Good Afternoon, Everyone :)
My friend Kadi recommended to write a post about where I get my pregnancy/baby information from and what blogs I follow. So this is what I'll do and I'll also add some information that I was given and found absolutely useless :D And if you are one of the lucky ladies, who is expecting your first child, you might be packing/thinking of packing your hospital bag, so I'll quickly go over what I packed and what I actually used and needed :) And a few unseen pictures of O :)
Back to the post .
I don't actually follow any blogs but there are a few I usually check these days.
When I was pregnant I read this blog by Anna Saccone Joly pretty much every week, because she was expecting her second child while I was pregnant with Oscar, and I loved reading her weekly updates, while keeping up with her first child Emilias progress. Now, instead of reading her blog I watch her husband vlogs on youtube about their family life. Their videos are the only ones I actually watch on youtube pretty much every day, as he posts a new video every evening :)
Another blog I started reading while I was pregnant is The Honeybee by Andee Layne. She wasn't pregnant anymore, but I loved how her blog is about her life and fashion and healthy eating/living with some parenting and baby updates about her daughter Ava. I still check back on her blog every now and then, but don't really follow it that much. She posts some really great fashion advice :)
A really good parenting blog is lovetaza rockstar diaries. It's about a christian couple with 2 children living in New York. The woman Naomi who is writing the blog is actually pregnant with her third now. How exciting. And she is also doing weekly pregnancy update posts :) I really love the style of her blog and the way she writes. I also love her little section called Eleanorism or things Eleanor says??? one of those :D and it's a segment she does about what her daughter does and says..it's really funny. Children come up with the funniest things :D
A quite a funny fact about the 3 blogs I do recommend/read is that all these ladies are from different places. Anna is from Ireland (they live near London now) Andee lives in the orange county and Taza lives in New York. I know orange county and New York are both in America, but they are like 2 different worlds really :D On a side note, I too went to New York and also California :) Los Angeles to be exact, but we did drive there by the coast line from San Fransisco so I can say I've seen more than people that have just flown straight into LAX.
I might actually do a throwback post about my travels ( I was only there for 3 weeks, but still) in America once I get a hold of the pictures we took there...It has been nearly 2 and a half years and I still haven't seen all of them. My friend had the camera and she is just the shittiest person to get pictures from :D
But that's all from the blogs side.
When I was pregnant I signed up with pretty much every single baby update website possible :D It's actually quite cool, you just enter your due date and the website sends you weekly updates on what to expect, most of them continue doing them after the birth, so that is also great. I like it a lot :D
I'm not going to go through of them all, but here are the 3 I like the most :)
www.babycenter.co.uk ( I actually use the US site rather than the UK one)
www.emmasdiary.co.uk on top of sending weekly updates they also have great offers and competitions. I got my baby show tickets cheaper with a code they sent me :)
www.bounty.com they are the people who give you the maternity and family packs that you can collect from Boots, Argos and now I think Asda as well. I still need to get my family pack :D
They send you ZHAMAZING offers on all baby stuff. Great discount codes and weekly updates. Now that I have Oscar I get monthly baby updates rather than weekly.
Imagine the scariness of getting an email saying...''this will be your last pregnancy update email'' :O Week 40, this is when it gets real :D
And I also used Google search a lot :D And went on the page where ever I thought I'll find the best answer. I loved the forums, as they had real mothers giving their views and answers.
Since everything is so technical these days I did get a baby app. I actually paid for mine, but there are so many out there that you can get for free.
The one I got for my computer was called Pregnancy Plus by Health and parenting. And it would show the progress and how the baby looks, the development and all that jazz. I checked it every week. The great thing about this app is that it continues until week 42, which can easily happen with pregnancy ( I was 6 days overdue)
I also got the Parents Pregnancy and Baby Guide app, that continues up to your baby being 2 years old :) I had not actually looked at it since getting Oscar, but now after writing this post, I'll will go and see what to expect in the upcoming weeks.
Obviously every baby is different, but these apps and updates give you a good outlook and overall information, so you wouldn't be surprised.
And I got one more app, and it was the contraction counter...that was very useful :)
Now to the part where I'm going to tell you about what information I found completely useless as a first time mom.
