and how we can make this homebirth successful.

Anyone else take a class during pregnancy that they felt was really necessary and really left them feeling empowered and ready to give birth to their babies?  I can't recommend Jane Austin's homebirthing childbirth class enough if you're in the bay area having a homebirth!

Grown Up Decisions

Last week was a bit of a babypalooza.

Monday was childbirth class.

Wednesday we interviewed our first pediatrician.

Thursday we had a group prenatal appt.

Baby, baby, baby, all the time baby.

I suppose this is what happens as you come to the end.  Your focus goes from all things pregnancy to all things baby.

Suddenly we've had to become parents without actually having the baby yet.

We made decisions AS PARENTS last week.

First thing we decided?

Everyone who comes near baby for the first 2 months has to have a whooping cough vaccine.  This is entirely because of the area of the world that we live in.  Marin County, just over the bay, is both one of the most under vaccinated counties in the country AND had a whooping cough outbreak a few years ago that killed some babies.

So, better safe than sorry, we're all getting vaccinated.

Second decision?

We picked our kid's first pediatrician.

We are big crunchy hippies apparently (seriously San Francisco, you could at least make me WORK to be the big fat crunchy hippie that I apparently am)  as we've chosen an "integrative medicine" practice ie. holistic and western medicine "integrated", that believes FOOD IS MEDICINE.

Music to my ears.

I believe wholeheartedly in the power of food to heal chronic ailments.  And I always strive to fix any imbalance naturally before resorting to western medicine for things like bladder infections, yeast infections, etc etc.

Did you know garlic and olive oil can heal ear infections?  Yeah...it totally works.  I've done it.

If I would have ended up with a pediatrician who tried to tell me that a colicky baby wouldn't benefit from me changing my diet I would have gone apeshit.  Fussy breastfeeding baby?  First things first, CHANGE YOUR DIET.

Seriously, music to my ears.

And another added benefit?  The pediatrician is 3 blocks away.  And another benefit?  They do baby's first checkup in-home.  That's right, Dr. comes to us!  And another benefit?  They believe in homebirth.  And they believe in the parents right to choose what vaccines to give their babies. 

I've been prepared to have to fight my pediatrician on a lot of things, homebirth, delayed vaccinations, mama's diet when breastfeeding, SO MANY THINGS...and it turns out I probably won't have to.

Anyone else trying to find pediatricians and fall in love with the first one?

And anyone else finding it bizarre that you're making decisions for a child that doesn't actually exist outside the womb yet???  I had to fill out forms and instead of putting my name under "patient name" it went under "parent name"!!!

Shit's getting real.

Nursery, Nursery, Nursery

When I wrote yesterday about feeling stalled on the blogging front a bunch of you expressed interest in hearing about my nursery.  Well, I wrote this post back in March just after our 18 week ultrasound.  I have no idea why I didn't post it then but I'm gonna go ahead and post it in it's entirety now because it's amusing and then I'll add a bit more at the end so you can all be up to speed on my nursery!

You all know I've had trouble with the nursery.

Trouble even saying the word nursery not DECORATING the nursery!

Decorating a nursery has been really really REALLY far from my mind.

So I've pretty much just ignored it.

BUT, that damn ultrasound kind of pushed us into action.

Instead of seeing a baby with no heartbeat (oh yes that's totally what I was imagining) we saw a little wiggler, heart pumping away...and it made me realize maybe we're actually having a baby in August!

I must say the growing belly helps immensely with the acceptance.  As it grows and makes certain activities more uncomfortable I'm forced to accept not only that we may be having a baby but that I may need to prepare for it.

So, we finally stepped foot in the nursery (that's right we don't actually go in there) and decided on a few things.

First thing we decided on? (Ok, fought about in a pregnancy induced hormonal outburst) is that the room we had designated for the nursery was not gonna cut it and that we needed to switch the guest room with the nursery.

