Today: 17 Weeks, 1 Day
Weight loss: 14 pounds
Weeks weight stable: 2
Pre-pregnancy pants that still fit: most of them (I fit into more now than I did 4 weeks ago)
Weeks nauseous: 12 (since week 5)
Medications/treatments prescribed/recommended for nausea: 4
Days I've felt the baby kick: 9
Recent cravings: Bagel and egg sandwiches, ice cream sandwiches, twizzlers, vegetarian sloppy joes
Average Number of bagel and egg sandwiches eaten daily: 2
Location of top of uterus: just over halfway between my pelvis and my belly button
Number of people who have grabbed my belly: 2
Number of people who grabbed by belly way to high and were simply feeling abdominal fat, abdominal muscles and organs: 2
Number of hours I can sleep consecutively without my body pillow: <1
Number of hours I can sleep consecutively with my body pillow: >3
Number of hours I have watched Star Trek this week because the hubs asks me what I want to watch and I say "I don't care" because I don't feel good: 8
I think I would call the last two weeks a draw.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Butterfly Kisses
I know that when Bob Carlisle wrote "Butterfly Kisses" he was referring to the eyelash kisses that his daughter would give, but there is an even earlier type of butterfly kisses that mommies get to experience from their babies. I am referring to the first time that you get to feel baby kick. On Monday night, I had a little fluttering feeling in my abdomen while I was cooking dinner. I thought that it felt weird and the closest thing that I could equate it to was a mild form of my foot waking up after my legs have been crossed for too long. But the next afternoon I was laying down on my right side and I felt the butterfly fluttering again, in the same place! When I first felt it on Monday I thought, "I wonder if this could be the baby kicking." But I dismissed that thought as I was still only 15 weeks 6 days pregnant on Monday (the estimated timeframe for feeling your baby kick for the first time is 16-22 weeks - usually the only people who feel it before 18 weeks are women who have already had a baby and who know what the kicking feels like and so I was not anticipating feeling it for another 2 or 3 weeks at the earliest). Now every time I lie quietly on my right side I get the same butterfly fluttery feeling. So I can draw one of two conclusions: either I am feeling my baby kick, or I am starting to develop neuropathy of the uterus (I don't think neuropathy of the uterus is a real thing, but since the fluttery feeling also kind of feels like numb waking up tingles, neuropathy is the only other thing that I can think of that might feel like that). I'm getting my first butterfly kisses from our baby. :-)
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Straws
I drank eight 8 oz glasses of water yesterday. This may not sound impressive, but about 6 weeks ago I couldn't drink water at all (it made me nauseous) so I would drink about 3-4 8 oz servings of gatorade a day. Yesterday was the first time that I was able to meet that water goal since I was about 6 weeks pregnant. And what can I thank for this? A straw.
I feel like I can very easily look at someone else's diet and analyze changes that need to be made. Working in the Huntington's Disease clinic on campus we have some people who don't drink enough water. What do we tell them? Use straws. When you drink from a straw you drink more. Also, if someone is trying to lose weight and is drinking high calorie beverages through a straw, then stop using a straw (actually, just stop buying the high calorie beverages, but if you are unwilling to do that then not using a straw can certainly slow you down). Apparently I am my own worst patient since it took me 9 weeks to start using a straw.
I am already starting to feel the benefits. I am not as light headed, I peed in the middle of the night (most people wouldn't see having to wake up to pee as a benefit, but I should be doing it anyway, so it is a good thing), and my pee wasn't a toxic amber yellow color. Go me.
I feel like I can very easily look at someone else's diet and analyze changes that need to be made. Working in the Huntington's Disease clinic on campus we have some people who don't drink enough water. What do we tell them? Use straws. When you drink from a straw you drink more. Also, if someone is trying to lose weight and is drinking high calorie beverages through a straw, then stop using a straw (actually, just stop buying the high calorie beverages, but if you are unwilling to do that then not using a straw can certainly slow you down). Apparently I am my own worst patient since it took me 9 weeks to start using a straw.
