I think I've found our stroller

One of the most stressful things thus far in this pregnancy has been figuring out the best infant car seat/stroller combo to buy.  I know.  That seems silly with all of the things that one could be stressed about when bringing a child into the world.  But this is where my head has allowed me to be stressed.  I have to admit, people seem to be surprised or even a little upset when, earlier in my pregnancy, they would ask, "Do you have a crib picked out?" or "Where are you registering? Have you started your registry?" and my answer to all of these advanced planning questions would be "No."  This seemed to legitimately confuse people.  I would then get asked, "Are you even really pregnant?"  Which would, of course, piss me off upset me (emotions are more extreme when pregnant, dontcha know).  Listen, I get it.  A lot of people find out that they are pregnant and automatically start planning for when the baby comes out.  Chances are they already had plans made before the baby was even conceived.  And while I thought I would fall into that camp, I was surprised to find out that I really wanted to take this pregnancy day by day.  By nature I'm a planner and always thinking years down the line but, for whatever reason, when I found out I was pregnant I wanted time to slow down.  I wanted to enjoy each step along the way to bringing this baby into the world.  And the only way I could think to logically do that was to just go day by day.  The nursery would get planned.  The registry would get made.  The crib would get picked out.  It just didn't have to all happen at once, least of all within weeks of finding out I was pregnant.  When I think about those early days now that I'm 21 weeks along, I think it was a matter of self-preservation.  I found out I was pregnant at the earliest possible time to find out - six days before my missed period.  That means there were a long two months there of making sure that the baby was going to make it past the first trimester.  God forbid the pregnancy wasn't viable, which happens more often than many of us realize.  I think I worried that if I started planning everything out for this baby and then miscarried, I would have been even more devastated.  At least, I think that was the psychology behind my unwillingness to get ahead of myself.

But now that we've had an anatomy scan that showed our little boy is developing normally and healthily, suddenly I feel that planning urge bubbling up.  Don't get me wrong, I've been looking here and there online this whole time.  And when I saw things on Pinterest that other people would pin in regards to babies, I would repin it.  But everything was just wishful thinking or just-in-case...until now. Now I feel like I need to start cracking!  And finding an infant car seat/stroller was my first priority.  Why?  Because if I don't have a car seat installed by the time this baby debuts, I can't take him home!  And I knew I wanted to get a combo with a stroller that can grow with him as he outgrows his infant car seat.

Another thing I knew I wanted was a jogger stroller.  Ideally I wanted a jogger stroller that was durable enough to go on jogs and hikes but also agile enough to operate on a daily, non-workout basis.  I looked around online and would peek at other people's jogger strollers when I'd see them at the mall or in my neighborhood, always trying to catch a glimpse of the brand name.  And then last week I was hiking in Runyon Canyon and I saw a mom with a jogger stroller, pushing her baby up the mountain.  And before I knew it, I was asking her, "Hi! What kind of stroller is that?"  She said, "It's a Baby Trend. It's my sister's.  I borrowed it today to see if I liked it.  Let me tell you, it's a whole different story hiking and pushing a stroller with a baby in it!"  I laughed and thanked her and we parted ways - her huffing and puffing up the hill, as I was lucky enough to be going down it.  I tucked away the brand name of the stroller in the back of my mind.

When I started looking online this week, I first looked at the City Mini Jogger.  I've been reading along on the Little Baby Garvin blog and this is the one that she has and recommends.  It looked good to me but I didn't see the infant car seat option so I decided to keep looking.  The second I typed in "infant car seat jogger combo" the first option that popped up was the Baby Trend brand...which is what the fellow hiker was pushing last week!  I guess I could have automatically typed that brand in to see what they had but, blame it on mommy-brain, I didn't even think of it.  So I was pleased to see it at the top of my search results and checked it out.

I love the look.  I love the price.  And I LOVE that the WalMart site has a video demonstrating how to use it.  That was my main caveat about shopping online.  I figured I would have to go to some stores and test-roll some of these bad boys.  But with the video showing me how it folds, how the car seat snaps in and out and how to adjust the seat, I feel good about it.  Feel good enough to add it to my registry (yes, I've started one!) and honestly, I kind of just want to buy it myself to make sure it doesn't go out of stock anytime soon.  I also love that it has over 100 reviews and the average rating it's received is 4& 4/5ths stars out of 5.  Listen, I'm wary and don't trust many online reviews.  But when the number of reviews is 100+, I let my guard down a little.

So what do you think?  Do think this looks like the right choice, given what I'm looking for?  Do you have any suggestions about a different stroller if not?  Any tips you want to share?  Leave a comment and let me know.  I'm all ears!*

*it would be strange to be actually "all ears" - I'm having weird images pop into my mind that belong in a horror movie.