Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire! Heartburn in Pregnancy

So I wanted to write a post for each of many of the pregnancy symptoms and afflictions. I decided to start with heartburn because it's currently tormenting me.

I had never experienced heartburn before in my life prior to being pregnant. And I was a huge lover of spicy and fried foods. Which is really a problem now that I'm experiencing this indigestion. If you are like me, then you may not have known much about what heartburn really was (or felt like) prior to you experiencing it yourself! So I will begin with...

What is heartburn?

Baby Shoes - adorable accessory? Or medieval torture device?

Baby shoes are adorable. I mean - how sweet and cute can you get? Little tiny, perfectly miniaturized versions of your own shoes... and they look even cuter at the end of those chubby, stubby, little baby legs. Right?

I bought those shoes in the picture above for the sole purpose of taking that picture with no intention of putting them on my baby (aside from maybe a one-time photo-op kind of situation). I had never planned on getting lots of little baby shoes - they're not practical! Before your baby can even walk, what kind of need do they have for shoes? And even after they start walking, I've never thought shoes were that practical for them. They can't walk that far, and mostly inside where you can see them (not over a lot of broken glass and such). And it turns out, making your baby wear shoes is actually bad for them.

"Think of the Chinese foot binding practice, which was common in the upper classes. The feet would be bound so that the bones would mold together and be more “dainty.” In much the same way can babies feet become stifled and grow improperly if smothered in small shoes that fit incorrectly."

~ babywalkingshoesguide.com

Doulas - Who? What? Why?

I had heard of doulas before - but wasn't sure what they were or what they did. I got them confused with midwives and thought it was just someone only women having home births had to help them. Then, I came upon the term again in my reading, which I have done a lot of at this point.

So... what is a doula? A doula is trained to provide emotional and physical support to women during childbirth. Doulas do not perform medical tasks, unlike midwives - some of whom have nursing degrees.  Though I originally associated doulas with homebirths, some sources actually say that it's more important to have a doula for hospital births.

Welcome! An Introductory Statement

Hello! Thanks for stopping by my new blog Prego to Legos!

When the idea finally struck me to begin this blog, I was already in my third trimester. Wish I would've thought of this earlier so that I could write posts about pregnancy a little more chronologically. But my plans for this blog are to have it be about pregnancy, birth, babies, and parenting - the whole spectrum. I'd love to have my husband contribute some posts about the male perspective, but he's not much one for writing.

Let me begin by saying a little bit about myself and my situation. This will be my first baby - aside from our two fur babies on four legs! I'm relatively young, well older than some, but I feel young! That's what counts, right? I'll officially hit my "mid-twenties" a few months after our baby boy is born. My husband is a Marine, and has been deployed for much of my pregnancy and there's even a chance he won't be home in time for the birth. Gotta love the military - so much uncertainty!