a little bit about mattresses, probably more than you cared to know

My husband got tired of being left with a 6" ledge after I got in bed with all my support pillows. So, this week we invested in a king size mattress. Here's what I learned about mattresses:

1. An innerspring mattress will typically last 5-7 years and must be flipped/rotated every 3 months or so for maximum comfort. (Ours was 7 years old and my side, no matter how it was flipped, had a "dip" which made restful sleep near impossible.)
2. An air mattress, aka sleep number, is a good choice for support and comfort, does NOT need to be flipped, but you can expect to pay a little bit more. Also, it has to be plugged in, and that doesn't appeal to me very much.
3. A contour, or memory foam, mattress offers support with a variety of cushioning. They also do not have to be flipped and typically last, and are warranted for, 20 years. The cost is comparable to an innerspring.
4. Tempur-Pedic sells a variety of contour mattresses and you can expect to pay the same price anywhere you purchase it. They never go on sale.
5. Contour mattresses do NOT need a "box spring" or foundation, and a nice solid platform/plywood will work well. Foundations cost ~$400.
6. Latex foam mattresses are available again. These are long lasting (some have lasted 50 years) and do not need flipping. The ones that I found were available online for less than $5000.
7. There are two types of processing for the latex foam. One is better than the other, but I won't tell you which, you'll have to research that and decide for yourself.
8. Any good mattress company is going to have a "trial period". The longest I found was for 365 days for a foam bed. You should expect a refund or exchange if you are not satisfied within your allotted trial. Don't go with less than a 60 days trial, as it can take up to 30 days to adjust to a new mattress.

So, here's what we went with: Sealy's TrueForm Gracehill king with foundation. This is one of Sealy's memory foam mattresses and was on sale. It is one of the softer and cooler memory foams available at Mattress Firm, where we ended our search... by cooler, I mean temperature-wise (a very big plus for a very big pregnant lady. I'm also anticipating the night sweats I'll get after the baby is born). We purchased the low-profile foundation because it was much easier for me to get in and out of bed without having to jump. Mattress Firm offers a 90 day Comfort Guarantee. They will exchange, not refund. We were also pleased with our sales rep, Elisha. He spent about 2 hours answering our questions... but he still didn't give us an extra discount because of our name. He did throw in the memory foam pillows (I highly recommend them) and gave us a discount on the frame.

We went home with the pillows, and the bed was delivered the next day. My husband now has room to sleep and I don't wake him when I jump off the bed to visit the bathroom (several times a night). Oh yeah, and point number 9. Expect a foam mattress to stink, like paint, for a couple days, at least. But I asked my husband, "As long as it smells like this, can we go ahead and paint the bedroom?"