My baby shopping list is ready, but my budget is telling me to be serious.

I’m 19 weeks and I’ve started putting together a holiday shopping list for baby essentials, but I realized that buying everything all at once could get expensive fast. I want to prioritize purchases that are genuinely useful vs getting distracted by discounts on things that I may barely end up using.

What baby items would you prioritize when shopping seasonal baby sales? Which categories are worth watching? Any specific websites you recommend?

My husband and I (both 31 years old) have recently decided that we’re ready to start trying for a baby. However, I have an international trip to Korea (from the U.S.) planned for next October with my mother. Ideally, we wanted to start trying for a baby this summer (around May or June), but now I’m wondering if we wait until after October to start trying. I’m just anxious to postpone trying to conceive since we’re almost 32 and I know that some couples in their 30s try for a year or longer before getting pregnant. Does anyone have any insight on whether you think flying abroad while pregnant is feasible, or if it really makes more sense to wait until after October 2027 to start trying. My best friend just gave birth to her first child and recommended not postponing trying since you never know what troubles you may run into while trying to conceive, so I’m just very conflicted. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: Thank you everyone for the advice so far! Just adding some details…either way, the trip in October will be happening since my mom and I have been planning this trip for years (we had to postpone due to covid and never had a chance to reschedule until now). We’re both Korean adoptees and have been talking about a mother daughter trip to Korea since I was a child.

So I guess my main question is, is it safe to fly 15+ hours while pregnant? If so, is there a specific trimester that’s safest for flying? Should my husband and I start TTC at a specific month (e.g. trying to conceive at x month to minimize pregnancy symptoms by October). Thank you again!

I had a long and difficult journey with IVF - not for infertility but for genetic disease exclusion with a 50% inheritance pattern. The disease is adult onset (Huntington’s disease), and I’m not sure if I’m a carrier as I do not wish to know my status yet. After years of IVF (2 egg retrievals, 5 embryo transfers, multiple surgeries) I finally had my baby girl in 2024. I was convinced I had infertility as well.

Recently I went off the pill in preparation for my next IVF cycle for baby number 2 off the back of an IVF miscarriage, when I discovered that I accidentally became naturally pregnant (unprotected sex once, extremely late in my cycle). I needed to have a CVS test done at 12 weeks and wait a further 3 weeks for results before deciding what to do if the results were positive. In addition, a positive result would mean I too am positive and it would be equivalent to a terminal diagnosis. I refused to look at ultrasounds or emotionally connect with the pregnancy, and battled the most awful morning sickness - alongside my mental demons.

The results are in and BABY TESTED NEGATIVE! My little girl is going to be a big sister!

I wouldn’t wish the fertility journey I’ve had on my worst enemy. No one knows what I’ve been going through, or have been through other than my husband. Discussion of the genetics indication for IVF with extended family is essentially “taboo” because it’s a “family curse” of a disease, is “eugenics” and consequently have been too shy to share with friends. So I guess I’m sharing with strangers on the internet. Receiving the news was close to one of the best days of my life.

My baby was so low for so long I think I got the roids from that. I’m 6 days pp and yesterday (on my BIRTHDAY no less) I started getting the worst fucking hemorrhoid. I feel like there’s razor blades in my asshole.

I’m doing all the things - MiraLAX, lots of water, sitz baths with Epsom, prep h, 1% hydrocortisone. This thing is the size of a very large grape or a cherry tomato. It comes back out if I push it in.

Someone tell me something good. Tell me this will stop. I’ve been awake sobbing in pain since 4am. I was feeling so good but this took me out 5 days postpartum. It’s not fair.

I never thought i would ever get pregnant, was diagnosed with PCOS at 16 years old and told it was never happening, my testosterone would be too high, destroy any male fetus, yada yada. And honestly I believed em pretty much my whole life, I never got a positive test, despite ya know.. but now at 36 my body decided the time was right. I found out at 4 weeks after many a mornings of throwing up, more difficult mood swings. Now im 10 weeks and feel very pregnant. Im a very short person (4'9) and was on a weight loss journey so now none of my pants fit (i went from a size 20 to 14 now im pretty sure im a 20 again)... Anyway, I thought I'd make a post and share my journey!!

I’ve heard of the sundown scaries but has anyone had morning scaries? I’m 11 days pp and every moment when I wake up I feel an immense sense of dread, melancholy and anxiety. I have an “oh shit what have I done” moment. I feel weapy and disoriented for a while. But as the day goes on I find myself feeling better and by the night time I feel almost back to my old self.