I am already starting to feel the benefits. I am not as light headed, I peed in the middle of the night (most people wouldn't see having to wake up to pee as a benefit, but I should be doing it anyway, so it is a good thing), and my pee wasn't a toxic amber yellow color. Go me.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Emotions running high
I can be a bit emotional sometimes, but usually in regards to things that are going on in my own life. I very rarely tear up when I am watching TV or listening to the radio. However, for the past few weeks I seem to be crying over everything. And I'm not talking a single dignified tear running down my cheek. I am full out sobbing over things that would have never gotten to me before.
The hubs and I have been watching the Harry Potter movies. I read all of the books, and had seen parts of the movies, but I had never sat down and watched them all. The hubs scoffed at the idea of Harry Potter for quite some time but finally watched the first movie with me when it was on the TV at a hotel that we were staying at recently. After he watched the first one he agreed that we should get the rest of them from Netflix (unfortunately, part of the compromise is that I can get the Harry Potter movies as long as every other DVD that we get is Star Trek Voyager). I usually don't cry watching movies, but as we were watching Harry Potter 4 and Harry Potter 5 there were parts where I got really choked up. Then I started thinking ahead to the other characters who die in later books/movies and I almost lost it. Poor Hedwig (yes, I am crying over a fictional owl).
The other day, on the way to work, the radio station that I listen to was playing a lot of old school songs and patriotic songs because the big fireworks display was going to be that night. The song "Proud to Be an American" came on. While I agree that this is a moving song and should be heard once a year during the 4th of July holiday weekend, I don't think it has ever made me cry. I must have been a sight to the cars passing by as I was singing along loudly with tears streaming down my face.
I understand crying when a TV show like Extreme Home Makeover comes on (although, I usually don't cry for this show) because they are making people's lives so much better, but lately I have been crying during shows that don't make sense. I have been watching Food Network Star and they hadn't seen their families in a few weeks. Before one of the challenges, however, their families made a surprise visit. I cried to the point where you get the sobby breathing, where you haven't taken a chance to catch your breath, and after you have been crying for a while you take those really fast breaths in.
I also don't usually cry when reading books. There have been a couple of exceptions (one being Little Women) but I was reading Water for Elephants yesterday. I am kind of stunned, but I don't like this book at all. I decided to read it since so many people told me that it was a good book (and when a book gets that many positive reviews from people I know I usually like it), but all of the animal abuse makes me sad. I was sobbing so hard reading it yesterday that I finally had to lay down. I am 2/3 of the way through it, so I want to finish it just because I have already invested so much time into it, but for my emotional well-being that may be ill advised.
I was talking to someone about this the other day and saying that I know it is just the pregnancy hormones, but she said it doesn't really go away. Once you become a mother the emotions continue to run high and pregnancy is kind of preparing you for that.
The hubs and I have been watching the Harry Potter movies. I read all of the books, and had seen parts of the movies, but I had never sat down and watched them all. The hubs scoffed at the idea of Harry Potter for quite some time but finally watched the first movie with me when it was on the TV at a hotel that we were staying at recently. After he watched the first one he agreed that we should get the rest of them from Netflix (unfortunately, part of the compromise is that I can get the Harry Potter movies as long as every other DVD that we get is Star Trek Voyager). I usually don't cry watching movies, but as we were watching Harry Potter 4 and Harry Potter 5 there were parts where I got really choked up. Then I started thinking ahead to the other characters who die in later books/movies and I almost lost it. Poor Hedwig (yes, I am crying over a fictional owl).
The other day, on the way to work, the radio station that I listen to was playing a lot of old school songs and patriotic songs because the big fireworks display was going to be that night. The song "Proud to Be an American" came on. While I agree that this is a moving song and should be heard once a year during the 4th of July holiday weekend, I don't think it has ever made me cry. I must have been a sight to the cars passing by as I was singing along loudly with tears streaming down my face.
I understand crying when a TV show like Extreme Home Makeover comes on (although, I usually don't cry for this show) because they are making people's lives so much better, but lately I have been crying during shows that don't make sense. I have been watching Food Network Star and they hadn't seen their families in a few weeks. Before one of the challenges, however, their families made a surprise visit. I cried to the point where you get the sobby breathing, where you haven't taken a chance to catch your breath, and after you have been crying for a while you take those really fast breaths in.
