The Belly Exchange

A big thanks to Blogging Baby which led me to The Belly Exchange. The Belly Exchange is pure genius in my mind. It's like a great combination of maternity stores, eBay andCraigslist combined. The basic premise is that you can buy, swap or sell maternity clothes and gear. How great is that? I might have to dig out my maternity clothes and see if I can sell anything...

Tees, Onesies for the Little One

Okay, I admit - I have a shopping addiction. Not for myself. But for my kids. And not toys but cute and fun tees that are witty or unique - I'll snap them up. I figure...they will let me dress them for only a short time, I better take advantage of it. Blogging Baby had a great article today with links to several different links to different websites for fun and different onesies and tees. Some of them I've featured on here before such as Glug Baby and Baby Wit but there are some new ones! So be sure to check out Blogging Baby and happy shopping!

PregnancyWeekly Guest Writer - Tasha!

So many times, I get emails from young moms. I have to really admire young mothers because from the stories I read, it isn't so easy. And really, pregnancy or being a mom at any age isn't easy. But as you read Tasha's story, you might be like me and admire this young woman who has gone through tragedy but has remained strong. Thanks Tasha for writing. - I am a 21 year old mom. I have little boy that is three and I'm expecting the first of June. This is my third pregnancy, my first one at 16 I was 29 weeks into my pregnancy and I lost my little boy. The navel cord got twisted at the baby's belly depriving him of oxygen, I am not like a lot of teen moms. My mom doesn't let me throw my child on her I wouldn't expect that. My husband and I became parents very young but we are both loving and supporting of our child. I am terrified for this pregnancy scared something will happen to this one I don't drink or do drugs it was something that just happened it was a nightmare I had to bury a baby that I never got to hold. I have pictures the nurses took but I can hardly look at them. My last pregnancy went well he weighed in at 8lbs 8oz and he's gorgeous. I know God will not put anymore on me than I can handle, so I know I will be okay. Just thank your lucky stars and know that your are blessed everytime you look at your children. I know I do.

PregnancyWeekly Guest Writer - Angela!

I remember when pregnant I would forget things or simply just be lost in that pregnancy fog. The story you're about to read reminds me of those times. Thanks Angela for this amusing tale! - My husband and I tried to get pregnant for over a year. Like everyone,we thought it will happen on the first try, so I immediately beganchecking out baby gear and nursery bedding online. I fell in love with aparticularly charming green and cream "Lambie" set at Pottery Barn Kids. As with everything Pottery Barn, it was spendy. During the 13 months oftrying and the exhausting cycles of hope and disappointment, I kept checking online for my bedding set. It was always there but it never went on sale! Finally with a little help from a fabulous OB/GYN, we found ourselves pregnant and ecstatic! A few months later, I checked online for the bedding from work andcouldn't believe my eyes. IT WAS ON SALE!!! Almost $100 off for thewhole set. It was fate. I hurriedly went into my outlook company folder to email my husband the news. One problem- my husband doesn't work forthe same company as I do! I work at the corporate office with over 90,000 employees country-wide. Unfortunately for me, there just so happened to be another man with the same name as my husband working at a store several states away, and without thinking, I accidentally sent an email to him and not my husband. In the email I gushed on and on about the nursery set and even included a picture. Th enext morning I had a reply from the extremely confused guy I emailed."Um...Do I know you?" he questioned. "OOPS! Sorry!" I wrote. "I bet you were a bit nervous to receive an email from some woman talking about th enursery bedding she wants you to buy." I had to laugh out loud when Ireceived his response: "I crapped my pants." I ended up getting the set for over $100 off and my nursery is exactly what I dreamed it would be.

Baby Gifts

My good friend Lisa sent me a link to an interesting website for the chic woman, Chic Blvd. From dating to marriage to baby - it has articles for all different stages in your life. What I was most interested in was the baby boutique which had some unique gifts. My favorites include... - The Engraved Baby Bat - perfect from the daddy to be for his son. - The Adore - A Bowl - Cute bowls with cute sayings. - Wooden Letters - Perfect for decorating a nursery.

PregnancyWeekly Guest Writer - Stephanie!

