Cost To Have A Baby: We Broke The $10,000.00 Mark. Plus, Is Pregnant Jane In Labor?

I can't imagine paying that much to have a baby! What a stress! I live in Canada, and everything is paid for thank God!

What do you do if you can't afford it??!!

TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS?!?

This blows my mind, really. I had never really thought about it, being from Canada where health care is included in the price of admission.

But I'm so glad you two are making it work. By the way, this is a LOVELY blog. Thanks for sharing with us all.

I truly feel for you guys. My goodness, $10,000? I've got a semi-private doctor, which is affordable what with Canadian health care and our company insurance for the extras. I wish you lots of luck--like for the lottery. At least baby will be very well worth it!

I get leg cramps every second night or so, and I'm only at week 25. They surprise me every time!

I've done that to my husband a couple times now too. It's not intentional, honestly, but sometimes the pains and twinges of pregnancy shock the stuffing out of you!

Fingers crossed that Jane doesn't have another charlie horse anytime soon!

Hmmm... Projectile poop with the potential of squirting 7+ feet is possible!? We have white carpet in baby Tarzan Junior's room! Oh boy.

Lately Pregnant Jane has been buying cherries. She's never bought cherries before. I didn't think anything of it because she always come home from grocery shopping with all sorts of new things. But maybe they looked good to her because her body needed them. We'll make sure she eats a handful every single day so we can avoid the screaming at 3 AM!

I got leg cramps so bad when I was pregnant that I actually got huge bruises from them! Jane, eat bananas and yogurt, that should help. If it doesn't, the minute you feel one starting, jump out of bed and start walking. That is the fasted way to get them to go away. :)

Good luck!

Yeah, baby poop only really begins to stink when food is introduced. Especially meat. But breastfed babies can have "projectile poop." JSL, thankfully, never seemed to have this, but NHL did. I still remember the phone call from my wife, as I was driving home so we could go look at a house: "Get home now." "I'm on my way." "Get home *NOW!*" I walked in and saw the changing table, a 7 foot span of clean carpet, and then a 4 foot line of poop.

I got quite adept at jumping out of the way of those poop projectiles. Can't say the same for TheAngelForever. More than once, I leapt out of the way and she got hit. I'm all for chivalry and all, but when poop comes at you you just react! ;-) Don't worry, though. She gets her revenge every time one of our kids pukes and I react my trying to catch it to minimize the mess. (Don't ask why I keep doing it. It's a reflex.)

As for the cramps, dried apricots helped keep my wife cramp-free. She ate a few of those a day and the cramps went away. Something about the potassium in them prevents cramps from happening. (Cherries have nice amounts of potassium too.)

Hmm, I wouldn't say "odorless" for the breastmilk poop, there's a strong sort of sweet (but not in a good way) smell, but it is definitely better than what you'll eventually encounter. :) I saw in an earlier post by Jane that you learned Harvey Karp's 5 S's in your baby class-they were invaluable to us in those first days and weeks. My husband became a master "shusher" and it really helped to calm down our son.

My first and only (thus far in my life) Charlie horse came at about 4:30am when I was 7 months pregnant. I thought I was dying. My husband thought I was in labor. I couldn't get the words out to tell him other than "Leg! Leg!" And he just kept saying, "It's running down your leg?!" Funny now, not funny at the time.

My daughter loved to be swaddled, but some babies really hate it, so maybe you won't have to worry about the swaddling at all.

Oh man, I had SO MANY charlie horses, and yes, many of them woke me up in the middle of the night in agony... which made me wake up my husband to massage them.

The good news is that labour pain makes your hormones start to go and your adrenaline race, so while they hurt, your body and mind try to help you through them.

Also, I must say, my husband is squeamish about body fluids too, but he watched me give birth here in our living room, he helped clean up the dirtied sheets, and he even held our baby with birth juices all over her... and he loved all three things :) Now when he is changing our little girl, he's laughing and talking to her as he cleans up all the poo. Sure, sometimes it's disgusting, but it's your baby, and you'll be excited that he's pooping (because if he's not, something could be wrong!)

Ugh, leg cramps are killer. I haven't had a problem with them since being on bedrest, surprisingly, but the morning I got admitted, I nearly died. Adia was sound asleep next to me and suddenly I jumped out of bed in horrendous pain. I couldn't even bend my leg it hurt so bad, let alone put weight on it. Sadly, I woke up Adia with my hopping around.

We never swaddled Adia, but my brother and his wife swaddled both their kids. They loved the Swaddle Me blankets. I just never liked the idea and actually, when ever you tried to wrap Adia up, she'd start screaming. The girl never stops moving!

Baby poop doesn't smell until your introduce solids or your baby has jaundice. They can, however, have some pretty explosive diapers. I remember when Adia's first started smelling.. ugh, it was horrible, but it wasn't until she was 9 months or so. I'd still take one of her smelly, solid food diapers over those first couple weeks of jaundice diapers. Those were absolutely disgusting and something I'll never forget.

We actually have 4 swaddling blankets already. Don't worry, I'm making sure it's really easy for you so that there is no excuse you can come up with. ;) Only kidding about that last part.

Hey Emily - there are two INCREDIBLE things you mention above... Odorless poop and swaddling blankets with velcro. I'm starting to feel like I'm going to be a pro! :) Jane, be sure to register for some of those velcro swaddling blankets! After Tarzan grows out of them, I'll use them and make us hats to wear. :)

Best of luck on the charley horses- I got one and it WAS in the middle of the night, but that was my only one luckily so hopefully that'll be true of Jane too. A couple of other things- for the swaddling, my husband and I HIGHLY recommend investing in some swaddling blankets. We watched the nurses swaddle our son with the hospital blankets and tried to emulate them with no luck at all. The swaddling blanket, with its velcro, is sooo easy by comparison, and our little guy loves being all cozy in it. Finally, regarding the poopy diapers, one good thing is if Jane breastfeeds, they actually do not smell at all! They still look gross, but seriously, odorless!!