I also don't usually cry when reading books. There have been a couple of exceptions (one being Little Women) but I was reading Water for Elephants yesterday. I am kind of stunned, but I don't like this book at all. I decided to read it since so many people told me that it was a good book (and when a book gets that many positive reviews from people I know I usually like it), but all of the animal abuse makes me sad. I was sobbing so hard reading it yesterday that I finally had to lay down. I am 2/3 of the way through it, so I want to finish it just because I have already invested so much time into it, but for my emotional well-being that may be ill advised.
I was talking to someone about this the other day and saying that I know it is just the pregnancy hormones, but she said it doesn't really go away. Once you become a mother the emotions continue to run high and pregnancy is kind of preparing you for that.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Week 15 Update
I've got to be honest: I'm pretty bummed out today. I thought last week that I was perhaps starting to come out of the morning sickness somewhat. I had two days where I was able to eat 3-4 small meals (while this was still only about 1200-1500 calories, and I should be eating about 2200 calories/day, this was a major improvement). Several people told me that their morning sickness ended around week 15, so I was kind of hoping that eating those meals was the light at the end of the tunnel. Also, I was finally able to eat some fresh fruit, which I had been unable to do without getting violently sick for 2 months, so I felt like I was finally doing something good for my body. The past 3 days, however, I started feeling pretty crummy again and was not able to eat much.
I got on the scale this morning and I had lost more weight. I have lost 14 pounds since I have been pregnant, and I am at a loss for how to stop losing weight and how to gain weight. I have a doctors appointment a week from Friday (unfortunately my OB is out of the office and it will be with a nurse practitioner who I have never seen before) and I was told at my last appointment that if things didn't turn around by this next appointment we would have to start discussing options. I don't really know what that means...I know that I can't lose any more weight, but what options are there? It's not like they are going to hook me up to a feeding tube. The hunger inducing medications I believe are unsafe in pregnancy. So what options are they talking about?
The only thing that I can think of, and what I am going to suggest at my appointment, is that they put me on a medication called Reglan (Metoclopramide) that essentially speeds up the digestive tract. I think that this medication (which I know is safe in pregnancy) will help with two problems: delayed gastric emptying and constipation. My major problem is delayed gastric emptying; this happens a lot in pregnancy, but I doubt that it happens to the same extent in many other pregnant women. Let's say I eat a 170 calorie yoplait yogurt (definitely the full fat kind - everything I have been buying is the most calorie dense, highest fat version available): it takes about 4 hours before I stop feeling full. If I eat 2 pieces of pizza, totaling 300-400 calories, I tend to be full for about 6 hours. If I eat before I become hungry again I become nauseous for the rest of the day and cannot eat again. Unfortunately, this means that I can only eat 3-4 times each day and each time I eat I get full really quickly. Normally, I should only be full for about 1-2 hours after a snack of yogurt and for about 3-4 hours after a meal like pizza. If my gastric emptying times were normal and I could eat on a more regular schedule then I might be able to get in enough calories.
I am also at a loss of if I should exercise or not. I know that it is good for me, but I am unable to meet my basic nutritional needs right now. While I entered pregnancy exercising regularly, when the morning sickness hit I stopped exercising because I felt so bad all the time. I have tried to start exercising again, but is it really advised right now? Can I stand to burn that extra 300 calories in a day? I know that part of the weight I have lost is muscle (I have a scale that does body fat percent and percent muscle, and while I don't trust the precision of the numbers that it provides I do trust the trends; also, if you lose this much weight and haven't been exercising regularly, you are almost guaranteed that a couple of pounds of it is muscle).
So, essentially, I am at a loss right now. If things don't turn around in 10 days then we will have to reassess the situation when I go to the doctor.
