Hey, aenea, any chance of getting together a NC Doper baby shower fer ya? No foofy mess; just a get together to baste the bun, and perhaps accumulate the fabled onesies and Boppy.
Lemme know, be glad to see ya!
Well our beagle jr is a girlie…but I’ve heard some “interesting” stories about diaper changes and baths with boys…stay outta firing range if ya know what I mean. 
Yup, just four months ago a good friend of mine had a c-section under general. It was an emergency–they even had to do the incision vertically. My c-section was an epidural, which is much more common, but if they gotta go in quick and you don’t already have an epidural, they’re gonna put you 100% under.
Congrats on the boy. Boys are so wonderful! I had sorta been hoping for a girl, but now I just love that Cranky Jr was a boy and if we were to do this over again and have a second Cranky offspring, I’d want another boy. Go figure.
Congratulations! We have a boy also. He’s 8 months old now. Watch out when you change him, my son “fountained” a lot when he was very young. 
Also something else for you to think about…
If you are going to use childcare (daycare, nanny, etc), start looking as soon as possible. You don’t want to be looking after the baby is born. Most places have a waiting list for their infant room. Plus, you want to make sure that you have enough time to be able to find one you will be happy with.
Here’s a really neat idea. See if the daycare (or whatever) will let you give them a disposable camera, so they can take pictures of him there. At my daycare, the kids do painting projects a lot, and it’s really fun to look at pictures of him with paint all over his face and hands. I have decorated the walls in his room with his projects.
Here’s another potentially hot topic…
Are you going to have him circumcised? We had our son circumcised mainly because we believe he’ll be healthier. We also considered that there are probably more kids out there circumcised than not, so he will look like all of his friends, and well…his Daddy is, too. There are studies out there that say that my reasons aren’t necessarily true, but that’s the way we felt. If you’re not sure what you want to do, then do some research. You do have a choice, but remember, your son has to live with your decision.
Sidling in on the “potential hot topic” – circumcised penises are no healthier than intact ones! Are men in the rest of the world dropping like flies from their dangerous foreskins? It’s only here that circumcisions are routinely performed.
It’s unnecessary surgery, cruel and painful. Who cares if they’ll never remember it? There is evidence the body remembers it, and reacts more acutely to pain. I couldn’t bear the thought of my perfect, beautiful son being cut. I never considered it. And my husband is circumcised, too.
Think about this – would you circumcise a female child, to prevent future theoretical yeast infections? Um, no you’d treat the yeast infection, when or if it occurs. But that’s how circs are presented: preventative maintenence.
Ask the European dopers. Most I know of are appalled we routinely circumcise in this country.
For starters, here’s an article to read: Protect Your Uncircumcised Son: Expert Medical Advice for Parents You can also search on NOCIRC for more info.
Aenea, I did a search for you on circumcision. There is good info in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=51137
It starts out slow due to a vile entity who apparently plagued the boards at one time, but the info is there. There were other debates previous to it, so it appears Dopers have this one, ahem, covered. 
<Aside> Hey, Ellen, thanks for that link - I was just going to try to find something on caring for a little boy’s slightly irritated foreskin, to see if I was handling things properly… (a little diaper ointment on the irritation) turns out I’m doing fine, nice to have some backup, since our ped-who-is-otherwise-great is clueless on intact boys. <end Aside>
In our area, seems to be at least 50-50 on circ’d or not, so there will definitely be peers either way. (I recommend reading the AAP position paper on circumcision before deciding.)
As for other things for baby:
The Unofficial Guide to Having a Baby is one of the best NEW books on pregnancy/birth, IMHO. Loads of accurate and amazingly complete info, for any need you have (plus size, previous loss, anything!), and for any approach you want (like, no preaching, but real info for any situation, from what you need for your home birth to how to plan your ideal hospital birth). Good for if you aren’t sure how you want to approach things, because it gives you a non-sales overview of pretty much every angle. It also has a chapter on baby gear to get or to avoid.
Borrow, borrow, borrow. If you have any friends, relatives, or coworkers with babies, ask if they have anything they want to pass on to you. I swear, with this child (number 2, due Oct 29), I’ve already got enough clothes for 3 kids, and I haven’t bought a single thing! We had to buy a dresser, and we’ll need a new mattress for the crib, and we want to buy a bedside cosleeper (queen size bed, not much room for baby, as we discovered with child #1). Other than that, the only things we need to buy are things we gave back to other people after borrowing before, and are not currently available to re-borrow. Saves a lot, budget-wise.
