Hospital Bag 2014

After my dehydration/contractions/hospital run last Saturday, I realized it was definitely time to pack the hospital bag.

Baby girl stuff thanks to family, Regan, and Cathy

For Baby:
Going home outfit, back up, socks
Hat to go home (and one for the hospital)
Pacifiers
Scratch mittens and Baby Nail clipper
The best receiving blankets
Coat/ warm blanket
Car seat

All packed!- Mostly

Paperwork:
Hospital forms- at hospital already
ID/insurance (purse)
Hospital information (from tour?)
Something to bring home baby information

Personal clothes:
Going home outfit
Robe
Socks, Slippers?, Flip-flops
Glasses (purse)
Snacks- granola, vanilla soy milk (doesn't need refrigeration), candy

Nursing stuff:
Nursing pillow, Cover
Nursing shirt/dress, Nightgown?, Intimates
Cream

Toiletries:
Soap, Shampoo/Conditioner, Tooth brush/tooth paste/ floss,
Lotion, razor, deodorant
Chapstick, makeup, tweezers, nail file
Hair things
Bag to bring stuff home

Electronics:
Camera, card, and charger (lens?)
Phone and charger

Sleep aids:
Tums
Ear plugs (for Kevin)

Visitors:
Hand sanitizer

Gifts:
Big Brother gift for James (We got him a Thomas train that works with his cheaper train set)
Gift for nurses (food- not yet packed)

Pregnancy Advice: Maternity Clothing

Maternity clothing is kind of a racket. My advice is aimed at making your shopping more cost-effective and comfy.

First trimester- Non-maternity tops and maternity pants
Skip the belly band. You're going to have to give up and buy some maternity pants eventually and they are so much comfier. First trimester you want to wear loose fitting clothes, but not maternity tops or dresses mostly because you don't want people guessing your secret. If your clothing isn't sufficiently loose, it's a better investment to buy loose non-maternity clothing (either drapey or a size bigger than you normally wear) because you will want to wear this clothing again at some point after you have the baby. For pajamas, I have found nothing beats the maternity leggings that go under the belly.

Second trimester- All maternity clothing
Go ahead and buys some cute maternity tops and dresses. I recommend short-sleeve shirts and dresses. You might choose to avoid sleeveless things because your arms might get really not-cute. Skip long sleeve if you plan on having a second child one day because you might be pregnant in a different season. Buy non-maternity sweaters instead (better investment). Long or "boyfriend-style" sweaters will last you into the 3rd trimester.

Note that maternity shirts and dresses with the cute ruching on the side can only be worn when you're pregnant. The shirts without it can be recycled when you're not pregnant.

If most of your pregnancy is during winter in a cold climate you will need a coat- either maternity or a big tenty swing coat (I have the latter). Don't go cold- prioritize the coat. (I kept trying to squeeze into my regular coat during my first pregnancy, so much happier this time with one that fits!)

Third trimester
Oh boy, good luck. One hack I discovered is that if you get really big for maternity shirts, a plain-looking night shirt will look just like a regular t-shirt.

After the baby is born
You will likely be wearing your second trimester maternity clothing and your loose-fitting non-maternity clothing for a while. You'll probably be sick of maternity pants, so celebrate when you can fit into your fat pants again.

My last pregnancy advice posts were about what I suggest you do before you get pregnant, and when you first find out that you're pregnant.

Pregnancy Advice: After You Get Pregnant

My last pregnancy advice post was about what I suggest you do before you get pregnant. So it follows that I should discuss what I advise you do when you discover that you're pregnant.

1) Keep taking prenatal vitamins, or start immediately. The folic acid in prenatal vitamins helps prevent neural tube defects in the first trimester.

2) Make an appointment with your OB. (If you don't have one research a good one.) Most OB's won't see you until about 8 weeks because they honestly can't tell you much before then. Record the date of your LMP so they can determine your due date.

3) I don't think you should tell everyone that you're pregnant immediately. Obviously it's your personal choice to make and you can tell anyone you want, especially if you're close to that person. But be aware, approximately a fourth of pregnancies do not work out and you probably don't want to explain to everyone if yours is one of those. Even if you are blessed with a healthy pregnancy, a lot of people will feel really uncomfortable with your early announcement, either because they are worried for you or because they experienced a miscarriage themselves.

4) Don't immediately run out and buy a ton of stuff. Largely for the same reason as above, but also, towards the end of your pregnancy some loved one may want to shower you with gifts.

