what to expect before you're expecting...

So I finally broke down and bought my first baby related book. My planning side got the better of me, and I had to get it.

I started reading it the same day I picked it up. And started learning things right away. It talks about preparing to get pregnant and one of the first things it says to do is to get a physical and dental exam. I never thought the health of my teeth could effect my future pregnancy- but apparently, "gum disease is associated with pregnancy complications such as preterm labor, preeclampsia, and gestational diabetes." Better safe than sorry I guess. I'm not going to rush in to the dentist, but I'll probably make an appointment here in the next month or so. I know I probably have a cavity or two- so I'll have to have some money saved up for that. Hopefully dental work won't blow our vacation savings. In June or July I'll go in for my physical and get all the blood work and stuff done to make sure I am healthy.

One thing I was excited to read though, is that what I am doing is exactly right! (I knew I wasn't crazy!) The book said that more and more research is showing that you really should take at least an extra 3 months before you conceive to prepare yourself for conception/pregnancy. We are still about 6 months away from our goal conception date- but I'm glad at this point. The book also mentioned that it will be easier to conceive if I am within the ideal weight range for my height. So that's with the 20-24 BMI range or between 121-153 lbs. I've got a lot of work ahead of me! As of this morning, my Wii Fit told me I am 195. That means I have 42 pounds to lose by mid August (they recommend being at your ideal weight for a while before your try.) That means that to reach my goal by August 21st- I have to lose 2lbs a week. I am comfortable with that goal- it doesn't seem to unreasonable or unhealthy. It won't be easy but I think I can do it!

As of yesterday, I have started keeping a food journal- where I am going to write down everything I put in my mouth to help me be more aware and make healthier decisions. I'm also tracking goals pertaining to my health in my food journal. I have my weight goal written down, and I've decided that once a week I will do a weigh in Wednesday and record my progress. I also have a goal to take my prenatal every day. It's not really necessary for me to take it at this point, but it doesn't hurt either. It will help to fill in the nutritional holes my daily diet might not fill in. As far as food goes, I am going to try to eat more whole grains and lean proteins, more greens, and almonds & blueberries (rumor has it, those two can help boost your chances of conception.) And of course- cutting way back on the fast food- no matter how convenient it may be!

I'm going to try and exercises every day (except Sunday) too. My goal may seem overly ambitious at this point, but I am going to try it! If it doesn't work, I can re-evaluate next week. I borrowed my sister's Fluidity bar and dvds and tried out my first work out with them today. I thought it would be pretty easy and low impact, but it was pretty tough! I had to do the wimpy beginner moves on a lot of the exercises- but I think the more I do it, the less strenuous it will be and the more fun I will have doing it. I can already tell I am going to be sore tomorrow- but I don't mind sore, because that means I actually did something! I decide I really like this program, and stick with it for the next 4 months, I will have the most amazing butt ever! My legs and abs will probably look pretty good too. I am going to try and do the 30 minute fluidity work out, and about 15-20 minutes of Wii Fit Yoga every day, and take the puppies for a walk a few times a week. As I start actually losing the weight, I'll probably take up jogging again, but at my weight right now, it's kinda rough.

When I think about losing the weight and being more healthy, I get so happy. I think it's because I have such a great motivation this time. And even though I am going to gain a lot of the weight back during pregnancy, I feel like if I can get going on eating healthier now, and doing some of the lower impact workouts, like the yoga- once I have the baby, I'll have those habits in place and be ready to work on losing the weight again.

I have to go hop in the shower and get ready for work now, but I'm sure I'll be back on here a few days, talking about something else I have learned from my book! I carry it with me in my lunch bag to work and read it on all breaks. I just can't put it down. I can't wait for Nathan to have some down time when we are both home, so he can sit down and read some of the advice for the "wanna be dads."

oh the joys of...

Insurance! ugh!

Shopping around for insurance is the crappiest thing ever! I am looking forward to future babies, when Nathan will have finished his degree, and have a real job with actual benefits and we will be on a group policy that includes maternity coverage!

