Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from our chubby little Bun!

If you ask me, Halloween is one of the best days to have kids–there’s almost as much giddy exitement as Christmas morning!!! Here are a couple ways to make Halloween super fun for your kiddos (thanks to my own shy mama for the childhood inspiration!):

• Brew Up a Spooky Dinner!
  Its hard to hold the wiggles in when all you want to do is trick-or-treat, but a fun dinner can help! When we were kids, my mama whipped up a fully orange dinner every year. One year she even scooped out mini-pumpkins into bowls to hold our mac-n-cheese. Check out Parents Magazine’s idea for a ghoulish meal (via This Week for Dinner)!
• Whip Up a Last Minute Costume
  Think you’ve waited too long to put together a costume for your little one (or yourself?). Parents Magazine to the rescue again! Check out their last minute costumes you can make from things around your house! (via Tangled and True)
• Snuggle Up and Scare Yourself
  Don’t forget to enjoy the evening yourself! Once your princesses and cowboys have settled down to bed, pop in one of these fun and frightening flicks (and maybe sneak a Snickers out of one of those plastic pumpkin pails…):
  1. The Skeleton Key
  2. I Am Legend
  3. Invasion
  4. The Haunting (I recommend the original black & white version… scary!)
  5. The Others
  6. What Lies Beneath
  7. Poltergeist
  8. The Ring
  9. Jaws
  10. (or if your kids want to stay up) It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Happy Halloween!

Annie

What is WIC?: Government Help With Groceries

If you need help buying groceries for your little ones (of yourself if you’re a pregnant or breastfeeding mommy) then WIC is an awesome resource you should look into: it is government assistance with your food bills! I just looked into it about a week ago, and it was easy to set up an well worth it!

What is WIC?

WIC (which stands for Women, Infants, Children) is a Federal program that provides funds for nutritional foods, information on healthy eating, and in some cases even health care referrals for pregnant, post-partum, and breastfeeding mamas, infants, and children up to age five.

How Do I Qualify?

The basic requirements for WIC are that you live in the state in which you apply, are one of the categories of W.I.C. listed above, and meet the income requirements of being between 100 and 185% of the Federal poverty income guidelines. The table below gives a partial list of the current WIC income requirements.

(Find the full list of WIC’s eligibility requirements here.)

How Does it Work?

Once a WIC officer has determined that your family qualifies for the program, they will give you printed checks for specific food items the State government has deemed nutritional, such as milk, cheese, cereal, and peanut butter. You then take the checks with you to a WIC approved grocery store, and purchase those items using your WIC checks. (The cashier should be able to help you if you’ve never done it before!)

How Do I Apply?

To apply, you’ll need to contact your local WIC office. You can find contact info for your local WIC office at the WIC website http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/.

Does it Work?

Our family just started using WIC a couple weeks ago. I had to take little Bun into the WIC office to be weighed and measured, and had a short interview with a WIC officer. They showed me a video about how the program works and sent us home with two months’ worth of checks for foods like beans, tuna, juice, carrots, peanut butter, milk, cheese, and cereal. I took my first batch of checks into the store last week, and found it super easy to shop for and pay for my WIC items. It takes a little extra time at first, but it probably ended up saving us about $30 in grocery bills!

love,

Annie

photo: cheese by kirsche222

Things I Bought: Most Comfortable Maternity Jeans (and Pants) Ever!!!

Those stretch-band maternity pants can be the pits and at two months post-partum I am (sadly) still more comfy in pants with a stretch waist than my pre-baby jeans. So I wanted to share with you maternity and someday-may-be-maternity-again mamas the best, most comfortable pair of maternity jeans I have EVER tried on (seriously!):

These are Motherhood Maternity’s jeans with the “Secret Fit Belly™”, and the first time I put them on I told my husband I might just keep wearing them after the baby came. The tummy panel is sooo comfortable, and fits well enough to wear from early baby-belly all the way through the ninth month. I literally wore these to the hospital! And at about $25-30 a pair, they’re relatively cheap. Best of all, they actually look good on your butt (unlike Old Navy & Target’s maternity pants which gave me grandma-booty).

The Secret Fit Belly™ comes on a lot of different styles of pants, jeans, shorts, skirts, and capris, too, and they’re mostly pretty cute.

I had a pair of black capris that I wore to work all the time. I was actually really bummed on days these pairs of pants were dirty so I had to wear different pants with tight elastic bands that hurt. So ladies with baby tummies unite & try on the Secret Fit Belly™ and see for yourself!

xo!

Annie

photos from motherhood maternity

Your First Transvaginal Ultrasound: You’re Going to Put That WHERE?

