Strollers, Cribs and Car Seats...Oh My!

This past weekend Eran and I went to look at cribs.  We started with what we thought was the most obvious place, Babies R US- that was epic fail #1!  I truly believe that Babies R US is designed to scare the crap out of expecting parents.  You walk in the door and there are shelves and aisles filled with items you think you just have to have. There are video monitors, pack and plays with changing stations and breast pumps that cater to people with inverted nipples!  I mean really, how the hell do you decide?   I keep hearing from people that you really don’t need all that much so don’t get caught up in the hype, but let’s face it everyone gets caught up in the hype.  No matter how many times someone tells me I don’t need a diaper genie and a wipe warmer you can bet I’m still going to buy them both.  Why?  Cause I’m the dumb new mom and I have to know, ya know, “for myself.”  Eran I walked into Babies R US with all sorts of confidence, until we reached the crib section! There were like hundreds OK maybe like 66, but you get the picture.  At first we just sort of stared and darted our eyes from one crib to the next.  Then we decided to venture into the dark hole.  It was pure madness.  I mean do you get the crib that has the changing table attached?  Do you choose the transitional crib that can later be a twin bed?  And what about a mattress?  I’m assuming firm because of all the SIDS research, but what if my baby likes plush and I don’t get a wink of sleep because I chose a lousy mattress?  Ugh decisions!  To top it all off buying baby furniture equals a mortgage payment!  Who knew that something so little needed so much stuff and at top rate prices?  Of course everything is sold separately so while the crib itself may be $500 the mattress is additional $200 and you have to get a dresser of some sort and other odds and ends.  I truly should have started saving for this baby when I was in my twenties. 

We finally decided that choosing a crib color and style in one day was insane so we ventured over to the pack and plays, epic fail #2!  Choosing everything baby related is like shopping for a new car.  You want to get the best bang for your buck, but still ball on a budget.  Of course I want my baby to have the best, but not at the expense of my pocket book- I mean day care will take care of that anyway!   The last item we chose to look at was car seats.  Car seats literally come in 1,000 different makes and models.  I’m super sensitive about products being recalled so I will not buy a car seat, crib or stroller before going to the Consumer Product Safety Commission website http://www.cpsc.gov/, but we still wanted to look just for fun.  It wasn’t fun at all!  I’m sure you’ve guessed by now that was epic fail #3!

We decided that Babies R US was a little too advanced for us so we opted to leave and go for ice cream- much better use of our time.  I suppose we’ll venture back when we build up enough courage- sometime between now and when the baby pops out…or at least I hope so!

I hate hormones, but I love watermelon and brown sugar pop tarts.

For my first OB visit they took about 8 vials of blood to test for various diseases- high glucose in particular.  I actually have a weird obsession with watching my blood get drawn.  I think it’s the coolest thing.  I was a lil sad when the nurse said she only had one more vial to get. Sick?  Yea, I know, but I don’t really care.   After the test, I get a call a couple of days later from a nurse at my doc’s office saying my glucose levels were on the borderline of being high.  I’d need to come in to take a special test that involved drinking a sugary liquid and waiting an hour to get my blood drawn.   I should have known Poppy wasn’t gonna like me not feeding him/her first thing in the morning, but instead ingesting some nasty sugary drink.  Eran and I went to the doc office first thing in the morning and everything started out “ok.”  I was sipping on the juice at my leisure.  The nurse then told me I only had 5 minutes to drink the whole bottle and I was down to one minute.  Nice time to tell me! I chugged the rest and then told the nurse, “I’m pretty sure this is coming back up.”  And….it did!  It was awful.  I was pissed…literally and figuratively.  Needless to say the nurse said I’d have to return on another date to retake the test.  I told myself from then on I was gonna have to take control of this pregnancy and advocate for what I did and did not want to do.  Apparently you can do that, but of course doctors don’t really encourage it.  That’s all they need is some big mouth mom to be who has an obsession with Google and Wikipedia.  I didn’t care though, I researched alternate ways to take the glucose test and found that 27 jelly beans or a Snicker’s (king size) have the same amount of sugar as the nasty liquid and you can sub them for the juice when you take your test.  Thank you Google!  I don’t like Wiki, doesn’t seem quite as reliable as my friend Google.   J

