Lately, I have realized that the planner in me has been a little unprepared. Unplanned. Up-in-the-air. All characteristics that previously would cause me a great deal of anxiety. I used to really consider myself a meticulous person- very organized. Never really very neat, but organized nonetheless. I’m the kind of girl that travels with a trip folder, carefully labeled with my destination city, all of my travel documents organized by their order of necessity- directions to airport, info about airport parking, e-ticket already printed out, shuttle reservation to hotel, HopStop directions from hotel to lunch restaurant, from lunch restaurant to spa appointment, from spa appointment back to hotel…. You get the idea. Preparedness generally gives me comfort and a sense of control in a chaotic world. (Name that movie, folks.)

Anyway, what I have noticed of late is that my “pregnancy brain,” a condition that I once didn’t believe in, has caused me to be a lot more relaxed about my schedule, my to-do list, and veering off path. For instance, the following is a list of pregnancy-related truths that I held dear, that I have since reconsidered:


1. Scary full-belly maternity pants. I swore I wouldn’t wear these, that I’d only buy the ones with the low-panel that sits below the tummy. However, my very FIRST pair of maternity pants were the scary full-panel ones. And I will tell you that I love them, because they keep me from scratching my itchy, expanding tummy and also give me a nice smooth line under my maternity shirts to boot.


2. Find out Sprout’s gender. I was pretty adamant about this one too. I felt like if something was going to be completely out of my control and I was just gonna get whatever I was gettin’, I may as well go the distance and wait it out. And I think I would’ve too, had it not been for Name Wars. We still can’t agree on a boy name at all! So in 5 days, we’ll know if we can stop arguing about it…. Or if we’ve wasted all these weeks and months agreeing on a girl name for nothing! *incidentally, now that we’ve decided to find out, I’m DYING for the ultrasound day to get here! Maybe part of me wanted to find out the whole time and since I couldn’t before now, I convinced myself I didn’t want to know anyway so I wouldn’t have to wait? Who knows.


3. Schedule a c-section delivery. This was, again, borne from my control-freakishness that I was in no way going into labor unexpectedly, to have post-birth pics taken of me looking scraggly and brow-beaten, to miss an appointment or a meeting or something because Sprout was unpredictable in his/her arrival. But now I know that c-sections are a lot harder to recover from, that it’s major surgery that causes a lot of pain, that the body doesn’t recognize a c-section birth and therefore weight loss is significantly more challenging, and that if I want to be back to work in 6 weeks, as I do, I’m gonna have to go about things differently in order to make it up and about by then.

4. Use disposable diapers. Oh, hush, readers who think I’ve gone crazy. I read a lot about the absorbent gel in disposables is a big cause for diaper rash, first because of the chemicals in the gel, and second, because they tend to be changed less, especially in daycare centers, as a result bc they just don’t feel wet. Now, I’m not going to go 100% cloth here. What we’re going to be using, and I WILL NOT be swayed on this, is 7th Generation disposables when Sprout’s a newborn, and once he/she is a few weeks old and a few pounds heavier, we’ll switch to gDiapers. They’re a “hybrid” of cloth and disposable- a cloth cover with a disposable , flushable liner inside. It’s a lot better for the environment too- disposables take up to 500 years to decompose, while this will be flushed away, with all contents, therefore eliminating mountains of stinky diaper trash as well. They can just be thrown away too, which is nice- so we’ll still have the obligatory diaper genie- but we’ll be producing much less trash, and I’ll feel better having less plastic and chemicals on Sprout!






Here are some of my fave pregnancy items that I’m just dying to have right now:


Stylish hospital gown from Bring Your Own Gown:

This cute Olian maternity top, it would be so cute for our belly-to-baby pics we’re having taken!

Oh, and lots of skincare products like organic lotions (paraben-free,) facials and massages, baby yoga videos.




For Sprout, I really want some Trumpette socks. And just lots of random cute stuff. My latest baby purchase was this super adorable doorway jumper:

I got it on supersale! Originally $69.99, I purchased this rockin’ convertible on zulily.com for $34.99, minus a $10 first-purchase-credit, minus a $10 additional coupon code, for a grand total of $24.24 shipped! Can’t wait to see him/her cruising along in their new ride.


So, okay, I’ve definitely been bitten by the materialistic maternal bug, but seriously I just can’t wait to start setting up our nursery. It was painted last week, a bright, cheerful Key Lime color, and waiting to start filling it up with all things baby is killing me! As soon as we’re able to move the futon out, the crib can go in, and then it’ll really start seeming real.


Stay tuned for the big Gender Reveal!!