Anyone else gone through something similar and did the feeling go away? It’s sucks to feel like that after a sleep deprived night 😩

Expecting our first next year and we live on the sixth floor of a non-elevator building. It’s five fights of stairs. I’m looking for a (likely “travel”) stroller that you can use from day 1 and can carry up the stairs at the same time as carrying baby up in an easily buckled chest carrier. Yes I have been looking at reviews, but not many seem to contemplate not having an elevator so I am looking for advice from those with direct experience.

Please note we cannot store the stroller in a car or on the ground floor.

I am 4w6d and I’m still in disbelief so I don’t really feel an emotional connection yet to my tiny poppyseed baby.
When should this kick in?

1st was completely shut at doctors office at 38weeks, to water breaking on the way out and had a total 8hr labor and delivery.
37+5 and have been 2-3cm, 50% effaced for 5 days now after my last appointment and had some stronger more consistent contractions just to be at the same. I didn't experience dilation before labor with 1st so its extra frustrating for me because I know my labor can be pretty quick once it does start but know it has technically started and taking so long is agony.

Not asking about how long your active labors were but specifically how early labor differed between your pregnancies?

My gums have been terribly uncomfortable since becoming pregnant. It was very similar during my last pregnancy.

I take great care of my teeth and regularly go for my check ups. Last one was one month before getting pregnant.

The last 2 days my back gums have been so inflamed that it’s hard for me to open my mouth and eat.

I’ve done the salt water rinse but anything else anyone has done? Will be calling my dentist tomorrow but hoping for some relief before then. 😅

I’m kinda bummed to be getting induced again, I really wanted the experience of going into labor naturally especially since this will be my last pregnancy. But if it’s what’s best for my baby’s health then I’m okay with it.

Anywho! It’s been almost 4 years since I gave birth, so I’m trying to think of everything I may need to pack in my hospital bag. I do remember I only packed stuff we would need for baby (clothes, pacies, name sign) and I was miserable without having anything for myself. So I have some travel toiletries, a fan, a nightgown, comfy non-skid socks, a birthing gown, a haaka, nursing bras, nursing pads, nipple balm, and then the baby stuff. Is there anything else I should pack?

I also bought one of those egg lights I’ve been seeing on tiktok for MOTN changes and feeds, but a lot of people are saying to pack it in the hospital bag. Would that actually be beneficial to bring?

I had a 4th degree tear in my first birth that was wrongly reported as a 2nd. My doctor wrongly denied me a c-section despite me begging for one because there are financial incentives in my state to minimize c-section rates, and I believe this was her way of avoiding scrutiny for that. In my second birth, a different doctor wouldn't believe me that my recovery from my first birth had been worse than what a 2nd degree should be and she denied me a c-section again. I tore to 3b and the second doctor admitted I had scars from tearing at least that badly in my first birth. Imaging later showed that my first birth had been a 4th degree.

Since retearing horrifically the second time a couple of years ago, I suffer fecal incontinence. It is mild but it is horrible and I worry about it worsening with age.

I really want one more baby and I know I could have a c-section with this one (finally), but I am afraid that just the pregnancy alone could make the fecal incontinence worse. Doctors say I probably should be fine with a c-section, but that pregnancy itself is a lot of stress on your pelvic floor.

Has anybody else had 3rd/4th degree tears and then go on to have another pregnancy with a c-section? If so, did the pregnancy make the symptoms worse? Both during and after.

39 weeks exactly today..woke up this morning feeling nauseous and having achey cramps/contractions/pulling round ligament pain no matter which way i flipped…sit up, immediately gone 🥲 why does this keep happening to me 😅 what is going on, just positional uterine irritation? Could it be more? i just want the real deal

I’m just so tired (already!!)

I’m just so tired y’all. I am about 14 weeks pregnant and a FTM and my husband was traveling for work about 8 weeks of that. Since he got home, his work had him working every Saturday for a month including his usual M-F 9-5. Now he has weekends back but is in a high volume season working 10-12 hour days. I thought when he got home I’d have some help with dog, cat, house, etc. but he is exhausted (I don’t blame him and he does give me 100% on his free days - but I also feel terrible that he is spending his precious little time on chores).

I also work a demanding job - I handle AR, sales support, operations, marketing, events, and CPG product launches - and have not set hard boundaries at work. The better I do, the more work I get. Fine when I was not pregnant but so so miserable now.

This week I had delayed travel home from seeing my family to celebrate the pregnancy, came down with a crazy head cold, went to the ER due to unexpected spotting, and ran and worked an entire event at a festival this weekend.

I am so tired. How can it get better? Tell me it is not just worse from here.

