Newbie - Need help deciding best way to fund 1st purchase

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Hi everyone!

I am SUPER newbie and juggling working full time and a 3.5 yr old and 7 month old so I've started by reading the BiggerPockets Rental Property Investing book , reading forums as much as I can and am going to pick a new book too.  I've been planning out how I would be able to fund a downpayment for my first property and was hoping to see what other's thoughts are.

Option A - Use savings and take a loan from my 401k.

Option B - Use savings and refi current home and pull the cash out. I already refinanced once about 2 years ago to get out of the PMI insurance I had but investing wasn't even on my mind so I didn't cash out on the equity I had. We are also planning to get a new deck next year on our house. Would it make sense to wait until we add the new deck to refinance since that would probably add some additional equity? Or would the additional equity probably not really make a difference considering the out of pocket expense we'll be spending anyways on the deck? Not sure if I'm making sense there :) .

Option C - Use Refi to pull cash and borrow from 401k.

Let me know your thoughts and potential drawbacks you can think of.  I'm already aware of the risks/drawbacks associated with a 401k loan but I'd love to hear other opinions.  I'm aware of other funding methods but I'm not sure I feel quite comfortable with other funding methods so I'm thinking we'll go with a conventional loan.  My thoughts on this may change as I continue to read/learn about other options but this is my thought process as of now :).

And one last question...

Does it make sense to start working on getting preapproval now or wait until I get closer to being at a place where I'm closer to making my first purchase?  I want to be prepared and have everything tee'd up once I'm able to find a good deal, however I also want to be mindful of the lender's time and don't want them to feel like they've wasted time working with me if I'm not able to do anything until early next year.  I also want to be prepared in case I come across a good deal since I don't want to miss out if I'm not able to get financing in order.

Thank you!!!

Shan