Pregnancy applications on iPhone from iTunes

My morning routine consists of flipping through my "baby" applications and discount baby deal sites on my iPhone. I spend a good 15 minutes reading about what is happening with my body today, this week, and what to expect throughout pregnancy. And, then I switch to cruising daily deals on maternity wear, baby clothes, baby accessories, and furniture. I download only free applications.

Here are my usuals:
BabyCenter's My Pregnancy Today - This is my most used app. It has everyday a tidbit about where I am at in my pregnancy and at the start of each week it gives a summary of the growth of your baby that week. There are videos detailing the growth throughout the weeks and other topics like finding out the sex.

Baby Pregnancy Tracker - I use this one for two reasons: when you open the app it tells you how far you are (8 weeks and 6 days) as well as how many more weeks you have and it gives you a weekly description of your baby's growth. Yes, BabyCenter already did this, but it gives a little more information and also speaks to your body and diet. The pictures are not as good as my next app, which is the reason I like the next one.

Pregnancy (Sprout) Lite - I use this mainly for the pictures of the baby weekly. The Dr Says page is a secondary thought because by the time I have checked my other two, I am not getting much more from this app that I have not already read, or maybe lost interest as this morning routine can take 15 minutes :). To give you an idea of the quality of the pictures, here is a picture from Pregnancy (Sprout) Lite at 8 weeks:

And, the picture from Baby Pregnancy Tracker at 8 weeks:

When I saw the 8 week picture from Pregnancy (Sprout) Lite, I choked up because I considered that our first baby picture.

Occasionally, I will look at what TheBump PregBuzz has for frequently asked questions, or What to Expect Baby Names (I have qualms with the robustness of this application, so I will find a new application when I am closure to finding the sex, around 17 weeks) when I am thinking of names.

Not recommended:
On the last update of What to Expect Pregnancy, the app now requires you to have a log-on. I am really happy with my BabyCenter membership and already have the What to Expect When Expecting book, that I opted out of using this after the update. Even before the update, I did not go to the app oftern and I honestly forget what it contains, so that shows you how useful I found it. I deleted this from my phone, as I wrote this post.

I focus my applications on pregnancy related apps while my husband has downloaded apps, as he calls it, focused on what we do when the baby is born. While he does not have any pregnancy applications, I have signed him up for weekly BabyCenter.com pregnancy updates. I find it endearing when he reads them to me, I just smile - knowing I have already read it - and like to hear his perspective of what he finds fascinating.

For those reading that are not pregnant yet, I used Period Tracker Lite to track my ovulation. I had pretty regular cycles, which made it fairly accurate and my fluids were also aligned with the oculation tracker. I had tried to get pregnant a year ago and "tried" for 6 months before taking a break. This go around, I got pregnant the first month we "tried." It will be interesting to see what the sex of the baby is, based on when we had sex - you can track this in the Period Tracker Lite app too. We are hoping for a girl, but based on having sex a day before, on and day after ovulation it is likely a boy, but who knows.

Daily deals for Moms: iPhone applications on iTunes

At this point, I am not planning to buy any baby items until I pass my first trimester, but looking at the daily deals gives me an idea of what to plan, i.e. What to include in the baby budget. I also have not decided what I will and won't include on my baby registry. Overall, we are being fairly conservative and going with what we need, only when we need it, and focusing our dollars on quality. Yes, I want to buy a balance bike, but knowing it won't be used for a year or so, I am going to wait on it.

Here are the daily deal sites I follow on my iPhone:
Zulily - Seattle based company offering daily deals for moms, babies, and kids. The deals typically run a few days before expiring. I like the user interface. Generally looking at cloth diaper accessories (although will do a diaper service, so less relevant), maternity and nursing wear, bottles, and baby clothes. The best deals I have seen for maternity bras is two bras for $14.99.

Today's Steal - daily deals from BabySteals.com, KidSteals.com and ScrapbookSteals.com. As a crafter, I like to view the scrap book deals, but have not been compelled to buy any and those that I have wanted to buy, like kits, have been sold out before I could buy. Baby steals usually has cloth diaper accessories, but no diaper covers like I need for diaper service. Kids steals are for older kids, less applicable.

Plum District - They had an app, but it did not recognize my preference for Seattle, which annoyed me enough to delete it. Instead I switched to subscribing to daily email notices at www.PlumDistrict.com. Oddly, I cannot find the app now on iTunes. Plum District is a daily deal site for savvy moms, offering discounts on experiences likes restaurants and spas, activities, getaways and more. The focus is a little weak and in my mind, it is similar to a LivingSocial or a Groupon with the occasional kid deal.

While the applications I listed are for iPhone, check your phone for an equivalent application. Androids typically carry the same applications and Windows Phone has a reduced set available.

If you have applications or websites that you follow for daily deals for moms, post a comment with the name and a mini review. I look forward to reading your comments!

It's official, I'm pregnant!

If the results of a pregnancy test,

(photo taken September 22, 2011) was not enough proof, morning sickness certainly is!

At 8 weeks and 3 days pregnant, pregnancy woes thus far have been relatively tame. With the exception of having to go to the bathroom more times that I want to during the evening or the occasional cramping, it's been a breeze up until two days ago. I don't get sick very often and all I can say to describe it is a feeling like being hung over - noises and smells make me feel queasy and I only want to lay on the couch. I especially don't like to throw up and afraid of when and if it happens in public (the near bush incident on the way to work was avoided with ginger candies, thankfully).

I received assurance from my prenatal yoga instructor that it shall pass and advice to not "give it legs" as my body processes the increased hormone levels. Then, I learned from a couple of ladies in class, much further along than me, that morning sickness just suddenly stops at around week 13. Ugh, not good news. Yesterday, I was literally readying myself to take on this morning sickness...with motion sickness wrist bands on, I stocked my supply of ginger candies. I read Babycenter.com's list of ways to prevent morning sickness and so I eased on drinking water with my food and eating 6 mini-meals. I left the house to run some errands with a bottle of water, a pear, and some crackers to keep me sustaining as shopped for nutritious food (more to blog on that later) or rather anything at Trader Joe's that did not make me want to hurl as I put it in the cart.

This morning, despite my positive idea that my healthy diet with protein and B6 vitamins would save me from morning sickness, I woke my husband and startled our cats with my first bought of morning sickness. This whole baby thing, it is finally real for me, physically.

As I typed this blog my mom text me, saltines help and this too shall pass. Thanks Mom!