Budgeting & Baby

Congrats on your pregnancy! What an exciting time for you and your family. Now is the time you are probably chit chatting with your gal pals about your due date, how you plan to decorate your nursery, and all the other things we all talk about during pregnancy. I bet finances are not even close to the forefront of your mind as you buy the 15th adorable newborn onesie you found at Target (don’t worry, been there). Well, friend, let me be the cog in the wheel and inform you that growing your family WILL have a massive impact on your budget – no matter what your income looks like. Yeah yeah, you are thinking, “duh. Obviously this is the case.” It certainly is, friend. Here are a few big changes that I noticed that I was not expecting (or simply ignored until it slapped me in the face):

Child care: Planning to go back to work? Expect quality child care to take up a huge portion of your paycheck. Not going back to work (you go girl!) – this takes a hit on the front end with loss of income.

Diapers/diaper supplies: Yes, babies require A LOT of diapers. Unless you plan to go the cloth diaper route, this gets expensive. Not only that, it might take some experimenting for you to find the best diaper and diapering products for your baby. Some babies have allergies to certain diapers/products (like mine).

Medical Expenses: This, of course, depends on your medical coverage and many other factors (i.e., type of birth, number of nights stay, baby needs). Both my kids had jaundice and required phototherapy. Thankfully my insurance covered most of this, but had it not, this would have been an $800+ out of pocket charge.

These are just a few examples of costs associated with having baby. As you are well aware, there are many many many more. Thankfully there are a lot of products out there that can assist you in planning. If you do not have a budget created, that is an excellent first step. While you are in your planning stages of pregnancy, take some time and sit down with your partner to figure out where your finances are at. There are a million budgeting tools out there, just Google it. Once you have that budget established, begin to think about what adjustments will be necessary to accommodate your new bundle of joy. Believe me, by taking some budgeting steps, it will help you ease your mind in the long run and I promise, reduce future arguments with your partner.

Just getting started? Here are some tools that can help you on your way!

Building a Budget – NerdWallet provides tools to guide you through creating a budget

Mint.com – an oldie but a goodie; people use this app to track their spending and create a budget

Good ol’ Excel – Microsoft Excel (and Google sheets) has some decent budgeting templates

There are about million different apps and ways to budget. These are just a few that I have used in the past. It really just depends on your style and unique needs. Best of luck and happy tracking!

~Karen

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Lessons on Loss

This week, our post is a heavy topic we feel necessary to bring to light, albeit heartbreaking. A friend of the Where’s My Epidural moms has been gracious enough to share her miscarriage story. This, as we all can understand, is an extremely sensitive topic and for that reason our friend will remain anonymous. If you have ever or do ever face this and need assistance, the Pregnancy and Postpartum Support website might be helpful. This resource is specifically for Minnesota, if you reside elsewhere, check online to see if there is another support group.

Moms Like Tech Too!

Isn’t it crazy how quickly technology can change? Kristin found a couple really interesting articles about new tech for breastfeeding and pumping and we thought it would be fun to write about new tech out there and what’s on the horizon. Not going to lie, we’re pretty envious of what is new and coming soon! We do not endorse any of these products and cannot speak to their effectiveness. We just found them interesting and want to share. 🙂

Pregnancy

Reliefband

Nausea/morning sickness got you down? Hate the taste of ginger? We’ve been seeing an uptick of these nausea relief bands. I am super curious if they work, because it could make a huge difference for so many pregnant mom’s early (and for some poor souls majority) pregnancies. (Photo from Reliefband’s website)

BabyBuds

Ok, this one is lost on me. I’d heard of playing music for baby in-utero… but this just feels too far for me. If anyone has tried this and believes it had a positive impact, I really want to know. All I can think of is the game my siblings and I played as kids, attempting to have a conversation under water while at the pool. Did any of you do this growing up? How well did it work for you? (Photo from BabyBuds’ website)

Breastfeeding/Postpartum

Nanit Baby Sleep System

This is no regular video baby monitor. Nanit mounts above the crib to show you a bird’s eye view of your lil’ babe. It tracks baby’s movements and gives you insights into theisleep habits, giving your average sleep and wake times and rating how well they are sleeping. This information is then used to give you tips on how to improve their (and your!) sleep for future nights. (Photo from Nanit’s website)

Willow Wearable Breast Pump

Confession: we both are jealous of anyone who owns this. A breast pump that is truly wireless and cordless? Game-changer!! Instead of using bottles, the Willow pumps directly into self-sealing storage bags, so you can just take them out and pop them in the fridge or freezer without having to worry about spilling a drop of that milk you work so hard for. The pump comes with one unit per breast, and you can pump one at a time (how cool if you need/want to pump while baby is nursing on the other side) or simultaneously. PLUS it hooks up to your phone via Bluetooth and will tell you how much you’ve pumped! Seriously amazing. (photo from Willow’s website)

Yoomi Self-warming Bottles

Unless you get a magic baby who will take cold bottles, you’ll probably need to try to figure out how to warm them up when your baby is hungry. Enter Yoomi, who made a self-warming bottle!! The warming part is “charged” in your microwave, then is ready to go whenever you need it, which is perfect for those on-the-go feedings. (Photo from Yoomi’s website)

What amazing tech did we miss? Let us know!