For breastfeeding with meds, I agree with finding out how MUCH (not just whether) your meds are crossing into milk. Usually the serum level is so low that unless it actually concentrates in the milk, the baby is getting such a low dose that it makes no difference (below clinical impact). But definitely check, first (might be that just nursing for colostrum is worth it, or that a short time beyond that is worth it, or some other ‘in-between-the-extremes’ version of breastfeeding is what is called for). The only person I know with Crohns bf’d for 8 months, despite being on about 4 different meds… and she works in the Pharmaceutical industry and is pretty much an info-digger at heart, so she’d have tons of available info on the implications. ::shrug:: Anecdotal, but there’s at least one doctor out there who wasn’t concerned about the meds! (And their daugther is pretty normal, health-wise, at about 5 yrs old…)
Definitely consider a doula, no matter what kind of birth you intend. They help you, help the dad, heck, even help the staff! We had 2 with Gabe’s birth, wish we could have them both this time, too. Unless you have a really fast labor, dad will probably get tired or have to pee, eventually, and it is nice to have someone to swap off, at the very least! Plus they do a lot more than just back dad up. Ask your birth class instructor, they often doula, or know people who do.
Ask your hospital what they recommend you bring - they often have a list.
For baby gear, the advice you’ve gotten is superior… some things you’ll get and later wonder why, because baby and item are not a match, or they don’t suit your lifestyle. Borrow or buy used for things that you aren’t sure about. Heck, the boppy of great acclaim was a bust for me - the rounded surface made Gabe slide forward or back precipitously, and my being a bit larger than average (both height and girth) meant the dang thing didn’t fit me, nor raise Gabe to the right height. I got the “Brest Friend” pillow (won it) much later, and I think that one will work better for me. It has a part that goes around your back and velcros, so it doesn’t slide forward off your lap, and it has raised parts for baby’s head. Very supportive, for both of us.
One odd thing that I found really useful: The old-fashioned ‘lady’s travel toiletry kits’, the kind that has a hanger on one end, and a whole bunch of clear plastic pockets to put things in (often with some horrible floral fabric on the back)… great for the diaper-changing station, and also for things like thermometers that tend to wander away just when you need them. I can see everything at a glance, and reach it, too (I have two of them hung on the curtain rod in Gabe’s room - one for meds, one for diaper stuff). We also got an armpit thermomether that does a deep-tissue read - good for babies who hate other kinds.
Oh, and if you think your child is getting attached to an object, go out and get duplicates (if possible) ASAP (so they’ll get worn out at a similar rate). Can’t tell you how often having four ‘blankies’ has saved our bacon!
Aenea, congrats! Boys are major cool, I wouldn’t mind another boy at all. And if you want to join some other SD types on a due-date board, Storknet has a few of us already!
Dang, I forgot one of the most essential items! A chair you can SLEEP in. This was one of the most critical items for us, and advice given me by a coworker. When baby has a cold, they often have to sleep fairly upright to sleep at all, which usually means sleeping ON you. Having a chair you can sleep in is a huge help for you, allowing you to sleep some, too. (We have a rocker-recliner, which we keep in Gabe’s room…) Sofas are risky, too easy for baby to slide off you and get trapped between you and the cushions. A chair is usually small enough that if baby slides off, he’ll hit the floor, which, while miserable, isn’t generally life-threatening.
My two cents on the doula thing…doulas are wonderful and they are professional, but another idea is to ask a female friend to be your “backup” labor coach. My girlfriends and I all think our husbands were pretty useless during labor - especially with the first one. They varied between “oh my god, my wife is having a baby” to “oh my god, my wife is in pain” to my husband, who still maintains our daughter was born in the middle of the night - “no honey, she was born at 1:00 in the afternoon, you were just sleeping.” (A great guy, my soulmate, but sometimes a little clueless). Having a girlfriend (or sister) there (especially one who has been through labor before and shares your birthing philosophy) to yell at nurses, relieve the hubby, and be the shining example of “this will end and you will have a baby when its over” can be very useful as well.
Check with your doctor. More than once. Things might change.
Thirteen years ago, when my first was born, my doctor told me that I could not breastfeed, because I was taking medication for epilepsy (although it didn’t matter anyway, because I was relinquished her for adoption). Nine years later, when Dianasaurus Rex was born, the OB told me that breastfeeding would probably be okay, my neurologist advised against it, and the GP was kinda wishy-washy–leaning toward the neurologist’s side, but knowing that the OB might have a better idea. I was still on meds, but the amount that crossed into the breast milk was small enough that it wouldn’t cause any harm, and the baby’s already got some of my drugs in her system anyway. Two years after that, there was no “probably” involved, by any of my doctors. My GP, my OB, and my neurologist all encouraged me to breastfeed.
I never did breastfeed (tried it, but didn’t like it), but it was good to finally have all the doctors on the same page, at least. 
Congrats aenea! I still have a few more weeks until we will know the sex of the baby but I can’t wait. E-mail me!