My First Trip to Babies R Us, Courtesy of Graco

I mentioned earlier this week about my first trip to Babies R Us last weekend. I was there helping out at an event to promote Graco’s new SnugRide® Click Connect™ 40 car seat. Retailing for $219.00, you can get it at Babies R Us and online.

I headed out to the Braintree, MA BRU store and was joined by Hayley of Planet Mommy as our event hostess. It was great to meet her and we chatted all things baby: she has a younger son and her next baby due in December.

I confessed that I knew next to nothing about car seats given than I’m only 6 weeks pregnant (well, just past 5 at the time of the event!). Hayley was so sweet and gave me lots of seasoned mom advice 🙂

We ran two sessions demo-ing the car seat. As someone with zero upper body strength, I was amazed at how light the Graco car seat was. And the stroller that it literally clicks into is pretty damn neat, too. You pull on one strap and the whole thing folds in half and you can just throw it over your shoulder!

We went over some of the key features. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children two and under sit rear-facing in their car seats. The new Click Connect 40 has 8 expandable settings to slide forward (towards the front of your car as they’re rear-facing) as your child grows to allow room for their little legs.

We ran a short trivia game about celebrity moms. Then, the most exciting part: we gave away two car seats! One at each session. The winning moms were super grateful 🙂

It was a busy day; that morning I had my second beta and I was waiting for my results. In between sessions, I got the good news: beta doubling exactly as it should. My first ultrasound would be the following week. I signed this huge sigh of relief. For the first time since finding out I was pregnant, I started to relax- just a teensy weensy bit. Another milestone, another sense that yes: this is really happening.

At the end of the day, I did something I’ve wanted to do for years. I bought my first baby item.

I’ll confess here: when I first got to the store and walked around for a few minutes, I had to dash back to my car. I felt like the world was tipping over out from under me; I was lightheaded and overwhelmed. I had a small breakdown in the car, wondering if I’d gotten myself into something I wasn’t really emotionally ready to handle. After emailing a close group of friends, they flooded me with messages of support: “You DO belong there, Keiko” they told me.

I just hadn’t yet told myself that.

After so many years of wanting, of waiting – it felt so strange to walk around this store that I avoided like the plague for three years and tell myself that yes, I belonged there. In many ways, I felt like a tourist, but after both car seat demo sessions, I felt more at ease with being around all these baby items and women walking around with full bellies in various stages of pregnancy. After a while, I saw everything around me less as triggers and emotional landmines to be avoided and more as the token items of membership in a long-established club – of which I was now a member.

While it took me the whole day to warm up, I actually felt excited for the first time. Our betas were good. Our first ultrasound was lined up. Everything began to feel more real.

And I’m so glad that I had such a special opportunity with Graco and Babies R Us to help me begin the transition from nervous infertility patient to excited mom-to-be.

The Graco SnugRide® Click Connect™ 40 – the first and only newborn to two-year infant car seat that actually grows with your baby from four pounds all the way up to 40 pounds. The car seat is designed for a parent on the go. The infant car seat can be easily removed from the base and used as a carrier when the infant is small, providing portability and convenience so you can easily move your infant in and out of the car without disturbing them.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently made the recommendation to keep all children in rear-facing car seats until the age of 2. Graco set out to make this product so parents can keep infants rear facing longer while still keeping them comfortable.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Graco. The opinions and text are all mine.