~ Kristin & Karen

Yoga: For Preparation and Recovery

During my pregnancy, I religiously went to yoga every Thursday night. It became such an important part of my routine, that most nights of the week you could find me on my yoga mat before bed.  Alright… I know what you’re thinking, “Karen, I had no idea how hippy dippy you are!”. Yeah, I sort of can be. I really stand by the fact that yoga helped my pregnancy, labor, and recovery a ton. Yoga became my routine postpartum as well. My body felt like it went through a woodchipper, as you can relate with if you’ve ever given birth. I’ve mentioned that I had some pretty significant hip pain during my third trimester that continued after giving birth. I am definitely not an expert or a yogi, but I do think it worth it to share some of the information I found most helpful from my prenatal and postpartum yoga classes.

Prenatal Yoga

Prenatal yoga just feels good. Your body is tired and sore a lot and the moves prenatal yoga instructors have you do stretch out those sore joints. Most importantly, prenatal yoga has you do a lot of hip exercises. My yoga instructor is also a doula and had a ton of great recommendations for moves during different points of labor. Below are just a few moves I found very helpful during my pregnancy. As with anything, be very careful about your form and consider going to a prenatal yoga class so a trained instructor can assist with appropriate form.

Postpartum Yoga

If you could pick any food to describe how your body felt after having a baby, what would you say? I’d say a big bowl of chocolate pudding. My body pretty much melted into my favorite corner of the couch and I was certain when removed from that spot, I would leave part of my body behind. Needless to say, the last thing I wanted to be doing was yoga and stretches with a bunch of people… outside of my house. A few months postpartum my yoga instructor began a new postpartum class and I hesitantly joined. This, along with rigorous physical therapy, really helped my hip recover. It’s now about 90%, but leaps and bounds from where it was. Here are a few moves to help the postpartum mom’s body that I recommend – in general, not just for hip issues. These moves can help with diastasis recti recovery as well. I had some separation and found these moves to be beneficial.  

I hope this post was helpful and interesting to you. I am a big advocate for yoga, but really if you can try to stay active in anyway while pregnant, I am a strong believer it has a positive impact on your labor and recovery.

Namaste, ladies.

~Karen

 

Special Edition: Our First Guest Post!

Today is a very special day. It’s Kristin’s birthday! To make this day even more special, Kristin’s mom, Maureen, has kindly agreed to write a special guest post for today (I only cried a little bit reading this). Happy Birthday Kristin! 

My Baby Has a Baby!

I am blogging today to celebrate Kristin’s first birthday as a Mom!  Thirty-three years ago, August 14th Kristin made me a mom, and it changed my life.

Living and working in Manhattan, Don and I got the news that I was pregnant.  We were blessed with a “surprise” pregnancy and we needed to nail down the changes that will take place in our lives.  We both had demanding jobs and lived in a four-floor walkup, neither conducive to becoming parents. The amount of decisions and commitments needed to consider was daunting.  Stay in the city? Daycare? Schools? Yup, schools. Most women I knew enrolled their child in a preschool as soon as they got pregnant. That’s pressure!

Our lease was up in May, three months prior to meeting this new person, and we need to make a change.  We decided to move to New Jersey. This was to be a “two-fer”, getting a place closer to my family and my sister was going be her nanny! SCORE!

The day we met Kristin was an amazingly beautiful “beach” day on the Jersey Shore.  I was overdue and thought a day at the ocean would do me wonders. I got in my car, stopped at my parents’ home, grab a beach chair, and schlepped all my stuff to the ocean.  I parked myself near the lifeguard, just in case. After a while I started to feel a bit crampy, nothing much but I couldn’t get comfortable. I decided to leave the beach to go home and nap.  Dropping the beach chair at my Mom’s she said, “How are you?” I said I was good, but I needed to go home and take it easy. She said I looked tired and to let her know when I got home. Don called, from work in Manhattan, around 5p and asked how I felt.  I told him I was just fine and not to rush home. Oh, and I added that I was cramping… just a bit. He said he was leaving immediately and by the time he got home 1-1 ½ hours later I was in labor. My Jersey Girl arrived at 8lbs 9 oz, full head of hair and in great health.  Let motherhood begin.

I had a three-month maternity leave, Don went back to work in Manhattan, and Kristin and I settled into a new routine.  Mostly sleeping when she slept. I was breastfeeding and she was a hungry bugger. I experienced my first obstacle, cracked nipples.  Ouch! Never anticipated that! The internet was not around, and all “Mom” information came from books, your mother, or close friends/family.  I bought MANY books. One of my favorite authors was by T. Berry Brazelton, kind of the Mr. Rogers of pediatricians, he wrote Infants and Mothers and Touchpoints.  (For Kristin’s birthday I’m sending her an electronic copy of Infants and Mothers circa 1983. ☺ )

My biggest fear in becoming a mother was how to communicate with a newborn.  Would we bond? How would I be able to understand and anticipate her needs? Would she be able to feel loved and secure?  What kind of woman would I become? Could I put her needs ahead of my own and Don’s? What happens when I go back to work? And probably a million more!