5) Related to the above, ask a friend who has a young child for help making a baby registry. (I might do a post on what baby stuff to get if I don't run out of time.)

6) Sign up for babycenter.com or thebump.com. Skip "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and the like. If you want to buy a "pregnancy book" I recommend "Your Baby's First Year" by American Academy of Pediatrics. Unlike the authors of some other books, these people are doctors. There's a solidly long pregnancy section in the front, followed by an infinitely more useful section on what to do when the baby is actually here. It's like two books in one.

7) Please take belly pictures. I know a lot of moms who didn't because they were unhappy with how they looked at the time, but you might not always feel this way in retrospect. So if you don't like how you look right now, take the pictures and put them somewhere safe without sharing them. Later in your life if you still hate them you can burn or delete them. But most likely you will like the photos later- or your child will.

8) Don't get too attached to your "birth plan." It may not happen that way at all.

9) Don't eat too much junk food, especially if it has preservatives. The baby does not "need" that, and you'll find most of the weight you gain in the first and second trimester goes to your bum and not to the baby. That's weight you'll still have on your bum after you have the baby.

10) Prioritize sleep as much as you can. (This is hard, especially if you already have another child.)

11) Be easy on yourself. You just can't do everything you used to do. (This is very hard.)

12) Morning sickness can sometimes be avoided by not letting yourself get too hungry or stressed. Other times it can't be avoided at all.

13) Tums can be really helpful for acid reflux, but beware they can cause iron deficiency. (Learned this the hard way.) Iron deficiency can be really serious because you may lose a lot of blood when you have the baby, and really low iron could result in difficulty breathing and might even result in you losing consciousness.

14) Research any medication (prescription or over-the-counter) people suggest. You should understand the benefits and risks before you take anything (including prescription prenatal vitamins that often contain "extras"). Here's a link I found explains the issue really well: http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2014/03/03/tylenol-safe-pregnancy-trick-question/

15) Now might be a good time to write a will, determine who will care for your child if something happens to you and your spouse, and even write an advance health care directive.  I'm impressed if you're motivated though, it took us almost 3 years after James was born to do our will.

That's all I can think of, but comment if you have any questions and I'll try to offer what I can.

Pregnancy Advice: Before Getting Pregnant

Since this is my second time, I feel like I have a lot of insight that I can share with women who haven't been pregnant before. I hope to do a few posts on pregnancy advice before Itty Bitty is here and takes all my attention. Obviously, none of this is medical advice because I am not a doctor. And equally obvious, I support your choice to do whatever you want. These are just suggestions.

Let's work our way chronologically through a pregnancy. Here are a few things I suggest doing before you start trying to get pregnant because you will have a lot of strange limitations after you get pregnant.

1) Enjoy one last party or trip where drinking is relevant to the celebration. I waited out Great-grandma Ruth's 90th birthday (Kevin's family can party), Brooke's wedding, and our trip to visit cousin Katie before giving up the party lifestyle. Not-so coincidentally, all those ladies are Irish.

Take a little time to recover from the partying. But don't wait forever! Draw the line somewhere reasonable.

2) Eat some of the following if you love it: soft cheeses, sushi, cold deli sandwiches, or maybe a medium rare hamburger, mmm. Then start getting in the habit of eating more fruits and vegetables and foods with fiber generally.

3) Get a regular and complete check-up. Don't just visit your OB, but go to a regular doctor and have him or her take your blood and check everything they can possibly check. I even got an EKG when I visited my doctor in February. Ask for the results of your blood test to be sent to you. Doctors like to act like they're the only ones that can read a blood test, but the lab spells out the normal range for everything they test right on the results. If anything is not in the normal range, call your doctor, Google it, do whatever you need to find out what's up. I am not a doctor, just someone who's been through a lot of nonsense. Your blood test is the canary in the cave- take it very seriously! Do this not just before getting pregnant, but every year.

Talk to your doctor about whether you should get off any medications while you're pregnant and how to do so. A lot of drugs are considered safe for pregnant women, but even many of these have not really been studied. Personally, I avoid all medicine during pregnancy because I don't suffer from any underlying illnesses and I don't want to risk the baby's health. But again, I don't have any illnesses-- some illnesses a mother has may actually be worse for a mother and her baby than the treatment. That's what your doctor is there to help you figure out. Do a little research on your own too, but check with the doctor before making any big changes.