I got on the scale this morning and I had lost more weight. I have lost 14 pounds since I have been pregnant, and I am at a loss for how to stop losing weight and how to gain weight. I have a doctors appointment a week from Friday (unfortunately my OB is out of the office and it will be with a nurse practitioner who I have never seen before) and I was told at my last appointment that if things didn't turn around by this next appointment we would have to start discussing options. I don't really know what that means...I know that I can't lose any more weight, but what options are there? It's not like they are going to hook me up to a feeding tube. The hunger inducing medications I believe are unsafe in pregnancy. So what options are they talking about?
The only thing that I can think of, and what I am going to suggest at my appointment, is that they put me on a medication called Reglan (Metoclopramide) that essentially speeds up the digestive tract. I think that this medication (which I know is safe in pregnancy) will help with two problems: delayed gastric emptying and constipation. My major problem is delayed gastric emptying; this happens a lot in pregnancy, but I doubt that it happens to the same extent in many other pregnant women. Let's say I eat a 170 calorie yoplait yogurt (definitely the full fat kind - everything I have been buying is the most calorie dense, highest fat version available): it takes about 4 hours before I stop feeling full. If I eat 2 pieces of pizza, totaling 300-400 calories, I tend to be full for about 6 hours. If I eat before I become hungry again I become nauseous for the rest of the day and cannot eat again. Unfortunately, this means that I can only eat 3-4 times each day and each time I eat I get full really quickly. Normally, I should only be full for about 1-2 hours after a snack of yogurt and for about 3-4 hours after a meal like pizza. If my gastric emptying times were normal and I could eat on a more regular schedule then I might be able to get in enough calories.
I am also at a loss of if I should exercise or not. I know that it is good for me, but I am unable to meet my basic nutritional needs right now. While I entered pregnancy exercising regularly, when the morning sickness hit I stopped exercising because I felt so bad all the time. I have tried to start exercising again, but is it really advised right now? Can I stand to burn that extra 300 calories in a day? I know that part of the weight I have lost is muscle (I have a scale that does body fat percent and percent muscle, and while I don't trust the precision of the numbers that it provides I do trust the trends; also, if you lose this much weight and haven't been exercising regularly, you are almost guaranteed that a couple of pounds of it is muscle).
So, essentially, I am at a loss right now. If things don't turn around in 10 days then we will have to reassess the situation when I go to the doctor.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Baby Back Pain
I never anticipated having back pain at 3 1/2 months of pregnancy. During the day I am fine, but night is a different story. I am a stomach sleeper. While my tummy is still relatively flat, I can feel an awkward hard lump in my lower abdomen making sleep a little bit uncomfortable. Also, I have read that you shouldn't sleep on your stomach after the first trimester, so I have been trying alternate sleep positions.
The other position in which I sleep comfortably is on my back. I have been reading Dr. Oz's book You Having a Baby. Apparently, after the first trimester your uterus and baby are big enough that if you sleep on your back it can apply pressure to your inferior vena cava (the large vein running from your lower extremities, through your torso to your heart), decreasing blood flow to the baby and your own heart. I realize that many people do not even know that they are pregnant at this point and do things that are much more harmful than laying on their back to sleep, but I have this information now so I feel the need to apply it.
This leaves me sleeping on my side. I HATE sleeping on my side. Furthermore, it hurts my back. Sleeping was especially difficult at the beginning of this week because I was wearing an insulin pump (filled with saline) for a class project for my diabetes class. I had placed it on my side, which made it discrete under my clothing, but made it awful to sleep. Thankfully I was allowed to take my pump off a couple of days ago and now I have more freedom of sleeping positions, but I don't see any restful sleep coming anytime soon without some help.
I have tried using several pillows propped in different positions, but they all tend to fall of the bed during the night. Finally I decided to bite the bullet this morning and buy a pregnancy pillow. Here's hoping that my $80 investment is well worth it.
The other position in which I sleep comfortably is on my back. I have been reading Dr. Oz's book You Having a Baby. Apparently, after the first trimester your uterus and baby are big enough that if you sleep on your back it can apply pressure to your inferior vena cava (the large vein running from your lower extremities, through your torso to your heart), decreasing blood flow to the baby and your own heart. I realize that many people do not even know that they are pregnant at this point and do things that are much more harmful than laying on their back to sleep, but I have this information now so I feel the need to apply it.