These questions seemed to come up and be answered as needed.  She felt perfect in my arms. I was fortunate to have the time to bond, understand she was “out of sorts”, become enveloped in her laughter, know the difference between hungry and “hangry”, go through the conflicting feelings of returning to work, and just sink into the new “family”.

I now get to be part of her beginnings of motherhood.  I watch Kristin and Kris navigate parenthood with excitement, enthusiasm, anticipation, dedication, joy and love.  I see them create a home and family. I’m excited to watch as they create their own rhythm and schedules and I am touched to think that both the Hummel and Kvam family values and customs will continue on with the next generation. The holidays and traditions she has had over the years will mean even more to her now that she’ll get to share them with her child.  I have the joy of getting to know my grandchild, be his Nana and watch him develop into the Finn that he will be.

It was my JOY to have Kristin changed my life, and now I celebrate as Finn changes hers.

Happy Birthday Kristin.

Love and Lollies,

Mom

Maureen Kvam, aka: Kristin’s proud Mom.

Our Favorite Parenting TV Shows

Hellllloooooooo! This week we are going to share some of our favorite mom/parenting TV shows (in no certain order). It’s fascinating how relatable fictional TV is to the plight of becoming a new parent. Sometimes the the mental escape from reality is much needed, and the only thing that can fill it is a 30 minute episode of Bob’s Burgers. What are your favorite parenting TV shows? If you say Keeping Up With the Kardashians you should seriously reflect on what constitutes “parenting” – no judging here though (as we discretely throw shade your way). Just kidding… you would be shocked to know the amount of hours spent watching trashy TV at our house. Yikes.

The Letdown

Ever drive your kid around at all hours of the night and finally get baby to fall asleep, only to have some jerk tap on your window? Moms, you’re gonna relate with this show!

Shameless

Having a particularly crappy parenting day? You will immediately feel better about your parenting skills after watching Frank being Father of the Year.

Bob’s Burgers

Need a good laugh? Bob’s Burgers will certainly do that for you. As Bob put it so well, “I love you, but you’re all terrible”.

Life in Pieces

Whether you are a parent of preteens or are brand new to the parenting gig, you will definitely find something to relate with in this show. Jen and Greg highlight the emotional nuances many of us new parents feel.

RuPaul’s Drag Race

Mama Ru will keep you on your toes with every new season as she brings in a new barrage of girls. With each episode, she reminds us that “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you going to love somebody else?”. Could not have said it better Ru.

Honorable Mentions:

Big Little Lies

Transparent

Jane the Virgin

SMILF

Parenthood

Game of Thrones (I am only mentioning because Zach told me to)

Happy binging!

Cravings

This week, Karen and Kristin discuss their experiences with cravings. Most people will tell you that cravings are just this cute little part of their pregnancy that they and all their gal-pals chuckled about as they sip their tea, pinky finger up. Ha. It actually looked more like this (sorry Kris and Zach):

What should I pack in my hospital bag?!

At some point during your pregnancy, this becomes a frantic thought that spins around and around in your head. If you’re anything like Karen, you may be anticipating being in the hospital for the next several months and pack your entire house. Ok, so that was a little tongue-in-cheek (not really, just ask Zach), Karen really did pack far too much. Kristin was much more mindful of what was necessary while in the hospital, mostly because she obsessively read recommendations on what to bring.

Read on for our own recommendations – and let us know if we forgot anything you think is essential!

Things We Like: Pregnancy Edition

We all know there are about a billion pregnancy products that boast that they are an absolute necessity. Some totally are (here’s looking at you prenatal vitamins), however there are a lot of products that are not awesome and definitely not worth the money (maybe we’ll write a future post on products that just are not worth it, but for now, you should definitely race to the store to buy this). Here is a list of things we could not live without during our pregnancies. And don’t worry, we will be writing future posts highlighting the products we loved after our babies arrived. *Note: pricing listed is what we could find as of today, don’t let that stop you from hunting around for hot deals if you can!

Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means that if you click on a product link, we may receive compensation. This compensation comes at no additional cost to you, and we only recommend products we love! We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Karen’s Picks

Leachco Snoogle Body Pillow – $59.99

amazon

Morning Sickness (spoiler alert: it’s terrible)

A few days before I found out I was pregnant I threw up after dinner. It was the first time in years that I had gotten sick, so I thought it was super weird. Little did I know how much that was going to become a daily part of my life in the next few months.

My first eightish weeks of pregnancy were pretty uneventful. I felt a little tired but nothing crazy. Then all of a sudden everything made me sick to my stomach, and then everything made me barf. Awesome. It became necessary for me to know where the closest bathroom or garbage can was at all times – oh yeah, because “morning sickness” is the worst name for how I felt. I was getting sick probably 4-5 times a day, all day. At work I kept mints and a sleeve of saltines open at my desk in hopes that I could put off my nausea a little longer before having to hit the bathroom again. At home I sat in front of the blandest meals Kris could think of and pathetically ate two or three bites. I puked outside walking to my car, pulled over on my way home and puked on the side of the road, you name it.

My best friends for most of my pregnancy