As my pregnancy has progressed (I know I still have a long way to go) I’ve learned quite a lot!  I’ve learned that hormones are a bitch and I’m desperately dreading menopause cause that’s another unfair trait of being a woman.  I’ve learned that having an insane supply of panty liners is a must because of leucorrhea.  I remember when Andria was pregnant and she kept telling me about panty liners.  I was so confused and I remember thinking, “isn’t the bonus of being pregnant not having a period- what the hell is she talking about?” Well, I’ve quickly learned.   Leucorrhea is actually quite normal and it’s simply caused by an increase in estrogen production and greater blood flow to the vaginal area (pretty cool, huh? Ok not really).   I’ve learned that the intense, crazy, sudden urge for brown sugar pop tarts and watermelon is what equals a craving.   I don’t think Eran likes those too much.  I’ve also learned that the thought of choosing a name for my baby scares the life out of me.  My mother-in-law called the other day to check on me and she asked if we’d thought of any names and I told her no.  That was actually a lie. We have, but I’m not sure I’m ready to share.  Everyone seems to have an opinion about baby names and I should know because as my BFF, Kerri has said I’m the Name Shaman.  It’s true; I’ve named half of Delisle.  I love thinking of baby names, but when it comes to my own I don’t think I’m ready for public opinion.  My M-I-L pleaded with me to not name the baby anything that rhymed with esha, quita, or some other mess.  I mean really….there was no need to respond.

I’ve learned that my life now revolves around my next meal.  I wake up thinking about what I’m going to eat and when I finish eating a meal I think about what I’m eating next. See the more often you eat the better you actually feel.  I’ve also learned that all pants/shorts should be made exactly like maternity pants.  They are hands down the most comfortable piece of clothing I have ever put on my body.  I absolutely love them.  I’m kinda excited about getting bigger so I can wear them even more.  Lastly, I’ve learned that using a rubber band (thank you pregnant high school kids I use to teach) to fasten my pants (because I don’t have enough maternity ones yet) is not the 100% best idea. The other day I wore some slacks to work and looped a rubber band from the button to hold them up and got dammit in the middle of the day that rubber band broke and popped the hell out of me…lesson learned!  I’m pretty sure it pissed Poppy off too because I was up at least 6 times that night going to the bathroom and I’m pretty sure it was for payback!  I’ve also learned that scrambled eggs and chicken are not my friends at the moment (this took quite a few bad instances to figure this one out), but that I absolutely need an egg McMuffin every day. 

Most importantly, as if I didn’t know, I’ve learned that my husband is the best and he’s gonna be such a great dad!  Every morning he brings me something light to eat before I get out of bed (helps with the nausea) and then he patiently waits for me to drag myself out of bed and get ready for work so we can carpool together.  He drives me to work and never complains when I yell “pull over” in the middle of morning rush hour traffic so I can hurl.  He checks and double checks that I’ve taken my anti-nausea medicine every morning and packed it up for the day.  He doesn’t get mad at me when I spend the whole weekend on the couch, in the same cloths and then complain about how awful I look.  I whine about being hot at night so he buys me a mini fan for the night stand.  I absolutely have no complaints about how fabulous he’s been EXCEPT he’s already talking about baby #2!  -_-

Here comes...Poppy!

I basically can sum up pregnancy in 4 words, “this ish is overrated!”  I’m not quite sure who decided that carrying a human being in your uterus for 9 months was so much more appealing than the stork dropping off a cute, dimple faced baby that resembles both me and my husband, but clearly I got the raw end of the deal.  When I think of how wonderful raising a baby will be and how excited I’m sure I’ll be at the conclusion of these 9 months it does keep me going and makes me try to look past the nausea and vomiting.  BUT, then I eat something that apparently the baby has decided since yesterday that he/she doesn’t like any longer and as I hold my hair with one hand and grip the toilet with the other it becomes very clear to me why surrogacy is so appealing to celebrities!

