How we are going to raise our child

We have become really reflective over the last 4 or so months since we found out that we are going to be parents. We look at the way that we were raised, the ways that other people are raising their kids, books about raising good kids, and our own preferences and are trying to make a plan now. I realize our plans may change, but I feel that if we don't even think about these things ahead of time we will never address them.

An easy decision was that we are going to raise our children as vegetarians. Keith and I are both vegetarians. While we are partially doing this from a practical sense (there is no way that I am going to purchase and prepare meat for our children if we aren't eating it), we are also doing this because we ethically do not agree with the way that much farming is done in America. This past weekend my father-in-law said, "Well, what are you going to do when your kid comes over to our house and eats meat?" I said, "They aren't going to eat meat at your house. They are going to be vegetarians." He is not a vegetarian, so he doesn't understand how strongly we feel about this, but he didn't understand why we were going to control our child in that way. The simple answer is that we are the grown-ups. It is our job to make decisions for our children until they are old enough to make their own decisions. I think that by the time that our kids are teenagers they will be able to make their own choices about eating meat (however, if they choose to do so, I still will not prepare it in our home), but when they are 5 years old we will be deciding for them. I don't know when the cut-off is; when are you able to make those choices for yourself? But I am guessing it will happen sometime between 5 and 15. My father-in-law may not understand our choice, but fortunately my mother-in-law swooped in and said, "You can't argue with them about this. Remember when your mom disagreed about the way we raised our kids? She even left our house angry once because we decided to do something differently than her." Thanks M-in-L!

Another big issue is television. There are some enriching things on TV, but they are few and far between. I grew up being a big TV watcher, stopped watching TV in college (I was too busy), and didn't watch very much when Keith and I were dating. However, we got Netflix earlier this year and have exponentially increased our amount of time in front of the tube. I know if we stop watching it we won't miss it after a while, but we need to take that initial step to unplug the TV and not plug it back in. We can be much more productive, well-rounded people if we would just not watch it. And I don't think that I want our kids to watch what is currently being shown on TV - it is worse than when I was a kid and I'm sure the quality will continue to decline. I haven't discussed this item with Keith yet, but it is something that we should probably make decisions about soon.

I am working on becoming more frugal. I have always had a tendency to let money slip through my fingers (Keith, however, is a good saver), and I don't want our children to be that way. Keith and I are doing a financial Bible study right now (and yes, the Bible has a TON to say about money - and not just the 10% tithe, but all 100% of it) and it has made me really look hard at the way that I see money and the way that I am using it. While I do like buying some fun things, many of the things that we spend money on in life are meaningless. I would much rather demonstrate a godly relationship to money for my kids than to spend spend spend away my savings on things that ultimately don't matter.

So I don't know how this whole raising kids thing is going to go. We have a little bit less than 4 months until my due date, so I guess we will find out soon. Until then, we have some other big decisions to make and some areas in our lives in which we would like to improve ourselves. Those little things in life that you sometimes just let slip by become a much bigger deal when you add a baby to the mix.

Defeated

I was super sick the last two days. I was sick all day on Tuesday until about 7:00 pm where I was able to eat one reasonably sized meal. Yesterday I thought that I was feeling better so I ate a reasonably sized lunch at 11:00 am. Unfortunately, then I was sick for the rest of the day. I stepped on the scale this morning to find out that I have lost 18 pounds since becoming pregnant. I have less than 18 weeks left in my pregnancy, so even if everything changed tomorrow and I started to feel excellent all the time and I was able to gain 1 pound/week, I still wouldn't make it up to my starting weight. Feeling defeated today.

Letter to Babies 'R' Us

I am pretty upset with Babies 'R' Us right now. I got so frustrated with them that I decided to delete my entire registry and write a letter to the company. I have finished the first draft of my letter and have decided to post it here. It will undergo some revisions as I am angry and not thinking straight right now. But this will give you the general idea of why I hate Babies 'R' Us. I will be emailing this to Babies 'R' Us and copying the friends and family members who already knew we were registered at Babies 'R' Us so they will now know why we no longer have a baby registry there. (Actually, I didn't erase the registry completely. I deleted every single item from the registry. Now all that shows up is the "registrant's information" including a special notes section where I have advised people to go to amazon.com to buy baby gifts for us. I figured that it was more effective retribution to utilize the babies r us website to advertise our amazon.com registry than to completely delete all records of ever having a babies r us registry).

Here is the letter that I have written:

Dear friends and family,

Please note that I have deleted everything from our Babies 'R' Us gift registry and am asking that you all please shop from our Amazon.com baby registry. For our reasons, please see below.

To Whom It May Concern:

My husband and I are expecting our first child in December. We decided to make two baby registries from which our friends and family could purchase gifts. However, due to many reasons, listed below, we have decided to delete our Babies 'R' Us gift registry and have asked that all of our friends and family please shop for us at Amazon.com instead.