This leaves me sleeping on my side. I HATE sleeping on my side. Furthermore, it hurts my back. Sleeping was especially difficult at the beginning of this week because I was wearing an insulin pump (filled with saline) for a class project for my diabetes class. I had placed it on my side, which made it discrete under my clothing, but made it awful to sleep. Thankfully I was allowed to take my pump off a couple of days ago and now I have more freedom of sleeping positions, but I don't see any restful sleep coming anytime soon without some help.
I have tried using several pillows propped in different positions, but they all tend to fall of the bed during the night. Finally I decided to bite the bullet this morning and buy a pregnancy pillow. Here's hoping that my $80 investment is well worth it.
Wrestling with my registry
The hubs and I were both, until recently, students. Now he has moved on from school into the real world and I am still hanging out in graduate school (or like my grandma says, "Have you finished college yet?" I want to tell her I finished college 4 years ago, but I know what she means). Because of our fiscal crunch that we have experienced between student loans and tuition we have learned to become thrifty and to play the system a bit.
This has become very apparent to me as I have begun putting together my baby registry. I seem to be spending hours wrestling with it, trying to squeeze out every last dime. For example, my friend Jessica is also pregnant. She was telling me about the wonderful 20% off coupons she has been receiving from babies r us and how each time they get a coupon they run out an get a big ticket item from their registry. A couple of days later I got a coveted 20% off coupon in the mail. I was soon dismayed to find, upon flipping the coupon over, that it "Excludes ALL toys, baby food, diapers, formula, wipes, strollers, car seats, high chairs, swings, play yards, bassinets, infant carriers, safety gates, monitors, breast pumps, furniture..." and then lists a plethora of brands that are excluded. *blink blink* I was stunned. What else do babies need? Isn't that everything? How am I ever going to reap the benefits of the 20% off coupon if you can't use it on anything?
I called Jess because I was a little confused. They had been buying some pretty great stuff with their 20% off coupons. I then learned the secret of Babies R Us: there are 2 20% off coupons. There is the 20% off coupon that the public gets (the one that I got), and the one that Rewards R Us members get (the ones that Jess gets). I had never heard of this Rewards R Us program, so I decided to look into it so I could get a real 20% off coupon. I found out that not only do you get the real coupons emailed to you, but you also get $5 back in gift certificates for every $150 that you spend or that someone else spends on your registry. So the more I have in my Babies R Us registry the more potential savings that I get! When I started registering I had put most of my items in my Amazon.com baby registry. You can find more products on amazon and generally the reviews are more informative. However, with the promise of gift certificates I could put aside my adoration for amazon.com in favor of a more practical Babies R Us registry (I had already created a Babies R Us registry, but it only contained about 10 items). I spent the next 3 hours transferring items from my amazon wish list to my Babies R Us wish list. It seems that Babies R Us won this battle against amazon.com!
I started to feel the need to add more and more items to my babies r us registry because I learned about something else called the baby shower sweepstakes in which you can win your entire registry! I have been able to maintain my self control and only add items that we actually need, but this is yet another incentive to transfer things over to babies r us since there is no amazon.com baby shower sweepstakes.
My newfound addiction to babies r us started to fade a few days ago, however. It was that day that a check for $275 in overpayment arrived in my mailbox from the university that I graduated from over 4 years ago. Since this was about the cost of our crib it seemed like it was meant to be! Guilt took over as I realized that I did not, in fact, pay my tuition in undergrad. My dad did that for me. I called my dad to tell him that $275 came in the mail for him and he told me to keep it as long as I spent it on the crib. Then he sent me extra money so I could buy a crib mattress. I logged onto Babies R Us immediately because I couldn't wait to go shopping (unfortunately many of the items from my registry, including the crib, are not available in stores. I would have chosen items from the stores, but when I read reviews this is the one that made the most sense)! But wait! Can my luck actually be this good? Free mattress with the purchase of the crib that I wanted! The money from my dad was already on the way so I took it upon myself to get the free mattress and then to spend the mattress money on a small shopping spree of sorts. For one thing, you can't use a crib without crib sheets! I bought all three on my registry. Here my luck got even better: two of my three crib sheets were on clearance! I decided to search through the clearance section of the website to find out what else from my registry might be found. I was able to find enough clearance items to bring my total up to $275 + what my dad sent me. What a shopping high! I entered in my billing information and clicked "submit."
