Before Baby Bucket List

I think we’ve established that I am a fan of lists. With all the time we spent “waiting to wait”, I started compiling a list of things to help keep us occupied while we were waiting. A Before Baby Bucket List of sorts. The wait can be long and unpredictable. There are things on this list to help prepare us for bringing home a baby, because I know some days I will get hit with baby fever need a reminder that this is really happening. But there are other things on the list that we just want to do for ourselves. Things we haven’t really gotten around to doing, or things that will be hard to do with a baby in tow. So, our Before Baby Bucket List: 

Take an infant care/CPR class. I know a lot of expectant parents will take a birth/infant care class prior to baby’s birth so I’m hoping to find one near us that focuses more on caring for the baby than the actual birth (bathing, swaddling, diapering, dealing with sick babies, etc.).

Speaking of diapering…Finish our cloth diaper stash. Yes, we are planning to cloth diaper. We likely will not do it the first couple weeks since we will be staying in a hotel if baby is born outside NY state (so we plan to stock up on some newborn disposable diapers for that time). We’ve already bought a lot of cloth diapers but we really need to figure out exactly how many we’ll need and finish the stash. I’ll probably do a separate post about this since I know a lot of people still think cloth diapering involves giant towel and safety pin…

Talk to our insurance company about coverage for the little one. Baby will be covered by our health insurance as soon as papers are signed, but companies have different rules about covering the nursery stay for those first couple days before birthmom signs the relinquishment papers.

Research (and eventually purchase) some of the big baby items. We’ve looked at some cribs but haven’t at all started researching car seats, strollers or anything else. Recommendations are welcome!

Have the nursery wall put up. We chose our current apartment because it is set up to allow for a second bedroom with one extra wall put up. So we need to have that built so we can start building the…

Nursery! We already have a sort-of theme picked out and I’m so excited to start decorating. (Well, I have a theme picked out. I’m pretty sure most dads-to-be don’t have a lot of strong opinions about nursery decorating. JP agrees that the ideas I have so far are acceptable :))

Narrow down our name list. Or start one? We’ve randomly discussed names a few times but never decided on anything. Most conversations just turned into a mild argument about whether our first son should be John Patrick IV (hubby-and the rest of the O’Connor clan- like the idea of a dynasty, I think the kid deserves his own name), but I think after 7 years of going back and forth about this one I’ve probably won. We’re planning to narrow things down to a few names for each gender but probably won’t make a definite decision until baby is born. We kind of like the idea of having the birthmother’s input on a name too so, depending on the situation, she might be involved in picking the name once we have them narrowed down.

Collect some newborn and family photo ideas. New pinterest board needed…

Start a baby book. I made one last year for our Godson and I loved putting it together. A lot of adoptive parents make a “life book” with the adoption story that can be read to the child, so I’m not sure if we’ll do that as a separate book or put everything together.

Look into adoptive breastfeeding and/or getting donated breastmilk. Yes, both are possible. I’ll do a separate post on these eventually too once we’ve done some more research.

Find a pediatrician. I would love to find one in our neighborhood, but I’m not opposed to going into the city if we find a great doctor who has experience with adopted kids.

Put together a hospital bag list. We probably won’t actually put the bag together until we’re matched but I’d like to have a list together in case we end up with a last-minute placement (mainly because I’ve already had dreams about being totally unprepared).

Collect some ideas for birth announcements.

Decide what type of parents we want to be. We had to read a lot of parenting material for the homestudy, most of which focused on every little thing that could possibly go wrong and how to handle it. We’ve enjoyed reading parenting articles and books on our own though and talking about how we want to raise our kids.

Set a good example. With the stress we’ve had the last year (deciding on adoption, the homestudy, moving back to NY, JP switching jobs TWICE with me working more-than-full-time recently, etc.) we haven’t exactly been living the way we would like to. I used to take ballet classes 6-7 days/week…now my foot cramps up just from pointing my toes for too long. I hate that. I hate feeling out of shape and not eating well. We don’t exactly eat poorly (I’m a registered dietitian, Burger King won’t be on the menu no matter how lazy I get), but we could definitely do better. We want to have exercise and eating practices that we would want our children to imitate.

Go on an awesome “babymoon”. We’re going to South Africa and Victoria Falls very very soon!! I’m sure I’ll post some pictures once we get back.

See another Broadway show. And a ballet, if JP has a moment of weakness and agrees to go 🙂

Do something spontaneous. Obviously haven’t decided what yet. I hear it’s difficult to be spontaneous when it takes 3 hours just to get out the door with a newborn…

Try some new nice restaurants. We’ve become addicted to trying new restaurants since we moved back to the city. How did we not appreciate all this delicious food when we lived here before?

Nesting. I already have a little bit of an urge to start organizing our closets and cleaning things. I also want to make sure we’re being really conscious with anything we’re bringing into the apartment. We never really used a lot of harmful cleaning chemicals, but I really want to look more into natural and safe cleaning methods that will actually get things clean!

If you have any suggestions to add to the list, in terms of baby preparation or things to help us enjoy this pre-baby time, please feel free to comment!