1. Expense: Most items that I registered for were much more expensive at Babies 'R' Us compared to Amazon.com. I thought that the price might be comparable when using coupons, but even with coupons many items are still more expensive at Babies 'R' Us. Furthermore, your coupons are very restrictive. When examining the exclusion categories (car seats, furniture, breast pumps, baby gear, etc.) it became apparent that most of the items on my registry were excluded from the use of coupons. I recognize that you often have sales for 10-25% off of several items, however the sales generally do not apply to items for which I have registered and the products are often still more expensive than at Amazon.com.

2. Unreasonable shipping rates: Amazon.com provides free standard shipping on most purchases of $25 or more. While Babies 'R' Us claims to provide free shipping, this is only for purchases over $75 and for shipping costs up to $20. I placed one large order from Babies 'R' Us and was extremely dissatisfied to find out the shipping costs. While the $250 crib that I bought only cost about $2 to ship (with the $20 shipping discount), I also bought 3 blankets which, according to the order breakdown, cost more than $40 to ship. It cost more to ship the blankets than to purchase them, and I would never have purchased the blankets had I realized the cost to ship. I had another order where I tried to add items that cost only $3-5. However, each time I tried to add an item in that price range, shipping rates would jump $6-10. It is ridiculous to charge $4 for a pacifier and then $7 to ship it. I get items from Amazon.com faster and cheaper.

3. Rewards 'R' Us is not all that it is cracked up to be: My main motivator for shopping and creating a registry with Babies 'R' Us was the Rewards 'R' Us program. However, when I tried to print my $15 in Rewards 'R' Us dollars (from spending $469 in June and July) I discovered that my balance of Rewards 'R' Us dollars that I was able to print was $0. After calling your customer service department, being placed on hold for 15 minutes while my customer service representative tried to figure out where the $15 had gone, being disconnected from the phone call, and calling back and speaking with a second customer service representative, I found our that I am no longer able to print the $15 in Rewards 'R' Us dollars online; I have to wait for them to be mailed to me. I would not mind this except for the fact that they are not being mailed in a timely manner. The 'R' Us dollars were removed from my online account August 1st for mailing. The anticipated delivery date for the last five 'R' Us dollars is September 14. It should not take 1.5 months turnaround time to get my rewards dollars. Furthermore, I was planning on using the $15 all at once to purchase a Medela breast pump at $300. I found out this morning, upon calling customer service, that each $5 Rewards 'R' Us certificate has a different date for use. The first $5 has to be used by 8/31. The second $5 can only be used from 9/1 through 9/15. The third $5 will not arrive until 9/14, and I can only assume cannot be used until 9/16. I spent over $450 in order to earn $15 in gift certificates just to find out that the gift certificates are essentially useless. Needless to say, this is the last $450 that I will ever spend at Babies 'R' Us, and I am going to advise my friends and family to do the same. As for the breast pump that I was planning on purchasing from you for $300: I will be purchasing it from Amazon.com now for $260, including free 2-day shipping.

I find many of your business practices, as well as the customer service that I received, to be unacceptable. I will no longer be doing business with your company.

20 Week Ultrasound

I went in for my 20 week ultrasound yesterday. Overall, a pretty cool experience. And, in order to end the suspense, we do not know the sex of the baby. Our OB asked us to turn our heads away while he looked at the ultrasound, wrote the sex down on a piece of paper and sealed it in an envelope so we can take it to our baker (who will bake us a cake filled with pink or blue for my baby shower so we can find out along with everyone else).

It was really neat seeing the baby and him explaining all of the measurements that he was taking as well as showing us anatomical landmarks (I guess I didn't realize that ultrasounds were a strong enough piece of imaging equipment to be able to look at all of the abdominal organs individually, and to be able to see all the parts of the brain). Our baby, however, did not cooperate. Whenever the doctor tried to measure the heart, baby would cover its heart with its arm. Then doctor would move the probe and baby would move its arm. I think baby was comfortable and did not want to be bothered - our baby already has a personality, even in the womb. Then came the head measurements. Baby has decided to hide about halfway behind my pelvic bone. The problem with this is that the ultrasound does not have the capability to see through my pelvis, so he had to switch to a trans-vaginal ultrasound in order to finish up the measurements (if you don't know what that is, it is exactly what it sounds like; if you still can't figure it out and want a humorous way to learn about it, go see J Lo in The Backup Plan). Unfortunately, when I stood up to get ready for the second ultrasound, baby thought it would be a good idea to migrate upward in my abdomen, thus still making the second ultrasound difficult. Like I said, baby is not cooperative.

Baby appears to be healthy. I wasn't too worried, but there is sometimes that seed of doubt in your brain. Mine came from an inability to take vitamins during much of my first trimester. But all of baby's parts appear to be properly formed! And, weighing in at 11 oz, baby is right on track for weight.

