What is NIPT?

Second the comfortable bed. I have friends who have kindly let us stay in their guest bedroom then mentioned they wanted to upgrade the nightstands. "You might have noticed they don't match" No I didn't notice the nightstands, but I had a tough time sleeping on that super old bed. Another friend has a literally broken bed from when they were a kid in their guest bedroom. Yet another friend got rid of their spare bed and now just have a futon. I personally feel like a reasonably comfortable bed is the first upgrade I would make to a guest bedroom. Next would be blackout curtains, and lastly maybe a space heater or other temp control depending on where in your house the guest room is. Sometimes they're not in the best temperature managed part of the house.

Two things:

First: It's like the opposite of when you have a couple of drinks and you have less inhibition. I have such a filter over everything I say. I overthink it all.

Second: For me it's like overthinking any overanalyzing and trying to optimize everything. I want to be in shape so I should go to the gym, should I go to the fancy gym nearby or the other one? Should I follow a youtuber's plan? Should I take a class? Should I run on these days and do yoga and those? Should I go in the morning? What do the people of reddit think is best? I should google more info, that will help. I've found one of the ore helpful coping tools for me is shutting myself off reddit, youtube, and google because I often use those to overanalyze and it just fuels the anxiety. I have the perfectionist type though.

You also have to consider that if you put 100k into a high yield savings account you can make 4.5% on that money every year until you buy. If you add the 1600 difference between the rent and the mortgage, it definitely adds up.

I like the way you put this about being able to buy the house in cash soon that the mortgage would pay off. That's often how I think about my own rent vs buy decision. The scenario OP has makes it even easier because they are talking about the exact same place they would live either way. Sometimes people think they need to buy to get an extra bedroom, garage, bigger yard, etc. But that doesn't apply to OP's case.

Those are great points! For us, we're mostly deciding between staying in our 2BR apartment in a suburb, moving to a 2BR apartment in downtown, or buying a townhome. In our housing market, I think most single family homes would be out of budget for us, especially considering the maintenance, unless we move to a neighborhood in the city but not downtown. So we're mostly starting from a place of sharing walls no matter what we do right now. My downtown is definitely on the smaller side and fairly sleepy, especially since covid.

I get that! I grew up in a really small town where I could ride my bike all over independently. It's hard to imagine my kid growing up in either the suburbs or the city where that feels much less safe.

Ok I know nothing about kids. Why is the second bathroom helpful?

Thank you for your thoughtful reply!

That sounds really nice!

Thank you for the encouragement! <3

Thank you! I don't know that much about kids but from what I've seen of my friends' kids, the whole packing them up into a car thing seems like a hassle. A few of them really hate being restrained....

Oh boy yeah if I could get a nice yard for a similar price that would be tempting!

I would love to be able to meet other parents and actually get to see them regularly if we have a kid. Currently, I don't know any of our neighbors or really anyone who lives in our community. We only moved here a year ago to be closer to my husband's new job, but for better or worse he and his coworkers don't have to go into the office much, so don't even socialize with them. Feeling isolated after having a baby is definitely one of my concerns about parenthood. We have friends and family in the greater metro area, but not in the corner we live in.

Thanks for your reply! I just double checked and the downtown daycare is actually 20/week cheaper than the suburban daycare. I think our suburb is just an expensive one. It's almost a little touristy.

I think we would look to move and maybe buy a house after a few years, maybe around kindergarten age. The daycare is maybe 50/week more expensive. Rent is slightly cheaper downtown (50/month) for a two-bedroom (we'd just lose the second bathroom that we really don't need), and we'd end up paying around 200/month for parking two cars. The commute is the main thing for me. I have to leave at 7:10 to make it to my desk by 8:00 right now. To make a daycare drop off on top of it, I'd probably have to wake up even earlier, and I love sleep.

I love that!

I don't think there's an elementary school downtown, so we'd probably consider moving when that time came. But yeah, library, kids museum, a couple of parks, sounds pretty handy to me. And for us the price of rent downtown is comparable to our current place. A little bit cheaper, but then we'd have to pay for parking. Overall, pretty similar and way cheaper than buying a house or townhome in our current market.

Yes, we would keep both of our cars. There is a grocery store downtown, so I was thinking of that as more of an option for "oh hey we ran out of milk" and for normal grocery runs my husband could just go alone or maybe we'd pack up the baby to come with? Idk

Do you currently live in a walkable neighborhood? What's your experience been like? Yeah, we're already renting, and it would be a very similar price to our current place. Obviously a little less on square footage but that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make.

I had upper jaw surgery and couldn't feel my upper palate and gums afterwards. Until a couple of weeks ago at about 8 months post op. Now I can feel some of my gums which is not ideal. Not feeling flossing was actually kinda nice...

I only had very minor upper jaw surgery and it took about 6 months for all the swelling to be down. I swear around that time my husband kept commenting about how beautiful I looked randomly, and I pointed out that he was suddenly commenting about my appearance. He eventually said that he thought it might be that my face finally looked like it used to before surgery. He had thought all the swelling was gone before that point but apparently, he was wrong. And I only had a 3 mm upper jaw movement to correct an open bite. The swelling is real.

Where are younger professionals buying work clothes for business casual these days? I feel like banana republic and J crew are the only two I know about.

I identify with this statement haha. I can always tell when I'm ovulating because it's the reverse. Have you tried an SSRI at all? It's the only thing that helps me.

I basically microdose zoloft, taking like 12.5 mg every other day. That helps with the brain issues. For me, it was forgetting so many things (once I forgot how traffic signals worked) and not being sure if something happened in a dream or IRL. Also, the jaw clenching and headaches. Those still happen a bit but are lessened with the lower dose. The lack of libido is no fun though. But, like you said, at least something works so that I'm not depressed and feeling worthless, laying in bed unable to accomplish anything productive and thinking everyone hates me for a week or two every month! Seriously grateful that something exists that actually helps.