The guest room is the best room of the house, it faces away from the street toward the garden, light pours in most of the day, it's a nice shape and the closet is actually a closet.

Our nursery (former nursery now) was rather dark with the only window on the side of the house that has a neighbor's house right next to it, it's kind of an oblong, long shape rather than square, and the closet is full of shelves, perfect for storing boxes and organizing but not so much for hanging baby clothes and baby things.

So we switched the rooms.

And I realized this might have been a huge reason why I was so hesitant to do anything with the nursery...I think I hated the room that we had designated as the nursery.

I'm much happier with the new arrangement.  I think the former nursery works MUCH better as a guest room and the former guest rooms works much better as a nursery.

So, now that furniture has been moved around we now have to decide on a nursery theme and pick out a damn crib.

Since we don't know the sex I'm thinking gray for the walls.

And then I googled.

Oh, how I hate google!

I googled gender neutral nurseries and guess what?

There are a million BEAUTIFUL nurseries and I am officially so overwhelmed that I'm back to being paralyzed.

Shit.

But then I stumbled upon this:

source

And remembered that I have this tucked away in a closet waiting for a baby:

And voila!

I THINK I DECIDED ON KOALAS!!!

Gender neutral, goes well with gray...perfect!

It also represents Australia a bit for us, since that's actually where we began our journey and of course where I bought the baby koala and also where I got the PCOS diagnosis and where we learned that baby making wasn't going to be easy.

It's fitting somehow.  Brings it all full circle.

So, while I reserve the right to change my mind at any time for now I have settled on koala as my nursery theme!

And now almost 3 months later I've kept the koala theme, started painting my walls, bought a crib, bought that cute koala decal above and...well that's it so far.

So, the crib and wall color looks like this:

I love my crib by the way, I think it's BEAUTIFUL.   It's also fully convertible to a toddler bed and then into a twin size bed as well.  WELL WORTH THE MONEY I SPENT ON IT.

The koala decal will go above my crib just like it is in the piccie.

I'm not done with the rest of the room, so that's all you get so far!

Another quick note on cribs, I felt like such an idiot when my crib arrived.  Like the biggest baby dummy EVER.  I did not know that the crib did not come with a mattress.  YES, I EXPECTED THE CRIB TO COME WITH A MATTRESS.

And then, after I did my research and bought a mattress I discovered YOU NEED A MATTRESS PAD.  Seriously?  WTF?  WHY CAN'T IT ALL COME TOGETHER?  

THEN I discovered I need a crib BUMPER!!!!  Really?  Did you guys buy crib bumpers?  As you can see I don't have one yet.  It's just one thing after another!

So, yeah, baby dummy over here...I know nothing about baby things (don't even get me started about how I had no idea what a pack 'n play was, not buying one of those unless I need it after baby is born btw).  My husband kept turning to me while we were building the crib asking me all these questions about mattresses and cribs and I'm like I'VE NEVER HAD A BABY!  WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME?  Does being female mean I know cribs don't come with mattresses???

And that my friends is where we are with our nursery currently...I will do a finished post...when it's finished, I'm thinking that might not be for another 10 weeks!

Simplicity

I will never know if my less than simple journey to motherhood has tainted my desire to get ready for this baby or if this is just me and what would have happened even if I had fallen pregnant our first month of trying.

But I can't foresee myself buying much more than I already have for baby.

I bought a crib...I know I need a stroller/car seat just in case we have to have this baby in the hospital...I bought some onesies...and I want a moby wrap or some sort of baby carrier.  But other than those few items I think I'm done.

I don't want to register because I have no idea what I will need until after baby is here, so why do I need it now?

I'm not necessary someone who enjoys simplicity, in fact normally I like "stuff", I like to have things just because they are pretty and not necessarily because they are functional.  In fact I love unnecessary shit.

I decorate with completely useless knick knacks.

I buy dressy clothes even if I have no occasion to wear them.