The Name Game

People seem to be asking me all the time what our short list is for names. This is reasonable, as it is often one of the first questions that I ask pregnant women. It is a question that is usually considered "safe" territory (unlike personal medical questions like, "Have you been constipated?"). However, about a month ago the hubs and I decided that we are no longer going to share our thoughts on names with other people. It is going to be our little secret until baby is born.

We had some unfortunate reactions to some names that we really loved, that have unfortunately soured those names. We also got some unwanted feedback about names that we are still considering. Many of the names that we have discussed evoke very strong emotions and reactions because we want something that, while it is recognizable, is still unique. Some reactions we have gotten to names that we suggested were "That sounds like a dog's name." "What, are you having a black baby now?" "That sounds like a nerd." "Are you naming your child after that character from Lost?" While some of these reactions were enlightening (no, I would not name my child after a character from the show Lost, and I don't want people to think that I would do that, so that name went out the window), other reactions were kind of hurtful. For example, after telling my dad what we had chosen as possible names, he said "Well, you have a long time to reconsider." He then showed up at our house a couple of weeks later with a "gift" of baby name books so we could choose different names. We went through those books, decided that most of the names were dreadful, and went right back to our original list of names that we loved with the reassurance that we had chosen well when we went through the baby name books that we had purchased and combed through during the 5 months we were trying to get pregnant.

I don't really care that my dad doesn't like the names we chose. He was the one who named me Sara. Growing up with the name Sara, I got tired of having the same name as everyone else (also, everyone assumes that they know how to spell my name because it is simple - I cannot even count the times that someone sends me an email with the salutation, "Hello Sarah" even though my name is signed in the email that I sent to them and is a part of my email address). I was once on a soccer team of 12. 5 of us were named Sara/Sarah, and 6 were named Emily. It made for a very confusing soccer game (first graders aren't the most organized soccer players anyway, so everyone having the same name didn't help).

When I got to college I became friends with someone named Brittany. She lived in the Brittany suite, a suite containing 4 girls, all named Brittany (I think they may have all 4 spelled their names differently). The Brittany suite happened to be located on the Brittany floor. Apparently, the people responsible for assigning dorm housing got bored part way through their task and thought, "Wouldn't it be funny if..." I also had several Katie friends/roommates in high school and college, so whenever I tell the hubs stories I try to specify which Katie; not that he can keep them all straight in his mind, anyway (we have Cheerleader Katie, Roommate/LA Katie, Katie with the babies, and Katie gone wild). This creates many confusing conversations. Also, a relative of ours just started dating a Sara, so now when we are having conversations about her she is "The other Sara." While I am glad I am the original Sara, I have been referred to as "The other Sara" before. In fact, the hub's closest friend from childhood married a Sara, so now she and I together are the Sara's (which I think is cute coming from the two of them, but would annoy the heck out of me coming from anyone else).

When I got to grad school there were 3 Sara's in my class of 30 students. We differentiated ourselves based on the first letter of our last name. However, within 2 years of starting graduate school we were all married with different last names, transforming us from Sara W., Sara V., and Sara H. into Sara S., Sara F., and Sara V. respectively. This becomes confusing, however, because sometimes people refer to me as Sara V (since I am now Sara V and no longer Sara H) and sometimes people refer to Sara F as Sara V (since she was formerly Sara V).

Another hazard of having the same name as everyone else is unflattering descriptors. While it would be wonderful to be known as "Beautiful so-and-so," often the adjective points out a flaw. The department that my husband used to work in contained two Petra's (while not a common name in America, it is common in Germany, where both women came from). One Petra became "Crazy Petra," and the other Petra became "Frizzy Petra." If someone has a unique name then they don't have to worry about the use of adjectives to differentiate them from everyone else since they are already differentiated.

All that being said, it becomes clear that I don't want my child to have the same name as everyone else (aka if the name is in the top 100 our child will not have that name. I had a very similar rule when Keith and I were trying to come up with a first dance song for our wedding reception: if it is popular enough of a song that it has been played on Delilah, then it isn't going to be our song). I also don't want my child to have a weird name because, while adjectives used to describe a people with the same name can be unflattering, having a weird name can be horrible as well. I also am not going to pick the most obscure spelling for the name we choose. While I realize that this may add flare to a name and some people like doing this, I also realize it can make it difficult for that child as they grow and no one can figure out how to spell their name. We are taking into consideration that the initials don't spell a bad or funny word, and we are trying to come up with any taunting nicknames that a 4th grader may develop in order to keep our child from ridicule. We have thought this through.