The day I found out I was pregnant I was honestly shocked!  I wanted to be like the women in those EPT commercials who are overcome with joy when the line turns from one to two, but I honestly couldn’t move.  I stared at that lil stick for at least 3 minutes before I decided, “oh shit, I need to tell Eran we are having a baby!”  I yelled for him downstairs to hurry up and that there was an emergency, his response, “I’m doing laundry, what is it?”  Well since it was Good Friday I decided using a few choice curse words was not very good Catholic girl of me so I politely yell back, “get up here now, I said it’s an emergency!”  So he came- not very eager I might add.  I pointed to the stick on the bathroom counter and we both just kinda stood there shell shocked.  We hugged and then decided; maybe we should call the doctor.  That’s the order right?  Positive pregnancy test and then phone the doctor, or at least that’s how they do it in the movies.  I called my doc who gave me two referrals, the first was not happening because the woman answering the phone obviously didn’t think my pregnancy was enough of an emergency to fit me in that day.  The second place I called the receptionist was the receptionist of my dreams.  She made me feel like me and my embryo were the most important things in the world and “of course they’d fit me in right away.”  Eran and I high tailed it to the doc and sat patiently until they took us back.  The nurse practitioner was a talking head on speed and I literally wanted to punch her in the face and tell her to slow down because we were new at this and had no damn idea what she was talking about!  I finally threw my weight around—well sort of-  I told her I worked for the hospital and I “knew people” in other words “slow your ass down and talk to us like the dummies we are cause we don’t understand a damn thing you are saying.”  And she did-but then she showed me who was boss when she said the sonogram machine wasn’t detecting the baby outside the belly so she was gonna have to do a vaginal one—bitch!  That’s what I get.  We had the vaginal ultrasound and honestly it was the most amazing site ever.  We saw, Poppy for the first time.  Poppy of course was the nickname from here on out since my baby was exactly the size of a poppy seed.  

Who knew a damn poppy seed could cause so much misery?  For the love of God that lil thing has had me going since week 5!  In the beginning I thought, this isn’t so bad, I’m not sure why people complain about it.  Then one night I was getting ready for bed, I swallowed my prenatal vitamin and within seconds my dinner and maybe even lunch from earlier too were in the toilet-barely.  And to make matters worse I peed!  Yes, I freakin peed when I threw up!!!!  I didn’t even know that was possible!  From that day forward my first trimester has been hell on earth.  No one told me on top of having to remember extra underwear everyday that Poppy would be so darn fickle.  One day he/she like strawberries and the next they are up with breakfast.  And being tired, Oh-MY-GOD!  I have never been so exhausted in all my life.  I literally want to sleep every moment of the day.  A couple of times at work I even slept on my office floor.  I couldn’t keep my eyes open- I closed the door, pulled out a yoga mat and blanket and took a nice siesta right in the middle of the work day.  I don’t understand how you are supposed to carry on with daily activities when I don’t even have the energy to shower and I NEED to shower because I keep PEEING on my damn self!  This is just not what I imagined.  I should have listened to my sister; she is the only person who kept it real with me.  She told me when she was pregnant both times, it was the worse experience of her life—not actually having my nieces of course, she loves them, but carrying them was awful!  Now I completely understand.  People keep telling me that being sick is a good thing because it means the pregnancy has “took” and the baby will be healthy.  Well if that is the case my baby is gonna be the healthiest thing in the DMV come December 2013!

Another issue I have with pregnancy is the acne.  My face has exploded and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.  The doctor said I can’t use Proactiv so I walk around looking like a knocked up 13 year old-it’s so embarrassing!   I woke up one morning and my face literally hurt.  I have to keep telling myself, it’s all for the baby, it’s all for the baby!  I’m pissed that I didn’t get the “glow.”  I keep wondering what that would have felt like.  I mean when people at work look at me they look like they feel sorry for me…almost like they are saying, “damn she use to be cute, but that pregnancy has messed her up.”  One woman literally told me my face has changed and not for the good *side eye*.  I sure hope this doesn’t scar because if so I’m going to be looking for the first microdermabrasion  deal on Living Social that I can find.  Speaking of Living Social one deal that I purchased years ago has been a complete wash!  I’ve been getting laser hair removal (in all the needed areas) for at least 3 years off and on.  I was finally at the point where I just needed a few touch ups and my treatment would be complete.  Well  I should have bought another Louie because that money has went down the drain.  Apparently when you are pregnant your hormones don’t give a damn about laser hair removal.  It’s as if all those painful trips to the medi-spa never existed.   So here I am now slowly getting fat, pimple faced with hair in areas I’d rather not speak of. Obviously the lil one on the way is mine because he/she sure knows how to prepare for a grand entrance, so world...get ready because here comesssss Poppy!