I got an email the next day saying that all of my items had shipped! It wasn't until I started reading the fine print in the email that I got a little bit angry. One nice deal that Babies R Us has right now is that you get $20 off of shipping on orders that are $100 or more. I had certainly surpassed the $100 mark. But I had ordered so much stuff that shipping was still an additional $60. When I saw this before I ordered I was a bit perturbed - I have Amazon prime so I get free 2 day shipping from amazon.com, so it almost seems a crime for someone to ask me to pay for shipping anymore. But I was getting a free mattress and plenty of clearance items, so I justified the necessary expense. It wasn't until the shipment emails came in that I was able to critically evaluate the $60 in shipping costs. My order had been split into 4 shipments. Apparently each separate shipment that Babies R Us makes they decide to charge you more money. I looked at the UPS and FedEx tracking information to figure out why they had to split the order so many times and I determined that it is because the items are shipping from 4 separate locations. I guess they don't keep all of their inventory in the same place. It makes sense, from their standpoint, but it annoys me that they charge me more money because of this. Most of the shipping costs were free up to $20, but then I found one order that had a shipping cost of $40. If it would have been the crib I would have understood...but 3 blankets?!?!?! How can 3 blankets that only cost $34 cost over $40 to ship?!?!?!
I decided that I had learned a valuable lesson from this. From now on I would check closely as I added each item to my cart to decide if the shipping cost for that item (no matter how good of a deal the item initially presents itself to be) was worth it. And thankfully I decided to do that today. I know that Babies R Us defeated me the first time, but I wasn't going to let it happen again. "Fool me once, shame on Babies R Us. Fool me twice, shame on me." I had really bad back pain last night from the new way that I have to sleep now (for more information on that, see my upcoming blog post on sleeping while pregnant). I decided that I would start looking for a pregnancy body pillow. I had quickly glanced at them at a maternity store and was horrified to see that they were at least $60, but a rectangular body pillow costs about $25, so I guess I can understand the extra cost. I didn't buy one then, but I realized that if it can help me to get better sleep for the next 5 months that it will be worth it. I read several reviews for the $60 pillows and realized that they got some pretty shabby reviews. I finally found an $80 pillow and realized that it got much better reviews. While I am thrifty, I am also practical. I would rather invest the extra $20 into a good product than spend $60 on a mediocre one. I had that 20% off coupon as well, so I could get $16 off and then it would only be $64!!! However, the shipping was $17. If I could find items for $36 my order would be over $100 then I wouldn't have to pay $20 worth of shipping!!! Then I looked at my babies r us rewards and found out that if I spent $95 more dollars I would get a $5 gift certificate! Essentially, spend $35 and get $25. That's a pretty good deal. I added $35 in products and my shipping only increased to $22, so total shipping would only be $2!!!! Wow, I'm good at this registry stuff. I thought it was prime time to find the redemption code on the back of my 20% off coupon, only to find that you can only use it in stores and that the body pillow that I had chosen is not sold in stores. Blast. You win again babies r us! But I still wanted the rewards and free shipping on my pillow, so I started a quest to find a combination of items that would add as little shipping cost as possible while getting as close to $100 as possible while purchasing items from my registry that I didn't think anyone would buy for me (i.e. rectal thermometer). I spent an hour adding things to my registry (for example nail clippers), deleting them when I saw the shipping cost (how can $3 nail clippers cost $5 to ship?!?!?!), and then adding other items in new and varied combinations. I finally thought I had it all figured out: Body pillow, rectal thermometer, pacifiers, teether, $102, $2 shipping. Then I started entering in my shipping and billing info and they added $4 shipping for the $3 teether because it had to be shipped separately! I wasn't going to let Babies R Us get me this time!!!! I backed things up, deleted everything from my cart and started over. After trying several combinations I figured out that for some reason breastmilk storage bags (probably another item that party guests would be unlikely to purchase for me) ship with body pillows, my order was $100.49 and shipping was $2. When I went to check out shipping did not increase as it had previously. I got my $20 off shipping and my $5 gift card. My breastmilk storage bags are free. I win!!!
