Put your hands in the air!

It looks like there's a party going on in womb-town!

Oddly enough, this is exactly how I sleep.

Triple Marker OK!

Got it, and it was good!

Honestly, have no idea what the numbers mean - even after Google - and they included a nifty graph too!

So now we wait for the 3D scan (one of us more impatiently than the other :-)).

19 Weeks! (well, almost): Saving Money

Let’s start by starting to save!

We’ve been fixing up parts of the house (I guess you could say remodeling) and things are progressing well.  Two words that should never, ever be spoken in any language, no matter the circumstance: “Let’s wallpaper!”  While John is proving to be quite the electrician by installing lights and switches, I’ve been peeling wallpaper off the walls.  Tip: wiping the wall with a mixture of fabric softener and water has made this job easier that I ever would have thought; it is just peeling off.  That, or even it knows it was a bad decision to wallpaper and is literally itching to come down.

I’ve been acquiring some more baby items (but no more clothes!).  If I see something that I definitely know we’ll need and use, and at a HUGE discount, it’s worth considering.  Also, registering for things has benefits.

Babies 'Я' Us: They give you a gift bag (a bit of a girlie one), filled with a catalogue, a sample of butt paste, breast pads (they make excellent yarmulkes for the pets - mazel tov!), a diaper sample, a wipes sample, coupons, magazines (with coupons on them), registry cards, and a neat notebook from Similac to track your pregnancy.  The notebook has been handy for notes that will eventually find their way into a baby book, but most of the printed content is useless for those in our situation.  Sign up for a Babies 'Я' Us points card as well, I guess your points get you free things and discounts as well -- be sure to connect it to your registry, any purchases made from the registry will add points to your card.

SIDENOTE: This is not our actual cat - I could not find the picture we took, but the cat's expression was the same: not happy.  Ok, enough blasphemy...

Cat Mitzvah or Puuurim?
Either way, Mr. Katz is not happy.

Amazon.com has a nifty feature that tracks who bought what to simplify your “thank you” list.  Also, 30 days before your due date, they give you a 10% completion discount to finish purchasing the remainder of your registry list.

Similac offers a ton of coupons and samples when you register through them.  There’s also an organizing caddy you can get with a coupon when you bring it to the hospital when the baby is born.  For the hell of it, I emailed them to say we’re having our baby through surrogacy abroad and they were kind enough to mail it to me a week later.  The coupons and samples don’t arrive until closer to when the baby does.  Also, in one of the magazines from the Babies 'Я' Us bag, there is a coupon for a free Similac baby bottle ($8 value, no purchase necessary).

Enfamil also has coupons, samples, and some sort of organizing kit.  Like Similac, they’ll send coupons and samples closer to the baby’s due date.  However, they pretty much told me I’m out of luck to receive the freebie organizer kit.  They said I could try calling them after the baby is born if they have any promotions.  Yeah, I’ll be a greedy sourpuss, Similac wins this round.

Woot.com has a kids tab that sometimes has some good baby deals.  I got a Jeep Car Seat Starter Kit for $11 (comes with a mirror, reusable window tint, a mat for under the car seat, an organizer for the back of the driver seat); a Jeep Shopping Cart and High Chair Cover for $11; and an Infantino Twist and Fold Activity Gym for $19.  Watch Woot.com, some days they have multiple “woots” so once an item goes away, it’s gone, and another will take its place.

Prices Drop Monitor:  A free app. for Mac or PC that tracks items you choose from Amazon.com and notifies you by email or notification center or when an item’s price drops and by how much.

BuyBuyBaby also has a free registry gift bag, but there are so few of those stores around, I can’t say what’s in it.

Pampers also has a ton of coupons to give (closer to the due date) and they also have a points program to earn rewards.  This reminds me of “Marlboro Miles” from my smokin’ days...  But I guess you can get some cool toys or more diapers with them.

EXPIRING 9/16: Babies 'Я' Us is having a “trade-in event.”  Bring in your old stroller, car seat, highchair...and they’ll give you 25% off select car seats, strollers, play yards, highchairs, etc.  We happened to have an old hand me down stroller we weren’t going to use, so we ended up with $25 off of a cheap travel play yard.  You can bring in as much as you want (see the website for details: http://www.toysrus.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=4346706&ab=Bru_homepage_aspot:3:The-Great-Trade-in-Event).  This may be good if there are a lot of garage sales or flea markets around you where you can get an old used item for next to nothing and swap for a higher discount.  Ends this Sunday!

17 Weeks!!!

It's been a LONG month - and quite worth the wait!  We got our latest scan in this morning - 17 weeks 1 day (just a day behind reality).  I see a face - A FACE!  A REAL FACE!

And in that last one, you can see brains!

mmmmmmm.....   braaaaaaains....