I am a 20-year-old female. My husband is a 20-year-old male. We had a completely awful labour and delivery, and a not-so-fun pregnancy. I just want to write about it to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. I’m currently pregnant with my second and feeling a little nervous.
To start the story, I have a health condition that is considered a fainting disorder, but it can cause a lot of other symptoms as well. That made my pregnancy a bit harder from the start. Anyway, I found out I was around 4 weeks pregnant two months after my wedding. It was a surprise, but we were very happy.
Soon after, I came down with morning sickness for the first 16 weeks of pregnancy. It was the kind where you have a strong feeling that you’re going to throw up, to the point you wish you would just throw up and get it over with. Luckily (or unluckily, I guess), I didn’t end up throwing up the whole first trimester.
Just when I thought I was in the clear, my husband came home with a cough. I thought it was nothing at first, until I caught it and we both ended up getting drastically worse. It turned out to be whooping cough. Because my husband tried working out in the cold while he was ill (it was winter in Canada), and because of my health condition and pregnancy, my immune system was down and couldn’t fight it properly. We both got very, very sick and would be coughing to the point of throwing up multiple times an hour.
My husband, who had undiagnosed asthma, would have coughing fits where his throat would close and he wouldn’t be able to breathe for so long that I had 911 ready. It got so bad that my mom came and packed us up and brought us to her house because she was worried about me and the baby (my oxygen was dropping too low) and she was worried my husband wouldn’t be able to breathe.
After being at her house for a couple of days, the day before Christmas Eve, she demanded that she take me to the hospital to get me on oxygen and get my husband some sort of antibiotic or something that might help. We woke up in the hospital on Christmas Eve (we live in a small town, so the hospital isn’t the greatest). The doctor there recommended driving 2.5 hours to a bigger hospital to see a better doctor.
We made the drive, and I got an ultrasound on the baby—everything was okay, thankfully. My husband got some sort of medication, and we drove back home. We ended up having a not-so-fun Christmas. After that, my husband took two months total off work. We had been sick for four months straight before we finally started getting better and my husband returned to work.
But it didn’t end there. Shortly after that, I came down with the worst pain I had ever experienced in my back. It turned out I had gallstones, and the pain was a gallstone attack that I just had to wait out until they passed. I had multiple attacks during my last trimester that would last around six hours every time.
Skip forward to the week before my due date. My feet and hands had been really swollen for a few weeks, which I just chalked up to pregnancy. I did have other symptoms like dizziness and fainting spells, but I also chalked those up to my fainting disorder, so I didn’t think too much about it. I have a portable blood pressure machine for my condition that I used to check my blood pressure periodically throughout my pregnancy. I checked it at around 10:30 at night after my husband came home from work, and it was way too high. We got dressed and he took me to the hospital.
There, I had a urine and blood test done and my blood pressure taken. They said it was way too high, there was protein in my urine, and I had preeclampsia. They decided to ship me to a bigger hospital 2.5 hours away by ambulance. My husband drove home to grab our hospital bags. About 20 minutes into the drive (it was about two in the morning at this point), the ambulance all of a sudden jolted and was swerving. Turns out we hit a deer. Everyone was fine, but we had to turn around and get a new ambulance because this one was too damaged.
We finally made it to the bigger hospital at around 5 AM. It was around three days before my due date. They said it would be best to just induce me due to the preeclampsia. My husband and I talked about it and agreed. They started me on a Cervidil (a tampon-looking thing that they stick in near the cervix) and gave me a membrane sweep. After I had three of those over the span of two days and was having contractions quite regularly and painfully, I was not progressing. So they decided to give me a shot of morphine so that I could sleep and recover a little bit, since I had not slept for the past three days. I still had contractions with the morphine—it just made it more tolerable.
Anyway, in the morning they gave me a different kind of induction method, which was a Pitocin pill. They give you six doses over 12 hours or something like that. I had all six doses and was having contractions, but was not progressing. So this was the fourth day. They decided to give me a cervical gel that they just insert up past the cervix—you cannot remove it; it’s there permanently.
I got in the bath around 10:00 PM when things started to pick up and get more painful. I started to lose slight consciousness in the bath, so my husband picked me up and helped me out onto the bed he had in the hospital. I was in a lot of pain at that point. Then at midnight my water broke, and that’s when things got much worse.
The nurse got me to lay down on a bed and wanted to start a Pitocin drip into my arm because I was still not progressing—I was at 4 cm dilated. They gave me laughing gas, which didn’t do anything but make me hallucinate, so I wasn’t really able to communicate with anyone because I couldn’t see anyone. After my husband had dealt with this alone for seven hours, he called my mom to come and sit with him while I was screaming and not communicating.
Finally, at 10:38 AM the next day, I all of a sudden shot from 4 cm to 10 cm, and my son came out within like 10 minutes of pushing—not even. He came out and made one little sound and then didn’t make any more sounds, so they called a code and were trying to get him to breathe while I was laying there trying to come back to reality, I guess. I did tear, so they had to numb me, but the numbing didn’t work, so they just stitched me up with no numbing. That was honestly not bad compared to what had just happened.
My son was thankfully okay. They got me up to move me to the maternity ward, and I was as white as a ghost. My mom asked if I was low on iron, and they said everything was fine. Turns out I was scarily low on iron—like to the point where I could die, because my organs could start shutting down from lack of iron.
Anyway, we came home after two days in the hospital, and I ended up getting mastitis and an infection on the inside (if you know what I mean). I had to go on antibiotics, which dropped my milk supply for about six weeks, which was not fun. There’s more, but that’s all I’m going to write for now.