4) Visit your OB sometime in the year before. Tell him or her you're going to start trying to get pregnant. They might have some words of wisdom, or not.

5) Start taking a prenatal vitamin at least 3 months before you start trying. There are a lot of choices. The big ones can be hard to swallow and might discourage regular consumption. Unfortunately, a lot of the natural ones are pretty big. Try to avoid ones that have crazy additives though. (My doctor gave me a sample that had really bad stuff in it- be careful and read the packaging.) Some women prefer vitamins without iron in it. It should specifically be a prenatal vitamin with folic acid and DHA though. This time I'm enjoying sweet chewable ones.

6) If you don't already exercise, start! It's not ideal to start a difficult exercise program while pregnant, and if you don't exercise while you're pregnant the experience is going to be much more painful for you. Your body will betray you in ways you can't even imagine, and being able to exercise will alleviate a lot of that suffering. I'm not a big exercise person myself, but I try to go for a long walk 3-4 days a week. Last time I didn't exercise much and it wasn't pretty.

7) Go to the dentist way before you plan on trying to get pregnant. Your teeth might be perfect, or you might have a bunch of stuff to deal with beforehand. It is difficult or impossible to deal with some dental issues while you're pregnant. Infections in your mouth can be bad for the baby, and anyway, you don't want to spend 9 months with pain in your head.

8) Start sleeping more. People will tell you to sleep while you're pregnant, but they're jerks. It gets harder and harder to sleep during pregnancy, so now is your big chance to store some sleep.

9) Don't buy pregnancy books. They are not helpful. You can find most of what those books provide on babycenter.com or thebump.com. Once you get pregnant, go ahead and buy books about baby's first year if you so choose: I recommend Baby's First Year because it was written by The American Academy of Pediatrics, and even though it has a section on pregnancy it deals with the infinitely more important details of what to do once you actually have a baby to care for.

Pregnancy Advice: Prenatal Vitamins

My grade school friend told me yesterday that she's pregnant too, just a little behind me, and has been reading my blog for an idea of what to expect. I was so happy to hear that someone likes the blog! Then it made me think that even though I have a bunch of friends who are moms, I have even more that are not quite there yet.  So in the interest of being helpful, maybe I could share some newly acquired knowledge.

The very first thing to deal with when you're going to get pregnant is buying prenatal vitamins. You should be taking these before (some say as early as three months before), during, and after pregnancy.  My first bottle was the generic CVS prenatal vitamain because I was at CVS and it was the cheapest one. I bought these instead of using the prescription for the super vitamins my previous doctor had written me. Apparently they were really pricey and maybe insurance would pay. Um, no thanks. But the CVS ones left a bit to be desired. They were a little big for swallowing and colored pink. Why do I need red #40 and yellow #6 and a bunch of preservatives in my vitamins? I'm trying to eat organic food without preservatives during the pregnancy, so why should the vitamins be my downfall?

So here are the best 3 brands I found, for all different reasons. Vitasmart is available at KMart (I know shopping there is liberal crime but there's one in Penn Station and I ran out of vitamins), it's cheap and it's very thin and easy to swallow. It suffers from being colored pink, but for someone who has trouble swallowing pills, it's a good choice.

Trader Joe's is my official recommendation, if you're lucky enough to live near a Trader Joe's. It's reasonably priced, has no food coloring, and keeps random chemicals to a minimum. That greenish color is the actual color of the stuff in it, so it sort of looks like food. It's main drawback is that it's regular prenatal vitamin size which is a little tough to swallow.

Finally, I tried Prenate Essential because I got free samples at my doctors office. Given that it's big and colored blue it wouldn't even be worth discussing, except it's deliciously flavored like vanilla, and it contains a dose of fish oil which will make your baby smarter. Of course you can just take a separate fish oil pill with the other prenatal vitamins, but I'm too lazy to do that most of the time. I just hope I eat enough actual fish that I make up for it that way.  I have no idea how much this vitamin costs, but my guess is that if they're giving samples to the doctor, it's pricey. But I do love it.

On top of the prenatal vitamin my doctor told me to take fish oil everyday, and a calcium pill every day.  This is quite the vitamin cocktail, and most days it doesn't happen. At this point though, I drink so much milk and consume so many Tums that I'm definitely not worried about the calcium. Maybe I'll try a little harder to take everything for this last leg of the pregnancy.

Any moms have a different favorite?

Update: For my second pregnancy I only took the yummy gummy vitamins that Anna recommended. Yum!