''THE WHOLE COURSE IN THE HOSPITAL''
When we were there and even after I just thought it's amazing that I took it, and I loved the information, and I loved the woman who gave the course. She was just really positive and gave us loads of information about pain relief (her view was that there is no need for pain relief if you know what is going on)
We were told that contractions are just muscles working to get the baby down and out...In reality it is nothing like muscle work.
I know you should not get stressed out and think of the pain...I was in labour for almost 2 days...and pain is the only thing you can think about. There is of course also tiredness and hunger with such a long labour. Once I got the epidural at 4am ( That was 24 hours after my first contraction) I was not allowed to eat anything...I gave birth at almost 8pm which meant that I didn't have any energy left to do the vigorous job of pushing out a baby since I had only had water for 16 hours.
I did write about my whole labour in the delivery post (I'll put a link for it below with all the rest of them as well :))so I'm not going to go through all of it, but I think the course just gave a very optimistic view of what was going to happen and when it actually did it was kind of a shock as it was all really unexpected and I felt completely unprepared.
It's a good thing the course was free as I would've asked for my money back :D
It's all worth though when you get to have this little munchkin :)
The Hospital Bag
I packed for god knows what :D Most of the things I packed I didn't even need and in all honesty they were in the way of me trying to find the things I did need.
Breast pads - Unless you have leaky breasts already when you are pregnant, there is little chance you will get them in the hospital. I was only in the hospital for 24 hours though after birth and my milk came in on the 4th day. I packed about 20 breast pads :S Next time I would only pack 2 to make them into a warm compress, as you can get sore nipples, if you breastfeed.
Maternity disposable briefs :S I got them with the whole pack and thought they would be amazing, in reality I did feel that I needed more support down there. Pack about 5 pairs of underwear suitable for the massive pregnancy pads.
I also found that the pads they give you in the hospital were much better than the ones I brought, so take advantage of the nice staff and bag yourself some free ones :D
A whole bag of toiletries - I only used shampoo and shower gel and also a face wash. There was no point having the conditioner and body cream and face cream and every other little pot and cream I packed. I did use a bit of make up though, I used my Estee Lauder bb cream and a mascara on the next day, just to make myself feel like a human again.
Towels - If you have long hair take an extra towel for your hair. Also take some flip flops for the showers unless you are in a private room. I was in a ward with 3 other women and the showers were horrible. I used my slippers that they tell you to take but they got wet after the shower and for the rest of the day I was wearing normal shoes (we had to go for checks with O and you have to go get your own food ...D got me mine )So instead of slippers bring flip flops.
Dressing gown - didn't pack one actually and I also didn't need it.
My sleepwear disaster :D I got a long sleep shirt from Primark when I was pregnant and it seemed to fit nicely, but after birth I think my body was just really bloated all over and the buttons would not button and I ended up being really uncomfortable. I would've been much better with a long stretchy old t-shirt.
And I also packed way too many things for O. I could've been fine with 2 sleep suits and 2 vests for the extra layers plus a hat and a nice blanket. I had D bring a fleece blanket for him for going home...they tell you not to use fleece blankets, so I brought a cellular one, but O has been sleeping with fleece ones and he is happy with the softness.
The grooming kit with a hairbrush and nail clippers :S Why did I pack it? I don't know :D
There is no need for socks and bibs, especially when you are breastfeeding.
I also didn't use the cooling spray because I forgot I had it :D
And I only had one of the snack bars as I wasn't allowed to eat after they thought I might have developed diabetes in the hospital...in a day ... it wasn't diabetes :D
The one thing they do tell you is not to use wipes and use cotton balls instead. I'm sorry, but if you are in a ward with 3 other women and one sink and no facilities to use a kettle to boil water and all the things they tell you should do then take wipes. I gave up on the cotton balls the minute I took them out of the bag and used wipes instead.
I'll do a separate post about the updates Hospital Bag List just so there wouldn't be anything confusing :)
But that is all for todays information :)
If you have any other questions, leave comment below and I'll be sure to answer it :)
Stay tuned
xoxo
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