All that being said, buyer beware - there could be hidden costs. But if you are aware of the potential for hidden costs, you can get some pretty sweet stuff for free.
This has become very apparent to me as I have begun putting together my baby registry. I seem to be spending hours wrestling with it, trying to squeeze out every last dime. For example, my friend Jessica is also pregnant. She was telling me about the wonderful 20% off coupons she has been receiving from babies r us and how each time they get a coupon they run out an get a big ticket item from their registry. A couple of days later I got a coveted 20% off coupon in the mail. I was soon dismayed to find, upon flipping the coupon over, that it "Excludes ALL toys, baby food, diapers, formula, wipes, strollers, car seats, high chairs, swings, play yards, bassinets, infant carriers, safety gates, monitors, breast pumps, furniture..." and then lists a plethora of brands that are excluded. *blink blink* I was stunned. What else do babies need? Isn't that everything? How am I ever going to reap the benefits of the 20% off coupon if you can't use it on anything?
I called Jess because I was a little confused. They had been buying some pretty great stuff with their 20% off coupons. I then learned the secret of Babies R Us: there are 2 20% off coupons. There is the 20% off coupon that the public gets (the one that I got), and the one that Rewards R Us members get (the ones that Jess gets). I had never heard of this Rewards R Us program, so I decided to look into it so I could get a real 20% off coupon. I found out that not only do you get the real coupons emailed to you, but you also get $5 back in gift certificates for every $150 that you spend or that someone else spends on your registry. So the more I have in my Babies R Us registry the more potential savings that I get! When I started registering I had put most of my items in my Amazon.com baby registry. You can find more products on amazon and generally the reviews are more informative. However, with the promise of gift certificates I could put aside my adoration for amazon.com in favor of a more practical Babies R Us registry (I had already created a Babies R Us registry, but it only contained about 10 items). I spent the next 3 hours transferring items from my amazon wish list to my Babies R Us wish list. It seems that Babies R Us won this battle against amazon.com!
I started to feel the need to add more and more items to my babies r us registry because I learned about something else called the baby shower sweepstakes in which you can win your entire registry! I have been able to maintain my self control and only add items that we actually need, but this is yet another incentive to transfer things over to babies r us since there is no amazon.com baby shower sweepstakes.
My newfound addiction to babies r us started to fade a few days ago, however. It was that day that a check for $275 in overpayment arrived in my mailbox from the university that I graduated from over 4 years ago. Since this was about the cost of our crib it seemed like it was meant to be! Guilt took over as I realized that I did not, in fact, pay my tuition in undergrad. My dad did that for me. I called my dad to tell him that $275 came in the mail for him and he told me to keep it as long as I spent it on the crib. Then he sent me extra money so I could buy a crib mattress. I logged onto Babies R Us immediately because I couldn't wait to go shopping (unfortunately many of the items from my registry, including the crib, are not available in stores. I would have chosen items from the stores, but when I read reviews this is the one that made the most sense)! But wait! Can my luck actually be this good? Free mattress with the purchase of the crib that I wanted! The money from my dad was already on the way so I took it upon myself to get the free mattress and then to spend the mattress money on a small shopping spree of sorts. For one thing, you can't use a crib without crib sheets! I bought all three on my registry. Here my luck got even better: two of my three crib sheets were on clearance! I decided to search through the clearance section of the website to find out what else from my registry might be found. I was able to find enough clearance items to bring my total up to $275 + what my dad sent me. What a shopping high! I entered in my billing information and clicked "submit."
