Protection

Well, since we've already failed on birth control (intended or not, hehe) I'm not talking about that. No, I'm talking about your bedding. Since I posted on pillows last night I was thinking I might as well talk about protecting them today. The chance of your water breaking while you're sleeping in bed is not super high (my water broke less than fifteen minutes before my baby was born last time which was fantastic because it helped open me up with less pressure), but it can be anywhere from a trickle to a full on gush. What I'm warning about is more the after. You know how your blood volume can go up 30-50% while you're pregnant? All of that fluid has to come out somehow. Yep, a lot of it gets sweated out. Add in leaking breasts, lochea (which can be super, super high flow at first) and ineffective newborn diapers (particularly if you have a healing little boy after circumcision), there are a lot of fluids that are getting soaked into the sheets. So here is what you do. Buy a cheap, water-proof mattress pad and pillow covers. I bought mine at Target. The mattress pad was $16, I think and the pillow covers were $3 a piece (I bought 3). You should also have on hand incontinence pads (we used puppy training pads which are essentially the same thing and we had them on hand) for under you, under the baby if s/he is sleeping with you and for the couch/chair/rocker/glider under you for the first couple of weeks. If your husband isn't great with laundry, also buy a couple of throw-away sets of sheets from your local thrift store (I don't mean you actually have to throw them away, WASTEFUL!, but ones that you couldn't care less if they get stained). Just wash in hot water if you're worried about them being dirty.

And just to be clear, if you're planning on a home birth, there will be a lot, LOT more fluids flowing. But I'll get into that in a later post. :)