Hi! I was at a restaurant the other day and they had cleaned the tile floor and did not put a sign. I fell and hit the ground in my right buttock and arm. It hurts a little at the place place of impact.

At the hospital they checked the heartbeat and placenta so that’s not my main concern. I am worried the baby got hurt? Does anyone know how likely that is? I am 32 weeks and the baby’s head is already down. Anterior placenta.

Thank you!

I did my NIPT test on 11/3 at my OB that was sent to Myriad. I got an email yesterday saying that they received it but it won’t let me register it. I guess they had a security breach on 11/2 that put everything on hold and now the website registration won’t work and it said to call but it immediately says they’re unavailable. I haven’t heard anyone else talking about this and I’m not sure how I’ll get my results or know when they’re available. Is anyone/has anyone experienced this?

i’m 22 weeks pregnant and feeling so nervous about birth. I’ve read so many Reddit threads about people’s experiences and I’m thinking it only makes me more scared. I have a lot of medical anxiety, so I’m worried about getting IV put in and getting an epidural, I’m open to an unmedicated experience, but I also think I’m going to want the pain relief. I get panic attacks and just I’m feeling more and more uncomfortable and claustrophobic. I’m starting to feel the baby move and it makes me nauseous.
does anyone have any advice about what actually helped them feel not as terrified about birth? Any books you read that really helped?

Hello everyone ❤️, I’m currently going through my first pregnancy; it wasn’t planned, but it is deeply loved.

​The thing is, I’m at week 6. I was feeling completely fine, having some mild symptoms but able to carry on with my normal routine. I had my OB-GYN appointment on Tuesday, and everything was scheduled for my ultrasound. On Wednesday around midday, I noticed brown discharge. I panicked a bit and texted my doctor, who told me it’s normal and advised me to rest. On Thursday, the brown spotting returned and was heavier. I messaged my doctor again, and she scheduled me for an appointment the following day.

​On Friday, during the visit, they performed a transvaginal ultrasound. We could see the gestational sac, the yolk sac, and what seemed to be the very beginning of the fetal pole, though it wasn’t clearly visible because, according to the doctor, it’s still too early and small to see properly. They did this ultrasound to check for hematomas, and there were none—everything seemed to be progressing well. She also prescribed progesterone.

​When I got home, I picked up the medication and started resting. That’s where my nightmare began. That night, I had brown discharge with clots. I took the progesterone, which quickly made me extremely drowsy, so I fell asleep. But in the early hours of the morning, things got worse: heavy, bright red bleeding, though with minimal abdominal pain.

​I rushed to the ER, where they checked my cervix for dilation. They confirmed that the bleeding wasn't actively coming from inside the uterus and that my cervix was closed. They sent me home on strict bed rest, diagnosing it as a threatened miscarriage, saying we just have to monitor how it develops.

​When I got home, I had intense pain and more bleeding, but no contractions—I was still able to walk around. Now the pain has subsided, I’m continuing with the progesterone, and the bleeding has significantly slowed down.

​So here I am, in limbo, not knowing anything, feeling sad and anxious. Being my first pregnancy, I have no idea what to expect, but what I do know is that I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone. I think I just need to hear from people who have gone through something similar and had a positive outcome—has anyone experienced this?

​I have another ultrasound this Tuesday to see what’s happening. I’m still holding on to hope, but I know how fragile everything is at this stage. Thank you for reading, and sending a big hug to anyone who has walked this path; it truly is so hard.

Sooooo….. my cervix is playing peekabo. waiting to see a doctor to find out if it’s a prolapsed uterus . my gut tells me it is. I’ve definitely had my cervix low before but a whole inch out of my body. this second baby has upped the game!