Crib Quest

I'm 6 months pregnant today! Yay! At 24 weeks the baby is officially considered viable with a 36% chance of surviving a 24 week premature birth. Not the best odds, but it's sort of comforting (and at the same time super scary)! I think it's slowly sinking in that in a few short months (hopefully not earlier) the baby will be here!

24 Weeks!

Holy Huge!

In preparation for that, Eli and I went crib shopping on Saturday. We had browsed the cribs at Babies "R" Us while we were making our registry and almost instantly decided that those cribs were not for us. The first thing that stood out about those cribs was that even though some boasted a solid wood frame, all of them looked like they were made from plastic. Red flag for some gnarly finishing chemicals.  I decided we should look at a baby furniture store, surely they would have something that actually looked wooden with a sturdy build and a somewhat small price tag (is under a $1000 too much to ask?). We couldn't have been more wrong, and after about 20 minutes in the store we sneaked out from under the salesman's watch.

Prior to Saturday, we didn't really have a solid idea of what we wanted in a crib, we just knew that the cribs we had seen weren't right for us. So when we got home from shopping I started searching online to get a better idea of our crib criteria:

Me + Hospital Crib
(Admitted with Pneumonia)

1. Simple Style: This was Eli's number one requirement. He found most of the cribs in the store over the top, either for their bulk or their flare. We passed a pet shop on the way home from crib shopping which had puppies in old hospital cribs on display and he decided that was the "look" we were after. Not Quite! 
2.  Solid Wood: No MDF or plywood! We knew we liked the solid wood look, and after some crib research maybe there was some subliminal reasoning. Apparently formaldehyde is used to bind MDF together, the emissions from which can cause asthma and cancer.
3. Non-Toxic Finish: When researching cribs the term VOC (volatile organic compound) pops up a lot, which are apparently used in crib finishes and have compounding long term health effects. No thanks! 

Basically, we want an inexpensive, simple wooden crib. Easy, right?
Wrong again! After a few hours of online searching I realized that there were almost no commercial cribs that met our seemingly simple criteria. So we did what any reasonable couple would do and started planning a trip to Amish country! That is until we realized that Amish made furniture is EXPENSIVE!

Eventually I found this website , which ultimately led me to our perfect crib!

Simple, non-toxic, and unfortunately the cheapest of it's kind. But for a couple who has spent close to $500 on festival tickets and driven 500 miles in 24 hours to watch a football game on TV, I think this crib is a more than justifiable purchase! That new piggy bank just got re-purposed!