Bath Time Knee and Elbow Saver

What is currently saving my life right now is my bath time knee and elbow saver. I have the Skip Hop brand Moby Bath Kneeler which I received at my shower and the Moby Bathtub Elbow Saver which I got from my parents for Christmas! Avery has outgrown his sink baby bath tub at 4.5 months old and is now in the big tub. I don't know how I could comfortably give him and a bath and supervise his play without it. 

When I was registering for my baby shower I was debating between the Skip Hop kneeler and the Aquatopia Deluxe Safety Easy Bath Kneeler. I decided to go with the Skip Hop kneeler because the bathroom that we bathe Avery in is our main bathroom and quite small so we needed a solution that store easily when not in use. The Skip Hop kneelers have velcro straps that you can hang them from the shower curtain rod or a hook which I really like. 

I have found I love Skip hop products. They are so cute and good quality. I would spring for these for your comfort because it will get quite a few years of use because you need to help your child bathe for several years so why not do it comfortably!

Products

Skip Hop Moby bath kneeler

Skip hop Moby bathtub Elbow Saver

Baby Steals

Babysteals.com is a website similar to Woot.com but it has two deals every day, one at 9 AM and one at 9 PM. I have found that the items on Baby Steals are geared toward younger kids and that the items tend to have a higher percentage off.

I am new to Baby Steals so I will checking this one daily when I check my email! I'm sure I'll find a great deal! A friend said they had Ergo baby carriers 50% OFF!  They retail for about $120.00 dollars so that's a really great deal!

Woot...... for kids

You may or may not be familiar with the website Woot.com  If your not familiar with it, it's a website that features one random item every day on sale for between 20 and 50% off. I have the site bookmarked and check it for deals whenever I'm bored.Now I have found they also have a kids version of it kids.woot.com. I check it and have found that most of the kids deals are more geared toward older children but you never really know what you are going to find on Woot! I keep checking it because one day I'm going to find something I can't live without!

Ovulation Tests

I was so obsessed with getting pregnant, I had a time line and wanted to have a baby in June or July, so I had to get pregnant right after we got married. In order to get pregnant right away I thought I would use an ovulation prediction kit (OPK) to take the guesswork out of getting pregnant. 

The first OPK I bought was the Clearblue Easy Digital Ovulation Test . I tried it before we got married to see how it worked and it did not detect ovulation for me. It may have been the stress and drama I was having surrounding the wedding because I was also charting and had a weird chart that month, so I may not have ovulated. 

After that I was burned because the kit was expensive and didn't find anything so I looked into OPK's on Baby Center and found many people using these Wondfo One Step Ovulation Test Strips. I was hesitant to buy them because they looked cheap and thought, you get what you pay for, but so many people were raving about them.. It's a little gross because you have to pee in a cup and dip the test into the cup of pee, but for a fraction of price it was worth it. They worked great I used them and got pregnant on my second try.* Both times they detected my ovulation.

Some say it takes the magic out of making a baby but for me it took the stress and guesswork out of it. I also didn't believe that charting would work because my charting was erratic, but after the wedding I could see a pattern in my charts. I truly believe that stress hinders your chances trying to conceive (TTC), so don't stress out!  I think if we have another child I will just chart or take my chances but I totally recommend these for first timers!

Products

Clearblue Easy Digital Ovulation Test

 Wondfo One Step Ovulation Test Strips

*NOTE: I did do one in the morning and one at night because the hormone is only in your system for about 12 hours so you may miss it if only doing one a day.

Baby Center

If you have ever Googled anything about babies yet, and I'm sure you have, you must have found Baby Center. It's a relief when you have any question or concern , even at 2 Am you can post something and get an answer from someone who has been through it already. I have Googled several questions, even now with Avery and have already found a thread on Baby Center answering the question. I'm not going to spend too much time on this because I'm sure you have already found this site and will be using it for awhile.

Fertility Friend

When your trying to conceive TTC I swear you get in the mode where you scour the internet for information! When on a TTC board I found this website Fertility Friend. This website helps you chart Basal Body Temperature, Cervical Fluid, Pregnancy Test, Intercourse, IUI, IV, Ovulation Predictor, Saliva Microscope, Ferning Tests, OvWatch, Fertility Monitor, Cervix, Mood, and Energy Level and sing this information tells you if and when you ovulated. They even have an app for that so you can put your info in right after you take your temperature! Here are my charts from the two months I was trying. 

You can tell when ovulation happened because the next day you see a spike in temperature. On the first chart my temperature dropped because I wasn't pregnant and on the second it stayed elevated because I was!

You can find tons of information on charting on their website. You can also search other peoples charts to find similar charts to your current chart and see if they conceived with a chart like yours.

 Check it out it's a must if you are going to chart!!

What to Expect BEFORE You're Expecting

What To Expect Before You're Expecting was the first book I got when we decided to get pregnant. Not having any friends who were trying to have kids I had no one to go to for advise on what I should be considering when trying to conceive. Sex ed class never taught me what to do to have a baby, they only taught me what to do in order to not have a baby. It left me thinking that if I even though about having unprotected sex I would get pregnant, but this book taught me that is not the case. It opened my eyes to how hard it can be to conceive because your window to conceive is not that big. What To Expect Before You're Expecting is split into four parts, Part 1: Getting ready to make a baby, Part 2: Making a baby, Part 3: Bumps on the road to baby, and Part 4: Keeping track.

Part 1: Getting Ready To Make a Baby
Chapter 1: Prepping Before You're Pregnant
Chapter 2: Weighing In Before Your're Pregnant
Chapter 3: Eating Well Before You're Pregnant

Part 2: Making a baby
Chapter 4: The Biology of Baby Making
Chapter 5: Predicting Ovulation
Chapter 6: Figuring Out Your Fertility
Chapter 7: Getting Busy Making a Baby
Chapter 8: Are You Pregnant

Part 3: Bumps on the road to baby
Chapter 9: Challenges to Fertility
Chapter 10: When You Need a Little Help
Chapter 11: Beginning Again After a Loss

Part 4: Keeping track.
Chapter 12: Your Fertility Planner

To be honest I never read Part 1 because I already thought I was healthy enough!  Part 2 is where it's at! You learn what exactly needs to happen in order to get pregnant, what you can do to increase your odds of getting pregnant, and early symptoms to tell your pregnant.  I learned about how to take your Basil Body Temperature (BBT) and how to chart, which I think was the key to me getting pregnant so fast. In Part 4: Keeping track there are fertility charts that you can use to track your cycle which I found to be the best physical chart out there. Check it out it's a good read!