Look Stylish on Your Delivery Day with Pretty Pushers Delivery Gowns

 Reviews  2 Responses »
Mar 182011
 

Pretty Delivery Gowns for Your Special Day

One of the things that I had started to think of when I found out that I was pregnant was that eventually I would be in the hospital to deliver our little bundle of joy.  Having not experienced it before I was definitely a little apprehensive.  I decided that it must not be too bad once the labor was actually over because most pictures I have viewed of friends and family shortly after birth have everyone looking pretty happy.  One other thing that those pictures had in common, though, was that everyone also looked pretty tired.

Now, I know (especially now) that labor is going to tired you out; it’s hard work.  But it doesn’t help that everyone has to wear the hospital gowns that are designed neither for fashion nor to flatter anyone’s complexion.  The gowns wash everyone out and make them look even more tired and bedraggled than what I’m sure they were feeling.  I have always thought it would be kind of nice if they had more cheerful “gowns” (what a misnomer is that?).  If they could update scrubs and make them cute they should be able to do the same for the gowns.

Fortunately someone has decided to help out the hospitals and make delivery gowns that are not only cute but also more functional for giving birth.  If you read American Baby magazine, you may have read the little blurb a few months ago about disposable Pretty Pushers Delivery Gowns in the October 2010 issue.  I thought it was a very unique and interesting idea so I was thrilled when Matriarch Maternity, the company that makes the Pretty Pusher, sent me a Delivery Gown to review.

The Pretty Pushers come in four different styles: I Dream of Coffee, I Dream of Mai-Tai, and I Dream of Sushi (all things you’re really supposed to skip while pregnant) and then an Organic style.  The style I was provided with was the I Dream of Sushi.  The other “I Dream of” styles look basically the same, only in different colors with the applicable subject matter printed on them.  The Organic one has no print, but is a little more frilly.

Delivery Gowns

“I Dream of Sushi”

While I’m not a huge sushi fan (okay, so I’m not a sushi fan at all.  You tell me all my life that you shouldn’t eat under-cooked meat, and then you offer me raw meat.  My brain just can’t compute.), I the I Dream of Sushi gown would probably have been my pick just because of the colors.  I’m very fair-skinned – and now that I live in Kentucky and not Florida also very pale – and the dark colors pop a lot more against my complexion.

So the gown passed the “cute” test, but would it pass the “practicality” test?  When we arrived at the hospital and the nurse handed me one of their gowns, I asked if it would be okay if I wore my own instead.  He looked at me kind of strangely and just gave me a “whatever” which made me a little nervous about how it would be received by the rest of the staff.  Fortunately that was the only nurse who found it strange.  The rest of them thought that it was adorable.  And as they asked about it and where I got it, I had the chance to explain some about blogging and reviews and things like that.  Once they knew I was going to share my opinions on the experience of the gown, they would finish up their procedure/test/check-in/etc and then say “okay, here’s my impression of the gown” and they would say how it had worked for them in that particular instance.

Delivery Gowns

“I Dream of Coffee”

All in all, the nurses found the gown to be very practical.  I had to lift the gown up to let them place the monitors (fetal and contraction), but once they were in place, the ties in the front of the gown let them access them easily.  That turned out to be an excellent feature, considering how many times they had to readjust it because my little acrobat moved away from the monitors every chance she got.  When it came time for the epidural the low-cut back exposed enough (by design) for the anesthesiologist to do his thing.  The top is a halter-style which made it easy to slip over my head after Baby C was born so she could snuggle skin-to-skin on my chest.

Delivery Gowns

“I Dream of Mai Tai”

My only suggestion for the gown would be to have some kind of extra support built in for those of us who are, shall we say, “chesty”.  Especially with pregnancy-induced growth, the little cording that goes under your breasts and ties in the back didn’t keep things quite as placed as I would have liked.  I also wish that you could choose your color and style combination.  I would have picked the “I Dream of Coffee” in the same blue/pink combo as the “I Dream of Sushi” one.  Very minor details, though, in an otherwise very unique, very cute idea.  This is something I would definitely tuck into a baby shower present for a friend so that she could feel a little extra-special on delivery day.  They offer a “Dressed Up Delivery” gift pack that includes one of the Pretty Pushers, a Picture Perfect Sheer Gloss and Mirror, Pretty Pushers Headband, Wipe-Out Lemon Water Towelette, and Get Ready to Rub Heated Massage Oil.

