What to Expect When You’re Expecting Giveaway

Today we are giving away free “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” books, 4th edition, to 5 lucky people!

As the number one bestselling pregnancy book on the market, What to Expect When You’re Expecting is a great comprehensive book that covers everything from pre-conception, pregnancy month-by-month, diet, complications, labor and delivery, breastfeeding, postpartum, and more!  It literally covers pretty much every topic you can think of related to pregnancy, making it a great reference tool even before you get pregnant.

What I like about the book is that it is pretty balanced in that it offers different approaches to pregnancy, birth, and beyond without being judgmental.  I’ve read a lot of pregnancy books that were definitely bias toward a specific approach, but this one presents the information and lets you decide without slanting the evidence.

Nicknamed “America’s Pregnancy Bible,” the book answers hundreds of pregnancy questions and provides a ton of valuable content for expectant mothers. 

My Review of What to Expect When You’re Expecting:

• The “before you conceive” information.  It has a lot of practical advice that I think a lot of woman overlook when embarking on the journey of motherhood.  A little advance planning can help you make sure your health is in tip-top shape.  For example, the book recommends going to the dentist and taking care of everything in your mouth.  A lot of women forget to do this.  I had to get a filling taken care of while pregnant without the medication…and let me tell you…it wasn’t pleasant!  Do it beforehand, including any X-Rays you may need.  Did you know your dental health could impact the health of your pregnancy? 
• Section on eating well while pregnant.  This is another area of pregnancy that a lot of women tend to ignore, and it is so important not only to your unborn child, but also for your own body.  What to Expect When You’re Expecting gives food recommendations and even tells you about the foods to stay away from.  What I like is that it seems pretty current with the latest information.  For example, it tells you that spicy food poses no risk to your baby, which a lot of people mistakenly believe.  The book breaks it down to the different food groups you should be eating from, how many serving of each you should consume, and gives examples of foods for each category.  It even has information for vegetarians and vegans. 
• The Labor and Delivery Section, where different options are explored, including information about natural birth.  For example, I was happy to see that the book says that laboring on your back isn’t an efficient way to birth a baby, and that routine episiotomies aren’t recommended.  There is information about where to birth, how to birth, what to expect at hospitals, the three phases of labor, and more.  I tend to lean on the natural birth side of the spectrum, and I found this book to give an accurate and fair presentation of information for women on either side of the spectrum.  It’s so important as a pregnant woman to arm yourself with information before you give birth.   
•  Pretty decent breastfeeding section, including a picture tutorial of the different holds (and although I’ve been nursing for 6 mths now, the pictures informed me that I wasn’t holding Butterball correctly in the side-lying hold, which explains why my arm kept going numb…duh!), information about a breastfeeding diet, and even a little blurb about breastfeeding when your baby is in the NICU.  There is a ton of other information related to breastfeeding too…even something on tandem nursing.
• Pregnancy month-by-month.  There is a chapter for every month of pregnancy, including a picture of what the baby would look like, information about the baby’s current development for that month broken down week-by-week, and lots of really relevant information, including: pregnancy exercise, weight gain, what to do with unwanted advice, sex and pregnancy, taking a childbirth class, information for 2^nd time parents, what to expect during monthly check-ups, the baby’s position, what you may be feeling during different stages of your pregnancy, and many more great stuff that pops up throughout pregnancy.  You’re going to have so many moments of “Is this normal?” or “what do I do about that?” that can be answered quickly by the book.  I really view the book as an encyclopedia of sorts for pregnancy. 
• Postpartum up to six weeks.  A comprehensive overview of what to expect 24 hours after delivery, three days after delivery, and after your postpartum check-up .  The information includes issues with postpartum depression, getting back into shape, breastfeeding diet, dealing with the after-birth pain, engorgement, leaking, the first bowel movement (nobody ever told me about this worry until after I gave birth!), recovering from a c-section, bleeding, and more.  This is all of the nitty gritty they don’t show you on TV and the seasoned mamas aren’t telling you until it’s too late!  It’s a great overview of what to expect and how to deal with it. 
• Sections on more specific issues, like alternative medicine, preterm pregnancy, pregnancy with STDs, multiples, complicated pregnancies, coping with pregnancy loss, staying healthy if you have a chronic condition, what to do if you get sick during pregnancy, and even a section on fathers and pregnancy. 

For your pregnancy book collection, What to Expect When You’re Expecting is a wise addition, and something you can refer to even with your subsequent pregnancies.  I plan on using it when we work on our second baby.  You can check out their website here:

Pregnancy Questions Answered

The website offers a day-by-day personalized pregnancy guide, message boards and blogs, your own pregnancy scrapbook, and lots of other online tools. 

5 of you are going to get a copy of the What to Expect When You’re Expecting for FREE.  I’m even going to pay for your shipping!

To enter the free giveaway:

• Leave me a comment for 1 entry into the drawing.  It can be about how far along you are in your pregnancy, how many kids you have…whatever!
• For an extra entry, tell somebody (e-mail, blog, twitter, Facebook, in person, whatever!) about my blog and let me know in a separate comment that you did.
• For an extra entry, add me on Twitter (prepforbaby) and let me know in a separate comment on this post that you have done so.
• For three extra entries, blog about this giveaway or another one of my posts and let me know in three separate comments that you have done so with a link.

I’ll announce the randomly selected winners in a week on July 26, 2010.  Good luck!

**when you leave a comment, you are prompted for an e-mail address.  This is neither made public or shared, but rather for verification purposes.

Next Week Giveaway

Pregnant mamas, hoping to conceive mamas, or anyone interested in pregnancy, next Monday I’m doing a giveaway especially for you.  Check back to enter to win the free giveaway!