I love pretty crap.

But when it comes to baby, I think I might be all about simplicity.

To me, it seems that 100 years ago, maybe even 50 years ago you didn't NEED anything to have a baby.  You just had the baby and baby used the same things as you.

Why do babies now need so much crap?

I plan on breastfeeding exclusively, so I'm not buying bottles.

I plan on co-sleeping so I don't need an extra baby sleeper to put near our bed.

I plan on carrying baby with me the majority of places I go, so I'll get myself moby wrap/sling.

I plan on cloth diapering, but everyone says it's a bit of a trial and error, so I don't see why I can't use disposables for the first week or two while we adjust to having a baby and then dive into cloth diapers.

I know the kid needs some clothes, but...does it really?  What if we all just hang out naked for the first week while we figure things out?  Who's that going to hurt?  And THEN we will know if baby is a boy or girl and I can go all out making the kid fancy.  But why does that need to happen pre-baby?

Toys?  Newborns can't hardly see their hands, let alone use them, this can wait.

Pacifier?  Yes, I might want one, but apparently the first 10-14 days it's super important to not let baby latch onto anything besides your boob so that you can get your milk supply going.  Pacifiers can wait.

Pump?  I don't plan on pumping...at all.  And again with the 10-14 days, you're also not supposed to pump and only use baby to get your supply going.

Burp clothes and receiving blankets?  Yes, I'll probably pick up a few of these just so I have some, but again, I'd rather wait until after baby is born so I can buy colors other than green and gray.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but I don't know what.

Am I making this too simple?  Not planning enough?

I'm aware that I've never had a baby and HAVE NO IDEA what to expect, but women have been doing this for thousands of years with NOTHING but our boobs...I'm embracing the primal instincts that ARE pregnancy and motherhood and it's not about the stuff.

But in case I'm missing some biggies, new mommies, what was ABSOLUTELY necessary in the first week or two of babies life?  

10% Off at Baby Earth

Guys, I bought my crib.

I BOUGHT MY CRIB.

And now I have a 10% offer to share with you all from Baby Earth.

If any of you use this 10% I also get 10% off and since I just bought a crib, HIGH TICKET ITEM, 10% is sweet.

Anyway, you're all more than welcome to it.

It expires April 2, randomly at 4:40pm EST.

Check out Baby Earth, I randomly stumbled upon it and it's pretty damn cute.

Let me know if you buy anything!

It appears that you have to 'Like' the offer on Facebook to get the code, so I went ahead and got the code for you.

Try this code: VLP8UUF2

If it doesn't work here's the link!

Happy Shopping!

http://curebit.com/x/49TyO

How to Name Your Baby

Or what should be more aptly titled


How the Hell do I Name My Baby????

Finally at 20 weeks, we've just said SCREW IT.

The dams have burst and we're just going for it.

WE'RE GOING ALL OUT.

Decorating the nursery?  Totally started.

Talking about the baby like it's actually going to be here in August?  The 'ifs' just magically disappeared from our vocabulary.  We just say WHEN the baby comes now.

Buying baby items?  Ok to be honest I still haven't bought a damn thing. Not. A. Thing.  But since we've rearranged our nursery and guest rooms, the next step is to BUY A CRIB.  So, moving along in the right direction...must buy crib soon.

NAMING OUR BABY?...Fuck.

I thought this part would be so easy.

It seems that over the last year and a half as getting pregnant seemed farther and farther away NAMING the future baby became very unimportant and moved to the very very back of my mind and I've put basically no thought into this part of the pregnancy process in a very long time.

And I've discovered I get completely overwhelmed when it comes to all things baby.

Decorating a nursery? so overwhelmed with choices and ideas that I just stopped.  Picking out baby names? oh the choices! I always thought this would be so much fun!

Turns out it's kind of not.

I'm so overwhelmed with the thought of giving this little person their name FOR LIFE.

What if they don't like their name?!