When we announce the name after the baby is born, people are either going to love it or hate it. But I have a feeling that the worst reaction we are going to get is, "Oh" with a forced smile. After the name has been given to a baby, people feel less at liberty to freely offer their opinion. And eventually, even in those who hate the name, they will come to think of our baby as having that name and it won't seem weird anymore. Have you ever noticed that even when someone has a weird name, one even that you don't like, you get to know that person, they embody the name, and you get to the point where you can't think of them as having another name? Well, whatever we decide that will eventually happen, so I am not going to worry about this anymore.

So if you have advice for me, I have one response: no, thank you. While it may sound rude, I have gotten enough advice and I am done listening to it. Also, I want to offer sincere apologies if I have ever commented about someone else's name choice. I try to make sure that I don't do that because to each his own, but if I have been rude to anyone in any way, I am sorry. I now know how it feels. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

20 Week Update

On the eve of my 20th week of pregnancy, I thought it would be worthwhile to do another update.

Fraction of pregnancy completed: 1/2
Number of people who have grabbed my belly: 4
Number of people who have grabbed my belly way to high in relation to the height of my uterus: 4
Number of people who have told me I'm glowing when wearing blush and sun shimmer face brightener: 5
Number of people who have told me I'm glowing when I'm not wearing blush and sun shimmer face brightener: 0
Able to feel baby kicking: 4 weeks
Cooperation of the baby to continue kicking when I try to get Keith to feel: no
Craft projects completed for the nursery: 3 (curtains, birdhouses, etched mirror)
Furniture assembled for the nursery: 1 (crib)
Furniture moved into the nursery: 3 (crib, armoire, dresser)
Furniture that still needs to be moved into the nursery: 1 (glider rocker...which is on our babies r us registry in case anyone is feeling particularly generous)
Average number of hours sick each day: 4-5 (much improved from previous estimates of 24 hours)
Weight: Holding steady at minus 15
Exercise: 4-6 times each week (much improved from previous estimates of 0)
Ability to take gummy vitamins on an empty stomach without throwing up: yes
Contemplating working my way back up to prenatal vitamins: yes
Possible names picked out for a girl: 4
Possible names picked out for a boy: 3
Number of people we are going to tell the name to before the baby is born: 0 (for our reasons, you can read an upcoming blog post about naming our baby)
Loving husband: 1 (who I am very thankful for!)

Week 20 ultrasound is tomorrow! And no, we will not be finding out the sex of the baby.

Podgy Pregnancy

Today I am 19 weeks, 2 days pregnant. About 2 weeks ago I got excited when my belly finally popped. I had seen women who were less pregnant than me with bigger bumps and was starting to get a little bit jealous. However, I realized that losing 15 pounds in the first 15 weeks had thwarted my baby's effort to make a belly appearance.

Apparently, however, my pregnancy is not as obvious to others as it is to me. Last week was a vacation week for the hubs and me. We went to Niagara falls and it was about 90 degrees out all week. I faded quickly in the intense sunlight and heat and was thankful when we would reach the end of a walk somewhere and I could sit down for a minute and drink a little water. I was a little bit dismayed though when people would push past me and rush to take the last seat, leaving the pregnant woman behind in their dust. I realize that I really am only about 1/2-way pregnant. Well, all the way pregnant, but just 1/2-way to the finish line. I also realize that my belly isn't very big, so while I may feel nauseous, tired and hot with swollen ankles, other people may not realize this. So I took it upon myself to MAKE people realize it by trying to puff out my belly a little more or to place my hand lovingly on my belly whenever I wanted someone to make a special exception for me (I think that this plan may have worked once during our entire trip, but we got a room upgrade, so I guess that was the best time for it to work).

I pondered the question, "Why aren't people treating me like I'm a frail pregnant woman?" I know I'm not frail, but I would like some extra TLC from time to time. Pregnancy is rough and it is nice to have your life made a little bit easier. Then I realized the answer to my question - about 20% of the people around me, both male and female, looked "pregnant." Oh, obesity. How can I expect special treatment when lots of women leave you asking the question, "Is she, or isn't she."

It was at that point that I realized that I am in the podgy part of pregnancy. This is something that most pregnant women know of. The only ones who don't experience this are the ones who enter pregnancy as a stick and leave as a stick with a basketball. For the rest of us, there is a time where you aren't obviously pregnant, but you might be. People are too afraid to ask or assume because if they are wrong it leads to an awkward conversation. I just wish that people wouldn't act so surprised when they find out. We went to a wedding after our trip to Niagara, and when I would tell people I am pregnant they would say, "Really?!?!" in a way that was way too exaggerated for the size of my bump, letting me know that they had no idea and my bump simply looked like podge. Thankfully, it has grown a bit more since then and will continue to grow. I guess it is just an awkward stage of pregnancy that most people pass through. I am looking forward, however, to a full size baby bump (and when that comes, I'm sure I will regret my words and wish for the days when I could easily bend over and tie my shoes and get up out of a chair).