How To: Not Buy Baby Stuff

We have not bought much for this baby so far.

I haven’t bought a cute outfit or a soft blanket. Really all we have bought is some stuff for the nursery and most of it was either given to us or purchased secondhand (that’s a post for later!).

Our first baby purchase were some little booties from our alma mater to announce the pregnancy.

The moment we found out we were expecting, we knew that it would be a slippery slope of baby stuff coming from every which direction, be it grandparents, friends, or a box being delivered on our doorstep.

For me personally, not buying stuff for the baby was not all that hard. Given that we don’t know the gender, there wasn’t much I could get anyway unless I wanted my baby to dress exclusively in grey and white (gender-neutral clothes are so lame <insert eyeroll>).

For others though, the urge to shower me in stuff was a little stronger and I had to have a conversation with both future grandmothers not to run out to Homegoods and buy everything in sight.

Right now, pretty much everything in baby’s nursery has come from someone else, be they hand me downs from other little babies in our lives or pieces of furniture.

This baby is going to get stuff though, even with the uncertainty of my baby shower even happening. I did my best to be conscious of what was going on my registry. I focused on multi-purpose items such as our bassinet/pack-in-play combo and a high chair that grows with baby. and quality materials such as wood, cotton, and glass over plastic.  Using Babylist, I was also able to ask for non-material items, such as house cleaning, babysitting, and home-cooked meals. I could even ask for preloved clothes and books!

Any advice for keeping the overwhelming amount of baby stuff at bay? Please share!

 

 

What It’s Like Being 7 Months Pregnant During a Global Pandemic

The last couple of weeks have been weird.

Pregnancy itself is weird, but add in a global pandemic of a highly contagious virus and things just get weirder.

Two weeks ago, I was aware of the virus, just slightly concerned, but I went about my daily life with a bit more hand sanitizer and hand washing. Today, I am “social distancing” and working and staying at home pretty much 24/7.

Everything has been canceled. Everything is closed. There is pretty much nowhere to go.

My dad and I practicing social distancing when he dropped off provisions (AKA Cheez-its)

Work 

Working from home for the past 6 days feels like an eternity. Everything is uncomfortable: my dining room chair, the island stool, sitting on the couch typing on my laptop over my belly.

At first, when work events were canceled last week, I was excited because I knew a full day of work and then an evening event was going to completely tucker me out. Now we have no events, no students, no interns. A good 50% of my job has disappeared in a matter of days (while I know other’s entire livelihoods disappeared overnight).

Luckily, my husband and I are both in positions that allow us to work from home, so we are spending A LOT of time together. Whoever said get some one-on-one time in with your spouse before the baby comes surely did not imagine a situation where soon-to-be parents spend 3-10 weeks holed up in their apartment together. Guess we don’t need a babymoon…

Leaving the House

Every day I am trying to get some activity in. On the first day of our full week working at home, K and I did lunchtime yoga together. Then we went for an afternoon walk in the sun on non-busy residential streets and crossed to the other side when someone was headed our way.

Yesterday, I had to go to Walgreens to pick up a necessary prescription. I planned to go right when they opened to avoid any additional people, but that plan backfired. When I got there, there were 4 other people waiting in line (albeit far apart). I panicked. I could go back home and try coming back later, or I could just wait as far away as possible from people and get it over with because I didn’t want to have to hype myself back up to try again. I waited, I got it, I ran out of there.

Within a few days, entry after entry in my calendar was deleted and now all that is left is my prenatal doctor appointments. That’s the only place I plan on going for now: our apartment, out for a walk, the doctor. Nowhere else.

Food and Necessities

K has been watching this situation diligently and had an inkling we might have to stay home for a while about 2 weeks before all of the mass hysteria set in. We did a grocery shop then and got the staples we needed (including toilet paper and disinfectant spray).

Trying to shop since has been challenging. Not wanting to risk going into the grocery store, we tried a grocery pick up last week and were met with probably only half of the items we had originally ordered. We are waiting a little longer to try again. Otherwise, we absolutely have enough food to not be hangry all the time, except I eat a lot of the snacks.

The Reality

I am not so much worried about myself catching the virus, it is also super possible I or my husband have already had it. We are more worried about others, such as our parents, grandparents, and friends with underlying health issues.

I am concerned about the next two-ish months before the baby comes and the next few months after. My baby shower is most likely going to be canceled, I am not sure if we will get to take maternity photos, and my hospital has postponed all birth classes until the middle of April. It’s also a very high possibility that our families won’t get to attend the birth at the hospital.

When everything seems to be so uncertain, the only thing I can control right now is getting the baby’s nursery ready, so I have been doing that. It is better than scrolling through social media (which I have limited my time on to 10 minutes a day via Google’s Digital Wellbeing settings).

We tried to set rules that we can’t talk about coronavirus news on Wednesdays and the weekend. We failed miserably. So much is changing so quickly.

Overall, I am just sad.

Sad to be missing out on many of the things first-time mamas get to experience.

Sad my mother doesn’t get to see my belly grow with her first grandchild in the last few weeks.

Sad to be confined to our 2 bedroom apartment 3 months before we have a baby and come June, are confined at home in a different way.

Sad we probably won’t have visitors to meet our bundle of joy for who knows how long.

These are my own selfish things to be sad about related to being pregnant at this time, and I am not trying to downplay all of the hundreds of other sad things about this pandemic. There is so much more pain and suffering more legitimate than me complaining about not having a baby shower.

We will get through it. While there is so much uncertainty, there is one thing I know, and that is this baby is coming. No matter what.

I can live without maternity photos. I can find birth classes online. I can celebrate with friends and family when it’s safe to have more than 10 people in a room again.

It will be different from how I pictured it, that’s for sure, but the safety of friends and family and people I don’t even know is more important.

 

 

 

The Paralysis of Getting Rid of Things Correctly

We are currently clearing out our guest room to make way for baby and it has brought up a phenomenon that I don’t think I am the only one to have encountered.

It is the fear of disposing of/getting rid of items correctly.

If it were up to K, he would either throw everything out or haul it all to Goodwill. No questioning whatsoever.

I can’t handle that.

From the odd things like the collection of free fridge magnets we have acquired from our insurance agent to half-used Christmas candles to the normal stuff we just no longer had a use for, I wanted to make sure each went to the right place once they left our home.

For the most part, the reason we still had all of these odd things was that I was waiting to figure out what to do with them. Sometimes I figured it out and sometimes I didn’t, but they stayed in our home longer than necessary and it was causing me a lot of stress as we wait for the baby’s arrival.

I figured out what to do with our mattress and got it recycled. I used Facebook Marketplace and my local Buy Nothing group to get items into the hands of people who want and need them for free. Those half-used Christmas candles got picked up by someone in that group! So did old Amazon Alexas, a Roku, underbed storage containers, an old backpack, an old crockpot, a desk lamp, a fruit bowl, headbands, two purses, an old Fitbit, tools, and a bunch of personal care products.

 

Utilizing the Buy Nothing Groups meant that my stuff wasn’t automatically sent to the giant truck that sits outside the Salvation Army to be sorted and possibly purchased down the road. My sheets, bed skirt, and duvet cover immediately got a second life, along with many other items!

We did have to institute a rule that if things aren’t sold or picked up within 2 weeks of posting, the items will be donated. That way we could keep the flow of removing items and they weren’t just sitting around until I went crazy.

There were also things that didn’t get figured out and I had to let go of it. That collection of fridge magnets needed to go and I had to begrudgingly toss them in the trash.

It has been hard and has taken a bit longer than necessary, but I am glad I took the time to make sure things went to a good home.