1st Family Disneyland Trip

When you are born and raised in Orange County, it’s impossible to not have at least one friend of a friend who can get you into Disneyland for free.  When my mom called me up last week to tell me that she has somebody who could get all three of us (baby was free) in for FREE, I was beyond ecstatic, because L.P. has been desperate to go, and the steep Disney price tag pretty much eliminated our chances of going anytime soon. 

We woke up early yesterday to get there on time.  My husband packed sandwiches, drinks, and snacks (Disney allows you to bring outside food), and I got the caravan of kid-related necessities (change of clothes, diapers, etc) together for our departure.   It was a big load, and I was quickly beginning to wonder if we overpacked. 

Off we went, happy to have made it successfully out of the house and our estimated time of arrival was EARLY for once. 

And then we hit it…Disneyland traffic.  We should’ve known better, being Anaheim natives and all once upon a time.  Getting off the freeway and trying to park in the parking structure was a 45 minute nightmare that rendered us officially LATE, stressed, and on edge.  Trying to get two kids out of the structure, in line for the tram, and then on the tram was an exercise of patience, balance, and parenting skills.  Folding up the stroller, carrying 0ur junk in every hand available, wishing for more arms and less crowds of people pushing their way around us…

We learned a lot about family outings.  For starters, we learned that we could go to the back of the tram and get our entire stroller onboard without unpacking or folding anything. 

We learned not to overpack, and to make sure the things we did pack were packed properly so we didn’t have squished peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by lunch time. 

We learned to leave an hour earlier than we thought would be early.

But there was also a lot of things we did right, like packing enough drinks to keep us hydrated and happy without spending money in the money pit of Disneyland.  We had enough hats, sunscreen, and warm clothes for the cooler evening temperatures.  We were able to all go on rides and accommodate a little baby who couldn’t go on all the rides.

We managed to meet up with friends and have an easygoing, non-drama day.  Going with a group can be difficult, but luckily our group members are Disney regulars and didn’t mind doing the things we wanted to do.

  

We re-created the magic we felt as kids for another kidlet, whose eyes were big and full of excitement in the Happiest Place on Earth.

And we got to be kids again,  about all the times we went to Disneyland in our lifetimes. 

Of course, we weren’t always wearing the nostalgic rose-colored glasses.  My husband and I couldn’t help but make observations as adults.  Granted, we’ve come a few times when we were dating to Disneyland, so we’ve made these observations before, but they were different this time.  Different because this was the first time we came as our little family.

Disneyland is a place of magic for kids, but a giant resource-using, consumption-happy snowglobe where people rack up debt on their credit card to pay for it all.  It’s a place where you’ll see people from almost every corner of the world, an amazing blend of different cultures, languages, colors, styles, expectations, attitudes, religions…and yet despite all the uniqueness everyone was there for the same reasons.  We are all the same in the end.  And even though the Small World ride grossly stereotypes people (I’m sorry, but Arabs do not get around on flying carpets!), the superficial theme of it all is enough to induce happiness.  Or maybe it’s the cheerful, catchy music every ride plays. 

Okay, enough of the boring adult analysis, it was a fun day!

We stuck around long enough to see the 9:30 PM firework show, even though my husband swore we’d be home by then.  Or at least he was hoping…

For some reason the trams going back to the parking lot were a nightmare.  They were so efficient in the morning when they wanted our money, but at 10:30PM they weren’t coming with regularity.  The kids were having melt downs, the adults were crankier than ever.  Everyone in line had eyes that revealed a hard day of fun and limp bodies that were ready to collapse on warm beds and fall asleep as soon as their heads hit their pillows.  The end of the night is the hardest. 

…and a few lessons from our 1st family amusement park trip on a budget.

1.  Get started super early if you expect to leave the house by a certain time.

2.  Divide up the prep work…it makes for a nice “checks and balances” to make sure all the important stuff comes with you.

3.  Expect to take at least an hour parking, taking the tram, and all that good stuff. 

4.  Make a list of your “must sees” and do those first.  Inevitably you won’t have enough time for everything.

5.  Pack at least all of your snacks, drinks, and lunch.  If you have to buy food, limit it to one thing (we got dinner…$30 for hamburgers that weren’t very good.  What are ya gonna do?).  We didn’t buy anything else.

6.  Give the kids a set budget they can spend, since they will inevitably want to buy something.  L.P. got a bubble gun for less than $10. 

7.  Don’t be afraid to use your connections.  We got our tickets for free, and my mom donated money for our dinner, which was super wonderful of her.  So, we spent a whopping $14 on parking for the whole day. 

8.  Bring clothes for different temperatures and prepare for cooler nights.

9.  Lots and lots of sunscreen.  Reapply frequently, as sunscreen wears off and its protection will be compromised. 

10.  Go with other adults if you can.  It makes it nice for switching off line duty and ride duty.  I was able to sit out with my husband a few times, which was nice.

11.  Take your time.  Enjoy quiet benches in the shade where you can relax, re-charge, and people-watch. 

12.  Don’t take everything so seriously.  The traffic, the heat, the rude people behind you that keep bumping into you in line…let it all roll off your back and enjoy the day.

13.  Take lots of pictures and videos.  They are so much fun to look at later on! 

14.  Don’t forget your hats!  My hat saved me from the nasty headaches I get from being in the sun too long.

I’m hoping to squeeze another Disney trip in before next summer, since my husband and I are talking about #2.5 soon.  I’m not digging the idea of going big and pregnant 😉 

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In other news, I’m going to have a giveaway soon for the pregnant mamas. Stay tuned!