Pregnancy

When I was pregnant with Annie I got some advice that I shouldn’t read too many books for new parents because too much advice could cloud my thoughts and make parenting more stressful.  I can appreciate that the sentiment behind the advice was to trust my own judgment as a parent. But I often subscribe to the old saying that it takes a village.  Books serve as a voice from research and experience. If you can read parenting books with a grain of salt then apply (or not) the strategies and advice in a way that works for you then …

Pumping at work was never something that excited me.  Before maternity leave ended with our first baby I was very anxious at the prospect.  Honestly, I wasn’t even comfortable breastfeeding at that point, especially not in public, which made pumping at work even harder to imagine. When I was pregnant with our first baby I assumed breastfeeding would be easy. We took a class at the hospital and they laid out the benefits of breastfeeding, but I had already made up my mind that we definitely would. All the while not realizing that it doesn’t come as naturally as I …

I can’t believe Annie is two years old!  It seems like we brought her home yesterday.  The past two years with her have been wonderful and surprising and I just really feel blessed to be her mom, and Ace’s too of course.  I recently shared the birth story from Ace’s birth, and in honor of Annie’s 2nd birthday I thought I’d share a little throwback with her birth story especially since it was so different from our experience with Ace. Easy Pregnancy Our pregnancy with Annie was great.  I only had mild morning sickness for a short period of time.  …

Throughout this pregnancy I did a lot more preparation toward my goal of an unmedicated birth than I did the first time around.  I read books (Ina Mays Guide to Childbirth and Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way), watched positive unmedicated birth stories on YouTube, researched as much as I could, drank the raspberry leaf tea (after 36 weeks and with permission from my doctor), practiced prenatal yoga, increased my water intake, and even watched a few free courses from the hospital and that I found online.  I would have done more in person education, but Covid limited my options. A …