My head is full.

I went to the house of a church friend of ours (Jozi) who had some baby stuff to give us. I stayed for a couple of hours and had fascinating conversation about all things baby. I'm still processing through it all!

Things I found most interesting:

1. Jozi and her husband (Andy) didn't find out baby's gender partially because Jozi's not a fan of PINK EVERYTHING or BLUE EVERYTHING. I toooootally understand and it made me rethink the idea of telling everybody. Still processing.
   
2. Her nursery looks just like a nursery I would like--all multi-colored and alphabet and animals. And almost everything was gifted to her. I should've asked her what things she DID buy.
   
3. There were some hi-la-ri-ous stories and now I can't remember what they were... One in particular... Maybe I'll remember more in a bit when my brain isn't so full.
   
4. Andy is a techie/computer guy like Stephen and one of the funny things she said after I told her about all Stephen's huge books was, "What is it with computer guys and their inability to get rid of their techie books?! They're huge and they are so outdated by now! And does Stephen keep some of his notes from college too?" That really did have me laughing, because he does have notes from college! LOL!
   
5. She fed Erik (her son, who is about 16 months old) peanut butter and jelly and pumpkin mixed with Greek yogurt and sliced up kiwi. She laughed and said, "This is what you'll eat now! Peanut butter and jelly, mac and cheese, fish sticks..." Which just made me smile, because if only she knew that Stephen and I had just had a fight because all I want to eat is boxed pasta things and frozen dinners, and that really freaks Stephen out because it's not enough protein. Sigh. Don't get me started. That fight isn't quite over yet.
   
6. I learned some interesting thing about Jozi. I always thought she'd be super Type A, house-must-be-spotless kind of person. Her house was a mess (well, it wasn't that bad--it was all kid toys), and while it does drive her a little nuts, she admitted, she said she doesn't bother to clean it up until Erik's naptime, because then she has a big chunk of time to do it in.
   
7. She told me about pre-eclampsia (dangerously high blood pressure) and HELLP syndrome. She got them extremely suddenly--like, she had a routine doctor's appointment and her blood pressure was a little bit high, but they said not to worry, sent her home, and then two hours later she got worse and they induced labor THAT DAY. At 34 weeks. And she labored for 36 hours. She's one of three of my friends my age from church who had pre-eclampsia and had to be induced, and for two of them, the labor took about 36 hours. (My friend Sara was lucky and had a shorter labor, possibly due to not getting an epidural, which slows things down.) The reason this is all interesting to me is that I've heard pre-eclampsia is tied to vitamin D deficiency, which is a big problem here where I live. And I can take vitamin D supplements, but it still may not be enough, so I feel like I need to be mentally prepared for the distinct possibility of pre-eclampsia. Anyway. Enough about that.
   
8. Jozi said you know when the first real contraction hits whether you're going to need an epidural. That was fascinating to me and I'm definitely logging that away in my mental filing cabinet.
   
9. She and Andy have a baby monitor that actually goes off when it senses that Erik might not be breathing. There's motion sensing pads underneath his mattress that recognize the motion of breathing, and if he goes too long without that motion, it goes off. That's pretty cool, I gotta say. Stephen will like that--he's all over the safety everything.
   
10. Speaking of safety everything, I'm scared to death I already broke the carseat. :( We put it in my trunk at Jozi's, and I tried to shut the trunk door, not realizing it wasn't all the way in, and CRUNCH, the door hit the seat. It didn't look damaged, but it was enough to freak me out and sometime in the next couple days I'll be asking somebody (probably my mother-in-law) if they think it's still safe.
    
11. Speaking of carseat safety, Jozi told me the fire station will do a free carseat safety kind of a class thing. I need to message her and ask how to find that again.
    
12. Other things Jozi has that I may be borrowing in the future: A jumpy seat, a jungle play mat, a monkey bouncy seat, a blue bumbo seat, and two pack-n-plays (one includes a bassinet/changing table top). We have no space whatsoever for these things right now, but she said I'm the only friend she knows right now who is pregnant, so if I want them later, just to call her. Awesome!

Anyway, that list got a lot longer than I expected and I feel like I didn't even scratch the surface of all the things tumbling around in my head. I better get to the business of preparing dinner while my brain continues processing.

Oh, also got some maternity clothes, both from Jozi and from a random gal off a Facebook mom-kids swap group for my area.

Now where the heck am I going to keep all of this baby-related stuff that's piling up? :/

It was really good to see in person how much space you actually do, in fact, need for baby stuff. Very interesting. I may be decluttering my "office" with new motivation in the nearish future.

-Stephanie

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