What do you think?  Would you have worn one of these (or would you if you’re currently expecting)?

Why I’ve been MIA – Welcome Baby C!

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Mar 092011
 

I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for two weeks now.  For those of you who get my Facebook and Twitter updates,  you may have saw my quick note a few days ago with a brief explanation.  Now that I have a few minutes, I wanted to share with everyone here.

Because my BP had been up fairly high for the last couple weeks of my pregnancy, and because I was officially past my due date, I went into the hospital at the request of my Dr. on February 20th to be induced.  You hear the word “induced” and you think “yay, this should be quick!”.  Then you find out – hey, just kidding!  Induction is so slow.  At least in my case it was.  We started with pills to thin things out Sunday night, and the nurses were telling me to get as much sleep as I could that night, because I was going to need it.  Except that Baby C has been a squirmy gymnast since about month four, and that night was no exception.  The nurses had to keep waking me up to readjust the fetal monitor for my belly, because the baby kept moving away from it.

Monday morning we started the Pit drip, and again I thought “okay, here we go, this will really get things rolling”.  Again – not so much.  By mid-afternoon I was barely half-way there and things were slowing back down.  It was at that point that I decided to go ahead and get an epidural; I had planned on trying to go natural, but I was in quite a bit of pain, and the nurses said it was likely going to be hours still before anything happened.  In fact, every time they came in to check on me, they pushed back their “guesstimate” of when I could expect the show to start.

The epi made me more comfortable for a few hours, but then the machine administering the epidural started to beep beep beep beep beep (imagine that over and over and then imagine being annoyed.  Oh so annoyed.)  The beeping triggered the machine to shut off (ended up there was an air bubble in the line), and after awhile I started feeling some pain on one side.  While they were trying to get the machine fixed and do a few other things, they had me laying flat on my back.  Laying on my back had not been my friend at all while pregnant.  At my last ultrasound, which was taking awhile because they were checking on Baby C to make sure she wasn’t stressed from my BP being up, I started feeling really hot and nauseated and I almost passed out.  So I told the nurse that was checking my progress that I was starting to feel not so hot, and then I told the nurse that I was actually feeling worse than not so hot; about 15 seconds later I was sick to my stomach.  Not fun!

After they were able to get my epi fixed (and showing me how to use the button to give myself more, something my anesthesiologist had forgotten to do; how do you forget to show someone that part??) and gave me an extra dose to make up for it being off so long (my left side was really hurting at that point), things started moving along again.  One of the doctors from my practice (not my actual doctor as she had gone off her shift a few hours before. It made me really glad she had rotated my early appointments around so that I’d meet all the staff; a brand new face at that point might have made me a little nervous) came in and said “let’s do this!” and so we did.  Less than 40 minutes after starting, Baby C showed her sweet little face to the world for the first time.  Oh, she is adorable.  And yes, I’m a little partial!

Because it was just after midnight, they wanted us to stay for the full two days, so we weren’t able to leave until Thursday afternoon, which meant 5 days total in the hospital.  We were oh so ready to leave by then!  We wanted to sleep in our own bed and we wanted to get home and cuddle Baby C!  My hubby was awesome; he stayed at the hospital and slept there every night.  He did go home for a couple of hours one day to take a shower and email pictures to our family, but otherwise, never left.

So now we’re home and trying to settle into a routine.  We’re doing really well, other than being a little tired.  Or a lot tired, to be more accurate.  But she’s so precious that even living on three 15-minute bursts of sleep per night isn’t that big of a deal.  Though I’ll be happy when she sleeps for a few hours at a time.

I’m trying to get back into the swing of things here, too; between the baby and having to had to return work already, it’s been a little hard to find a groove.  I know I have some winners to draw, some reviews to write, giveaways to post and deals to share.  In the next day or so, I should be getting a good start on all of that.  Just bare with me for a couple of days as we adjust to our new schedules here at home.