Or what if everyone else in 2012 decides to name their kid the same thing and they have...god forbid, a COMMON name?!

I've always had a few names that I've been rather fond of but as I sat down and actually tried to NAME MY BABY I suddenly didn't like any of my names!

And sadly 3 of the names that I DO like are on the Top 10 Baby Names of 2011.  Stupid Twilight has ruined Isabella!!!

So now I'm down to like one name.

I'm supposed to come up with 5.  Ok 10 actually, 5 boys and 5 girls.

We even sat down and talked baby names the other day, decided on a girl name that we both like, looked it up in a baby book and get this....

wait for it...

my favorite girl name means....

UGLY-HEADED.

I almost cried.

Stupid baby name book just ruined our girl baby name!

Shit.

It seems like everyone else has such an easy time with this.  In fact it seems that MORE PEOPLE THAN NOT have their kid named after their 20 week scan!

I recognize that I have 5 more months to figure this out.

But I don't want to put it off until the very last minute.

I know some people who didn't name their kid until she was 3 months old.  Until then they just called her baby girl.

I don't want to be one of THOSE people.

To everyone who named your baby in utero already, how did you name your babies????

We Looked at Strollers

We looked at our first big baby item.

OMG.

It was surreal.

And overwhelming.

It went something like this:

We were going to Target to buy towels, since we were at Target and the Bath section is right near the BABY section we decided what the hell, let's take a look at the strollers.

This was a huge step for us.  We've never looked at baby items together.

We've never even walked through a baby section together.

It was like a wave of insanity had swept over us.  WE WERE TEMPTING FATE.

Unfortunately Target's stroller section sucks.  Do not buy a stroller at Target.

All 5 of the strollers were on a shelf at the level of my head and tethered so that you couldn't even put them on the floor to experiment with them.

Target = Baby Stroller Fail.

But since we had made this giant leap to actually looking at baby strollers and there's a Babies R Us right next door to Target we figured WHY NOT?  We'd already tempted fate by daring to look at the strollers at Target anyway, what's it gonna hurt to look at the EXACT SAME ITEM at another store?

So, into Babies R Us we go.

Have you ever been to a Babies R Us?

Babies R Us is overwhelming.

There are babies everywhere.

And lots of preggie ladies.

I felt like an imposter, like we didn't really belong there.

Like I wasn't pregnant ENOUGH to be there.

But we'd already walked through the door, THERE WAS NO GOING BACK NOW, so I stuck my belly out as far as I could and we marched ourselves over to the stroller section.  I couldn't even look at the cute tiny clothes, I kept my eyes well above eye level and stared straight ahead to the giant sign that said STROLLERS.  Avoiding glancing around us for fear of all the anxiety producing baby items.  Do we really need all of these things?

Once in the stroller section HALLELUJAH you can play with ALL of the strollers.  YAY FOR BABIES R US!

So, play we did.

Right away a cute purple one caught my eye and really how else are you supposed to pick out a stroller?  Clearly it all starts with looks, just like you know...everything. 

So, purple stroller became the object of our affection as we marveled at all the buttons, levers, maneuverability and versatility that it had to offer.

In a nutshell we played with exactly ONE and if I had to buy a stroller tomorrow that would be the one I would buy.

It comes with the carseat that snaps in.  It's light.  I could fold it up on my own.  I could pull the carseat out on my own.  It had a versatile handle that can easily be changed for height differences and...it's purple!  What else can you possibly need in a stroller?

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Even if this kid is a boy I think he can handle a purple stroller.

I think Dom can too.

Of course we didn't buy anything (that would be insane!) but we LOOKED.

And then we pretty much ran out of there.

Progress people.  Progress.

 Of course now I never want to go into a baby store again.

I vaguely remember a version of myself that used to love going to baby stores to buy presents for friends baby showers, who the hell was that girl?  And where is she when I need her?  

Anyone else tempt fate lately?