Finding an individual policy that includes maternity- that doesn't cost like $600 a month or more- is pretty much impossible. Our current insurance is pretty affordable, and includes maternity....after a flippin' $12,000 deductible! Which, for those of you who don't know how much it costs to have a baby, basically means you don't have maternity coverage. The only way we'd even touch that deductible, is if there were complications during the pregnancy/delivery.

So, we've been shopping; and not the fun kind of shopping! In fact, I am not even going to call it "shopping around" for insurance insurance anymore. I am going to say "hunting." Hunting seems more appropriate- especially since this whole process makes me want to shoot something!

Anyway, HUNTING for insurance has been a pain! I, personally, think that an HSA is going to be the way to go. Paying cash out of our pocket, or rather, our HSA and getting cash discounts through the insurance network we are on. It's not cheap- but it's not outrageously expensive either. It's definitely do-able. We had a couple insurance reps come over and pitch us their association and HSA plan and I really like it- it makes sense to me- I think the price point is good... but Nathan decided he wants to keep looking. He doesn't like the thought of paying a monthly premium and then having to put money in the HSA on top of that. He wouldn't mind it so much- except he doesn't think we are ever going to reach our yearly deductible. If we did meet it though, everything from that point is covered 100%; it's not like 80/20 or whatever until you reach your out of pocket max.

So, Nathan is talking to some other insurance people that are going to present us with some other options, HMOs, PPOs, HSAs... none of which cover maternity- so we are still going to have to pay cash for the pregnancy. We just have to see if we would get the same kind of discounts-- I'm not sure I fully understand that part of it all yet- but the guy we were talking to about HSA that I like, said that because our HSA is part of the Cigna network that the hospital would give us a bigger cash discount? I guess that's just more research for us to do before we make our decision.

Oh, and my biggest annoyance with hunting for insurance- is having to talk to all the underwriters about my"pre-existing condition" that usually ends up with my kidneys not even being covered by insurance anyway. In fact, this HSA that we are looking into won't cover my urinary tract either! Who knew a couple kidney stones could be such a pain- even after they had passed! I don't think it would be such a big deal if I hadn't needed surgery for the one.

Will you look at all that insurance mumbo-jumbo I just spouted?! I know waaaaay more about insurance policies and terminology than I ever wanted to. I guess that's a good thing though. Better to learn about it and actually know what you are getting into, than to blindly sign a policy because some agent or broker or ad makes it sound like a great deal.

I'm sure this is not the last you will be hearing from me about this topic. It's not fun, and really not that interesting- but it's part of life- and a BIG part of growing our family.

present for baby bailey & baby books

As I had mentioned in my earlier post, Nathan's former boss, Sabrina, recently gave birth to a baby girl! Bailey Louise Myers. So of course we were going to get her a fabulous gift- I love any excuse to go baby shopping.

Since Nathan obviously know Sabrina way better than I do, I asked him for some pointers in what to get. The guidelines Nathan gave me for my shopping was: nothing pink- and nothing too frilly.

So I went to Babies R Us, thinking it was going to be hard to find something super cute with no pink or frills and then...I saw it! The cutest most adorable little outfits in brown, yellow, and orange. No pink. No frills. Just super stylish, baby awesomeness!

And look! They are interchangeable! That's 4 outfits!

I was so psyched about my purchases that I had to call Nathan, squealing with excitement. I was able to contain myself enough not to invade his store and wait til he got to actually show him. He wasn't nearly as excited I as I was- but he did agree that they were cute and that Sabrina would probably love them. I have to admit- I secretly wanted to keep the outfits and store them away, just in case I have a girl one day. I love them THAT much.

Later that evening, Nathan had to fix a kiln at the Ahwatukee store, so I went with him and went to Barnes & Noble a couple shops over. I had like an hour to kill, so I headed over to the pregnancy and parenting section. I didn't buy anything- only because I am broke until next paycheck- but I did find a few to add to my shopping list.

I sat down and read a chapter or two out of the book about how to choose the sex of your baby. Don't worry, it's not genetic manipulation or anything like that- it's just things you can do that supposedly increase your odds of having one sex or the other. I had already read a lot of what was in that book on the Internet- but the book did go into a lot of detail about tracking exactly when you are ovulating and stuff like that. When it started talking about examining your cervical mucus on a daily basis to determine the best time to conceive, I kinda lost interest. That didn't sound super appealing to me, so I probably won't be back to buy that one.

