u/doddie_pine

I am absolutely devastated. Our 5 year old German shephard Chloe crossed the rainbow bridge last week due to pneumonia aspiration. We had switched her food in March of 2026 and that’s when everything started. She was regurgitating a lot, and after several X-rays and vet visits, it came down to taken her to the emergency vet after she was what looked like choking on the own vomit. Once we got the emergency vet, they took more X-rays and told us she most likely has mega esophagus and had aspirated. She developed a fever and was kept overnight. When we saw her the next day, she did not look like the happy dog she always was. Barely wagged her tail. We made the hard decision to say goodbye and not let her continue to be in pain. I can’t help but think did we pull the trigger to soon? What if we hadn’t changed her food? She was always one to throw up randomly since she was a puppy, why didn’t we address this sooner? Could we have done more? After days of non stop crying, I’m entering this guilt phase and it’s breaking my heart more. She was such a happy girl, always playing always barking and smiling, wagging her tail and taking back to me when I’d ask her ‘what’s going on girlie!’. I truly don’t know how I’ll get through this grief. She was only 5 years old. The vet kept repeating that she has a long road ahead of her before we made the decision to let go. Could we have waited or done more? Having to play god with her life was the hardest decision of my life, my heart is so broken. How can I accept that this was the best decision for her🤍🤍

I recently was diagnosed with Atopic Eruption of pregnancy. I’m 16 weeks now and have never dealt with eczema in my life. I’ve had fairly dry skin my whole life but never actual eczema. Last week I had this insane rash and had to go the ER as it had spread to my face and they told me it’s basically pregnancy eczema. It was so bad they had to put me on oral steroid(prednisone) for 7 days and gave me topical steroid(BETAMETHASONE 0.1%). To apply. It basically is covering my whole body, arms, back, chest, neck, ears, scalp, stomach, groin, thighs, literally everywhere. Now that I’ve been off the steroids it’s starting to flair up again. I’ve bought to many different creams. I saw a derm and they prescribed me with UV treatments 2-3 times a week, I’ve done 2 so far. But I am still waking up throughout the night because I’m itchy. I’m mainly using Cerave moisturizing lotion and cream, I also bought the ain’t itch cream and healing ointment. I’ve also been doing daily colloidal oatmeal baths which don’t seem to be helping. I am desperate for help. Because I’m pregnancy there’s limited options for me but the itching is soooo bad. Can anyone recommend what a good routine would be? I’ve been applying the steroid cream to itchy spots then lotion then the healing ointments but nothing is working 😭

FTM here with baby due December 1st and have no idea what to buy and keeps things minimal since we live in a smaller house with two big dogs (golden doodle and German shepherd) 😅

We have our main bedroom and the spare bedroom we’ll be turning into a nursery. And then on our main floor we have a big kitchen island, no dinner table, and our living room, it’s like a big open concept. The issue is I want to keep items minimal that need to be bought to save money but also not have a whole ton of clutter since our house is small.

We have a crib and bassinet we were gifted(uppa baby bassinet). We’ll be planning to use that beside our bed.

I can’t figure out what we should get for our main floor, since we don’t have a dinner room table, should we get a high chair? Or one of those table attachement chairs? And then I’m debating either a pack and play or a bouncer for our living room, we don’t have a whole lot of space to do diaper changes, our couch is one the smaller end, so thinking maybe a pack and play could be good?

Would love any input as I’m so overwhelmed with what to buy! Thank you mama’s!!

Edit: I just want to say a huge thank you to all
You who commented! This has helped me so much make sense of things and feel less stressed about getting all the ‘perfect’ things before baby comes. I also didn’t know containers was a thing(lol) so I’ll be doing research on the pros and cons of this! Thank you all so much!! 🤍🤍🙏🙏