I got an email the next day saying that all of my items had shipped! It wasn't until I started reading the fine print in the email that I got a little bit angry. One nice deal that Babies R Us has right now is that you get $20 off of shipping on orders that are $100 or more. I had certainly surpassed the $100 mark. But I had ordered so much stuff that shipping was still an additional $60. When I saw this before I ordered I was a bit perturbed - I have Amazon prime so I get free 2 day shipping from amazon.com, so it almost seems a crime for someone to ask me to pay for shipping anymore. But I was getting a free mattress and plenty of clearance items, so I justified the necessary expense. It wasn't until the shipment emails came in that I was able to critically evaluate the $60 in shipping costs. My order had been split into 4 shipments. Apparently each separate shipment that Babies R Us makes they decide to charge you more money. I looked at the UPS and FedEx tracking information to figure out why they had to split the order so many times and I determined that it is because the items are shipping from 4 separate locations. I guess they don't keep all of their inventory in the same place. It makes sense, from their standpoint, but it annoys me that they charge me more money because of this. Most of the shipping costs were free up to $20, but then I found one order that had a shipping cost of $40. If it would have been the crib I would have understood...but 3 blankets?!?!?! How can 3 blankets that only cost $34 cost over $40 to ship?!?!?!
I decided that I had learned a valuable lesson from this. From now on I would check closely as I added each item to my cart to decide if the shipping cost for that item (no matter how good of a deal the item initially presents itself to be) was worth it. And thankfully I decided to do that today. I know that Babies R Us defeated me the first time, but I wasn't going to let it happen again. "Fool me once, shame on Babies R Us. Fool me twice, shame on me." I had really bad back pain last night from the new way that I have to sleep now (for more information on that, see my upcoming blog post on sleeping while pregnant). I decided that I would start looking for a pregnancy body pillow. I had quickly glanced at them at a maternity store and was horrified to see that they were at least $60, but a rectangular body pillow costs about $25, so I guess I can understand the extra cost. I didn't buy one then, but I realized that if it can help me to get better sleep for the next 5 months that it will be worth it. I read several reviews for the $60 pillows and realized that they got some pretty shabby reviews. I finally found an $80 pillow and realized that it got much better reviews. While I am thrifty, I am also practical. I would rather invest the extra $20 into a good product than spend $60 on a mediocre one. I had that 20% off coupon as well, so I could get $16 off and then it would only be $64!!! However, the shipping was $17. If I could find items for $36 my order would be over $100 then I wouldn't have to pay $20 worth of shipping!!! Then I looked at my babies r us rewards and found out that if I spent $95 more dollars I would get a $5 gift certificate! Essentially, spend $35 and get $25. That's a pretty good deal. I added $35 in products and my shipping only increased to $22, so total shipping would only be $2!!!! Wow, I'm good at this registry stuff. I thought it was prime time to find the redemption code on the back of my 20% off coupon, only to find that you can only use it in stores and that the body pillow that I had chosen is not sold in stores. Blast. You win again babies r us! But I still wanted the rewards and free shipping on my pillow, so I started a quest to find a combination of items that would add as little shipping cost as possible while getting as close to $100 as possible while purchasing items from my registry that I didn't think anyone would buy for me (i.e. rectal thermometer). I spent an hour adding things to my registry (for example nail clippers), deleting them when I saw the shipping cost (how can $3 nail clippers cost $5 to ship?!?!?!), and then adding other items in new and varied combinations. I finally thought I had it all figured out: Body pillow, rectal thermometer, pacifiers, teether, $102, $2 shipping. Then I started entering in my shipping and billing info and they added $4 shipping for the $3 teether because it had to be shipped separately! I wasn't going to let Babies R Us get me this time!!!! I backed things up, deleted everything from my cart and started over. After trying several combinations I figured out that for some reason breastmilk storage bags (probably another item that party guests would be unlikely to purchase for me) ship with body pillows, my order was $100.49 and shipping was $2. When I went to check out shipping did not increase as it had previously. I got my $20 off shipping and my $5 gift card. My breastmilk storage bags are free. I win!!!
All that being said, buyer beware - there could be hidden costs. But if you are aware of the potential for hidden costs, you can get some pretty sweet stuff for free.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)