prep for delivery

March 29, 2012

are we there yet?[note: this is a sponsored post that was written in advance, so perhaps it will be more of a retrospective! regardless, i decided to finish prepping the pre-delivery essentials — or what i hope are the essentials — by 37 weeks. so this post reflects how things stood at that point.]

[late-breaking editor’s note: HA. nice wishful thinking!]

on our way . . . first of all, i have to thank all of YOU who have previously offered baby prep advice. it was incredibly helpful to get input from lots of moms in different areas and situations! we are also lucky to have plenty of friends and relatives who are new[ish] parents, and with all of that useful advice i’m feeling pretty confident right now that there are no GAPING holes in our preparations thus far. i think the easiest way to share how we went about prep for delivery is chronological, so here’s how our timeline essentially went, in a nutshell . . .✰ 25ish weeks: at somewhere around 6 months gestation, i was finally able to let go of trepidations and superstitions and start assuming that there would be a baby joining us in a few months. plus, preparations for a baby shower [#1, in miami] were being made and my mother-in-law gently started reminding me on a daily basis that we needed a registry if we wanted our guests to have any idea what sorts of things we wanted. so, josh and i finally bucked up and got this done. we ended up choosing an online-only merchant to make things easy on ourselves [and hopefully the guests!], but spent some time in a big-box baby store looking at things before committing. this was a key step — things like strollers and car seats can be really intimidating, and just taking things in visually was quite valuable. as you might imagine, lists upon lists were made. but getting [nearly] everything up online was really helpful. from that point on, we had an idea of what we wanted/needed and everything just seemed less overwhelming. and over the next few months, we slowly accumulated everything we need [we think!] — from diapers to pacifiers to crib bedding.✰ 30ish weeks: around this point, nursery prep began. i decided on a crib + changing table [our one big splurge . . .] and had them delivered to our apartment. we also ended up getting a futon, since our nursery is also going to be a makeshift guest room when family come to stay! i still wouldn’t call this area done by any stretch of the imagination, but it is what it is — and maybe some of our future guests will want to help with putting up pictures on the walls and organization [mom? dad?]. given that this happened, my dreams of a super cute yet streamlined nursery were tabled for a while. but the essentials are there. we are, however, going to have to find some kind of storage solution that is NOT the crib!33ish weeks: laundry time! i spent a weekend washing and sorting god knows how many baby girl outfits handed down lovingly from my sister-in-law. things needed to be sorted by size and clothing type, after all [and fine, it was SO much fun to just bask in all of the cuteness]. if i really had my act together, i would have washed and sorted everything up to 1 year, but instead i just prepped 0-3 and 3-6 months. hopefully i won’t regret this too much later!already mourning the fact that these garments will inevitably fit for about 0.023 seconds36 weeks: car seat installation time! i was very intimidated by this task, but it turned out to be no big deal. josh and i brought our two bases and one seat out to our cars, and 30 minutes later of learning all about seat belt vs. LATCH systems, we had this baby in! yeahhhh!HOWEVER, our next stop was to the local fire station for inspection, where we found out that our installation was — well, not quite perfect. the staff was very nice and helped us move our seat from the passenger’s side to the middle [which is safest and what we had wanted to do originally, but weren’t sure the belt setup was as good as the LATCH]. they also helped us tighten things up a little. this service was free and we were on our way in under 30 minutes. i would definitely recommend this service to anyone! ✰ 37 weeks: to celebrate hitting full-term, i gathered things together and packed up our hospital bag. it’s kind of funny, because for josh and me, going to the hospital is . . . well, what we do almost every day! it’s a whopping 5-minute drive from our apartment and i know the 5th floor [where labor and delivery is . . . as well as pediatrics] like the back of my hand. however, i realize that if i’m in the throes of painful contractions, i’m not going to want to search for the baby nail scissors or think about what i’m going to need to help with breastfeeding. once i started packing, however, i realized that not everything could be placed in a bag for 3 [maybe?] weeks. after all, i need my glasses every day, and i’m already wearing the nursing bras i bought for post-baby. [i had to. somewhere around 35 weeks, underwires started KILLING ME!] so, another list was in order . . . some things went straight into the bag: but others will be thrown in last-minute. and hopefully that will work out just fine.so that’s where we stand at term — just kind of waiting. but at least we’re in ready position! anything specific you would add — or subtract? i will definitely report back after the big event to let you all know if we missed anything important!Check out the Huggies Mommy Answers Facebook app!Find more posts from bloggers sharing their experiences of motherhood on the Huggies page on BlogHer.com.

4 Comments

  • Reply Kelly March 10, 2019 at 7:18 pm

    Wishing you the best of luck, Sarah! It’s been so fun to follow your journey and I’m so happy for you and your new little one to be 🙂

  • Reply Jenny March 10, 2019 at 7:43 pm

    I forgot to add: Good luck with everything now in the last few days! 🙂

  • Reply glidingcalm March 10, 2019 at 7:19 pm

    aHHHHHHHHHH so closeeeeeeeeeeee!!! you are so prepared, it is AWESOME! what an incredible family this little girl will be born into! you will be such an amazing mama!

  • Reply Nico March 10, 2019 at 7:18 pm

    I have to say I’m giggling a little that you’re bringing nail scissors. Never ever crossed my mind! You are SO much more organized than I am. I’m 37w and we don’t have the crib put together, car sea installed, clothes unpacked, let alone my hospital bag. 🙂

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