Thanks Stephanie for this funny story! - Hello, my name is Stephanie and I wanted to share with you the day we found out we were having a baby. Actually, we later found out that there were two babies, but that's a whole nother story. My husband and I had been trying to get pregnant for about six months. I had been diagnosed with endometriosis and the doctor said that if we wanted a baby, this was the time to go a head and try. I would get so frustrated and hurt every month because I would be late, take a pregnancy test, and then it say I wasn’t pregnant and then have my period in a few days. Well, this particular day I was at work very late with my husband and I was cramping something terrible. I knew I would start my period in any day, but I was already about a week late. I hadn’t taken the last pregnancy test that we had because I didn’t want to repeat the pattern that I had started for myself. When we got home around 4AM my husband thought it would be a good idea to take the last test just to be sure. I caved in and though what the heck. I already knew what it would say so I prepared myself for that. I was having all of the signs of starting any day, but to make him happy I did it. When I took the test I knew something looked a little different, there were two pink lines. But what did this mean? I look in the cabinet frantically. I had thrown away the box and the instructional pamphlet weeks ago when cleaning out the bathroom. I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE RESULTS MEAN! I ran down the stairs to tell my husband, begging him to run to the store to get more. With it being 5 in the morning, all of the stores were closed so that wasn’t an option. I then jumped on the information highway we call the internet, but I was so frazzled I couldn’t find what I was looking for. I went to sleep and around 8 o’clock my husband woke me up by dropping a bag on the bed. He never went to sleep, he waited until the store opened and came back with a pack of 3 tests that read out digitally “PREGNANT” or “NOT PREGNANT”. We weren’t going to go through that again!! Sure enough that day I went through all of the tests to make sure, but they all said “PREGNANT” and now we are expecting two identical boys any day now.

PregnancyWeekly Guest Writer - Sheena!

Thanks Sheena for sending your story!

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My name is Sheena, I live in New Zealand and I am 19 years of age. I am 29 weeks and carrying my health baby son. This is my first so this is all new to me. I didn't think twice about becoming pregnant, I was on Depo Provera (contraception), but as most doctors/nurses would say, "still wear condoms while you are on Depo Provera", but me being me I totally ignored them thinking that I was protected, well hey I've been on Depo for a year and a half and had unprotected sex, just this time I happened to conceive a beautiful baby that I am looking forward to holding in my arms.

This has really changed me and my partners life, considering we were a couple that liked to go out and spend time with our friends. We have really slowed down on socialising and really thinking of our baby now, so he goes out and works long hours, while I do part time work. My partner is also 19. We are really excited that we have a baby on the way, and he loves talking about the subject. For Craig and me being young first time parents, everything that happens during my pregnancy is like a surprise and a shock for the both of us.

We were lying in bed watching The Simpsons on TV when I first felt my son kick, I got a hell of a fright, I got really over excited, and Craig thought I was going to go into labour, but I told him "no, our son kicked for the first time", and he was really anxious to feel baby kick, so he laid next to me with his hand on my tummy for 30mins till the next kick came along, and when he felt that little kick he got over excited as well, but the thing was, he couldn't stop laughing and over reacting about it, which I found so amazingly cute. The day I went in for my ultrasound and found out what I was having, Craig and I were really happy to find out that we were having and boy, we both cried with a large amount of excitement. When the scan and everything was over we went shopping and spent up large on baby boys clothes that we needed. It was one very long day that I will always remember.

Our baby son has brought our relationship much closer together, and something really amazing happened to me yesterday, CRAIG PROPOSED TO ME, I thought he was saying it for a joke, so I asked him if he was serious, and he was serious alright, and my answer was a straight up YES.

I can't wait to bring my baby son into this world and to hold him in my arms, and to look down at him. It is like a dream come true for Craig and I.

PregnancyWeekly Guest Writer - Heather!

Heather sent this incredibly funny witty short article to me last week and I had to share. Enjoy and thanks Heather!

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I swore I wouldn’t. I took the Oath to never curse the world with offspring that has the potential to f things up the way I do. I watched as my friends got round, heard them exclaim “Awww” at anything pink or fuzzy and said “NO WAY.” Not me, not now, what Idiot Girls say to reproducing. Right? Right.

Besides, I could never be someone’s MOM. Look at me: I eat entire cartons of Cherry Garcia for dinner, I still make prank calls… oh yeah-ready for parenting!

