Maternity in the age of retail

Finances are tight here at the Lemarath household: nothing overly horrendous - an overtime slip not turned in on time, a bank error, and the aftermath of moving in. We're moving swifty to our tighter budget, and for the most part it doesn't feel like chains but more like a comfortable old pair of jeans that's just a little bit tight and rather stiff.

Except a little, this week. I had this list from the hospital of everything that needs to be packed into a bag for rushing down to Labour & Delivery (and now I know how important those things are and everyone, when they say heavy-duty pads, do believe them. And treat yourself to a new fresh toothbrush and some mouthwash, trust me.) I also had a list of three things for the baby, and I was in a mood where I had to ensure all these things were available just in case, you know, I went into labour.

(Last night I woke up and my breasts were burning hot and tingling and my genital region was hot and swollen and I felt like I could feel my cervix. Definitely some kind of hormone cocktail was being delivered. I wondered, as I peed, if this was the start of labour, since I never really had that stage last time. And then - this is the sign of a veteran - I rushed back to bed to get as much sleep as possible, in case it was.) (Obviously it was not.)

So the baby's list was:

a) a nasal aspirator, something we somehow never acquired for Emily
b) an Angelcare monitor that goes under the crib mattress (and will hopefully work under the cosleeper mattress pad) and goes off if the breathing movements stop. I thought this was overkill the first time, until I held my baby until she stopped breathing, forever. This time I really don't care if it goes off on false alarms, as long as it goes off for anything real
c) two change pads, the curved kind with belts on them. I decided to get one for each floor and set up a change station on each, in case of extreme sleep deprivation or totally intriguing DVD. We had one for Emily but we used it for her coffin

I started at Sears and the Bay, pricing things out. The monitor I bought at Sears: they were having a 30% off sale on everything safety-related. The woman there asked me if I would like to start a baby registry. "No - no," I said, trying to make it clear that this was not some minor hesitation. Last time I registered at the Bay, and gifts kept arriving after Emily died due to some internal shipping thing, and worse, they kept calling to let us know we could complete our registry on sale for months afterwards and I never did find a way to call them back and say look: she died, she doesn't fucking need your crap all right?. I cannot possibly face another baby registry ever.

Besides, my list only had three things on it.

All that flashing before me, and the woman kept arguing with me "it's really great, and you're entered to win everything on your registry and blah blah blah." I contemplated dropping my baby registry story on her to just shut her up, but I have vowed not to use real pain that way - plus she was just doing her job - so I just kept saying NO.

It made me glad we're so well equipped. I can't imagine having to shop for everything this way.

But then I crossed to the dark side. Everything was so expensive everywhere. And lurking down at the end of the mall was the great evil eye: Wal-Mart. I knew that it had everything else on my list and at low to reasonable prices.

So I went. And there I got the change pads and the aspirator and all the post-partum stuff for me. And it was cheap. And it was simple. And I enjoyed it.

It's a slippery slope, but I'm not even sorry.

Shandra