A month or so back I was doing a bunch of research on the best ways to conceive a boy- but that was mainly because Nathan and I had only agreed on boys names up to that point and I was really excited about the names we had picked. Now we have girl names we like too, that I am equally excited about and it doesn't matter as much. We are going try a couple things that are supposed to increase the chances of a boy- but, sorry, I am not going to go as far as to checking my cervical mucus and tracking my body temperature and all that.

The next book I looked at talked about what foods are best to eat while you are pregnant. It broke it down by trimester and listed about 25 foods in each section that were best for you and the baby at that particular stage in the pregnancy. Then it broke it down by each food item listed and gave a full page about why it is good and all that. It also listed the foods that aren't so great. I thought that was pretty interesting, so I added it to my list of books to buy.

I flipped through some baby name books- but didn't really find any names that jumped out at me; which is totally fine because we have 2 or 3 boy names that we have agreed on a a couple girl names too. I am constantly running names I like by Nathan though- so I wanted to see if any caught my eye. Oh- sidebar on picking out baby names with your husband- this does not work the way I imagined it would when I was in junior high and high school picking out adorable baby names. All those cute little names I had in my mind for my future children were all vetoed by my husband! Finding names that we BOTH agree on, was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. I am glad we are thinking on it now, instead of stressing about it right before the baby debuts! So anyway, I am not going to spending any money on baby naming books.

The book I am getting for sure, that just about every pregnant mother gets- is the "What to Expect When You're Expecting." I flipped through and it has some good info. I'll probably go back and buy that one on the next paycheck. When I get closer to conception time, I want to get one of the pregnancy week by week books. I also want to pick up some of the expectant daddy books too- for Nathan. And for once the baby is actually here- I found a bunch of parenting books that I think would be interesting to read.

It was an enlightening trip to the bookstore. I will let you know when I actually buy the books, and the super interesting stuff I learn in my studies. =p

That's all for now! I'll probably post again when we delivery the present to Bailey and Sabrina!

one year- where are we going from here?

Well, we did it! We made it through the first year of marriage without getting pregnant! Everyone thought we'd be knocked up right away for sure; people were even placing bets on it!

But Nathan and I had said from the get go that we didn't want to get pregnant our first year of marriage- we wanted to spend that time settling in to our new life together, getting to know eachother, and planning the future. And that's exactly what we have done. We've spent this past year learning all about one another, moving and settling into an actual house, raising puppies, figuring out our financial situation, trying to find just the right insurance, and much, much more.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to plan- and Nathan is an Eagle Scout; always prepared. So, as you can imagine, we aren't going to let pregnancy catch us by surprise! A lot of thought and planning and preparation has gone into our decision to get pregnant- and that's why I decided to start this blog. #1- to keep help me keep tabs on my planning, and #2 to keep close friends and family informed on the whole process- once we make the announcement.

That's right, I am writing here about 6 months before we are planning on "trying" and we aren't going to tell our family until I enter my second my trimester. That's why this blog is private- because we don't want anyone to know yet! Once we make the announcment it will probably stay private- but the invites will start going out to anyone that wants access.

I can't even tell you how excited I am to start a family with the love of my life- even though it's still quite a ways off. I have always known I wanted kids- Nathan, on the other hand, isn't such a big fan of kids...so, he isn't quite as excited as I am yet. Right now, he's in provider mode- crunching numbers and making sure we have enough money saved up not only for doctors appointments and labor and delivery, but all the nursery garb and baby gear too.

There has been so much baby news swirling around lately: Marvin and Sarah found out they are expecting, Kendyl just had a baby boy a few weeks ago, my friend Megan is expecting her second baby, Nathan's former boss Sabrina just had a little girl...it makes me so anxious! I can't wait for September to get here so we can get this show on the road!

Baby Lunt will hopefully be it's way before the end of the year, and I'll be keeping notes on here all along the way. It should be a fun little experience!