Knowing I don’t have to explain the whole “It’s not that I don’t like babies, it’s just not for me” line to all of you, I do at least have to give SOME reasoning why not..and then of course, why, I let my husband do this evil thing to me. It’s not the career, I have a job, and seriously I would take pretty much any reason to get 6 weeks off. It’s not that I have a hot body and don’t want stretch marks and droopy boobs, in fact, quite the opposite, I have no boobs to droop and a few additional stretch marks would go unnoticed as I refuse to subject the general public to my jiggling, 3-kneed, calf-all-the-way-down legs anyway.

Mostly, it’s that I’m stupid. I’m a klutz. I like to drink and I have a hard enough time as it is laying down to do the “I can still fit into a size 12 after they’ve been washed 27 times” dance into my pants. I like to leave the house at unreasonable hours strictly to sit in a grimy Denny’s booth and drink bad coffee. Drive around with my girlfriends and moon people. I can’t give that up!! Plus, I KNOW better. I KNOW deep in my soul that although my husband and I would love a kid to death (literally, probably) that we have no right to think we can control someone else’s life-let alone NAME them. So what happened?

It was awful, and if you tell anyone this I swear I’ll ask you to baby sit. Overnight. I got caught up in the marriage/family stuff. I was so flattered that some poor, although not unsuspecting, man would commit to me for the rest of his life, we started cooing and snuggling and saying things like “wouldn’t it be great to add a baby to our little love nest?” and “do you think the cats will sleep on it’s face and kill it?” So off the pill I went.

And here I am. Constipated, tired, puffier than usual, my hair is falling out, my boobs itch all the time and if you think I’m lady-like enough not to scratch in public, think again. Where does this put me in the club? Do I really have to become a card-carrying member of the Constant Stain of Spit Up on My Shoulder? Did I mention that I hate pain? I promise not to tell you about labor if you promise to help me beat away all the other ladies who are suddenly compelled to share intimate stories about just how far their privates really can stretch.

I also promise never wear a matching outfit with my baby. And to never say “no, I can’t go out mooning tonight girls, you know, the baaayyybyyyy.” I swear to uphold the fact that I probably won’t fit into my pre-prego clothes after giving birth and to still hold your hair while you barf up last nights’ tequila as long as you promise to keep reminding me not to cut mine short.

Given these facts, I only ask for the support during the crazy time, quiet during the sleepless time, the insanity induced laughter and undying love and friendship that only my fellow Idiot Girls can offer.

I Could Totally Be On The Last Comic Standing

A pregnant woman from Washington, D.C. gets in a car accident and falls into a deep coma. Asleep for nearly six months, when she wakes up she sees that she is no longer pregnant and frantically asks the doctor about her baby. The doctor replies, "Ma'am you had twins! A boy and a girl. Your brother from Maryland came in and named them." The woman thinks to herself, "No, not my brother... he's an idiot!" She asks the doctor, "Well, what's the girl's name?" "Denise." "Wow, that's not a bad name, I like it! What's the boy's name?" "Denephew. "

Think Twice About That Cup of Coffee

There was an interesting rumor and false story that came out right around the time that Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck gave birth to their baby girl. Stories claimed that Starbucks had signed a deal to have the two celebrity parents to become Starbucks spokespeople. After all, the duo were often seen at Starbucks and amongst pregnancy circles, there was shock that Jennifer would be consuming such large quantities of caffine (triple shot grande latte espresso blah blah blah) while pregnant. And let's not those pictures of Britney Spears cuddling her frappachinos before she would cuddle her son. And so it's interesting today that across the news wires, there is a study released from John Hopkins about the effects and addictions of alcohol and caffine. To sum up the study, an addiction to coffee together with family history of alcohol abuse marks that women who give up caffine during pregnancy will have a tough time from abstaining. Earlier studies have indicated that heavy caffine use has contributed to miscarriage and reduced fetal growth. The study was on 44 pregnant women who looked for prenatal care. 22 of those women had both caffine dependence and a family history of alcoholism. They ignored advice to stop drinking caffine and consumed more than the "safe" amount. Of the woman who had neither a dependence for caffine nor a history of alcoholism, all were able to abstain from caffine during the term of their pregnancy. So if you are pregnant and having a tough time with coffee and caffinated drinks, think about your family history and then speak to your doctor about the possible effects of caffine during pregnancy and hopefully can you committ to no or moderate caffine during your 9 months. For more information, you can visit healthday.com