How amazing is it to see your brand new peanut baby for the first time on that fuzzy black and white screen? If only someone had told me how they were going to get that picture!

Can you find the baby? (We had to ask where it was!)

At approximately five weeks in my pregnancy with our little Bun, I was having some abnormal discomfort, so my doctor sent me into the hospital to get checked out and make sure Bun was in my uterus and not an ectopic pregnancy. When I went into the exam room, they asked if I wanted a chaperone.

Weird… why would I feel the need for a chaperone for some goop on my tummy and a peek at the baby? Enter the endovaginal ultrasound. *Gulp*

What is a Transvaginal Ultrasound?

Besides being a big shock, an endovaginal or transvaginal ultrasound is a pelvic ultrasound taken using a probe (a.k.a. transducer) placed into the vaginal opening. Doctors use this type of ultrasound when the baby is still very small—so small that your body tissue would block it in a regular outside-the-tummy ultrasound.

Not everyone will have an ultrasound at this stage of pregnancy, so don’t get your knickers in a twist just yet!

How is it performed?

After a quick disrobing from the waist down, you’ll probably find yourself in the traditional pelvic exam position: on your back with your feet in stirrups and draped with a bed sheet for privacy (though as you’ll notice throughout pregnancy, “privacy” is a relative term).

The doctor or technician will then place a condom over the transducer and cover that with a gel. She will then place part of the transducer in the vagina and begin the ultrasound. She may need to move the probe around to find the fetus, so be prepared for that.

Does it hurt?

In most cases, no. The transducer is shaped to *ahem* fit a condom, which means it is also shaped to fit correctly in the vaginal canal. You may feel some pressure which may not be super comfortable. If you feel pain, let your doctor or technician know immediately.

How can I make this process more comfortable?

Even the non-shy-mamas among us don’t look forward to a pelvic exam or anything like it, so remember that there is nothing wrong with being nervous—but also remember that it shouldn’t hurt, and that you get to see your baby!

A few tips for making a transvaginal ultrasound more comfortable:

1. Have a chaperone. Whether it’s your baby-daddy or your very own mama, having someone there to hold your hand—and admire your first glimpse of baby—can help you feel more comfortable and secure.
2. Ask to help. When I went in for my first endovaginal ultrasound, the tech let me guide the probe in myself, and it made a big difference. My second endovaginal ultrasound was performed by a midwife, and she placed the transducer herself—and it was much more uncomfortable. If you want to, go ahead and ask if you can guide the transducer yourself.
3. Relax. Easy for me to say sitting comfortably in front of my computer, fully clothed, and no where near a pair of stirrups. But really, you should make an effort to relax while this is going on. If you can, focus especially on relaxing the muscles around the probe so it won’t hurt when it is moved around during the ultrasound.
4. Ask questions. Ask what the tech is doing, what you can do to help, where the baby is on the screen, anything you want! Asking questions will not only help distract you, but also help you feel more in control of the situation.
5. Focus on your baby! It may not be the most fun way to catch a peek at your own little bun in the oven, but the point of this weird and wacky ultrasound is to check on your baby! So don’t get caught up in nerves or worries—look at that beautiful baby. You might even be able to see or hear its heartbeat!
   

   Our little Bun at nine weeks!

For more information about transvaginal ultrasounds, check out About.com’s encyclopedia entry or WebMD’s Women’s Health topic about them.

Good luck, and enjoy your first baby picture!

Love,

Annie

The “Birth” of the Shy Girl’s Guide to Pregnancy & Parenting

Once upon a time a shy girl—and I mean shy like I can practically count the number of people who have seen me naked on one hand, and most of them are doctors—saw a beautiful blue line on a pregnancy test. It was New Year’s Day 2008, and she and the hubs were delighted (and okay, a little scared) by the glorious little life that would soon flip theirs upside down in every conceivable (no pun intended) and beautiful way.

Little did they know how wacky the world of pregnancy could be…

Shockingly, that shy girl is me—and eleven months later I’m proud to say I’ve made it through pregnancy and the first two months of parenting, but not without a little trauma to my once-super-shy sensibilities. So now I want to share what I’ve learned with you in the hopes of sparing you the smacked upside the head shocks I got along the way.

I thought I knew what to expect until I was actually expecting–my very first ultrasound at a mere five weeks was probably the first wakeup call that there was going to be a lot of weirdness going on. And then parenting came along, and guess what? It brought with it a whole new set of challenges for us shy (and not-so-shy) mamas.

So stick with me for insights into everything you need to know—but no one ever told you—about pregnancy, parenting, and just being a girl. Welcome to the Shy Girl’s Guide to Pregnancy and Parenting!

Lots of love,

Annie