Survival Series
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Surviving: Pregnancy with a Toddler
Zach and I dated for 8 years before we got married, so naturally we talked about our future and hopes and dreams of a family.. a lot. We knew we wanted multiple children and hoped to be able to have them fairly close in age. My middle sister and I are 19 months apart and Zach and his sister at 3 years apart so we figured about 2 years age difference would be perfect. Little did we know what fate had in store for us. If you’ve read my blog post about our infertility journey, then you know that it took a couple rounds of a medication called Clomid and…
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Turner Cole’s Birth Story: A Pandemic Baby
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Surviving: Weaning My 18 Month Old
Before I ever became pregnant, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I didn’t know how long or what it would be like, but I knew in my soul it would be a part of my motherhood journey. When I got pregnant with Cam, I anticipated breastfeeding him by blissfully and ignorantly planning on just “doing it”. I didn’t do a ton of research, I didn’t join any Facebook groups (besides the due date group I was already in).. I just knew that I was going to try. When people would ask how long I planned on nursing, my response was pretty scripted: “My short term goal is 3 months, my…
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Surviving: The First Night Away
So I’ve gone back and forth on writing about this, because I know leaving your baby for the first time is so different for every parent (and in the context that I’m discussing, a privilege because I have a support system whom I love and trust.) Now, I say parent because it has been very different for even my husband and I. I also want to preface this with, I truly feel absolutely NO judgment for any parent who decides when it is best for THEM to leave their child overnight. I can further support that by telling you that my husband left our baby overnight for the first time…
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Surviving: Post Partum Hair Loss
It was a classic story: I had long beautiful luscious hair during pregnancy and even longer beautiful hair during the first two months postpartum. I was tricked into feeling good about how I looked. I was shedding some weight with the help of breast feeding and my kid hadn’t started pulling at my hair yet, so when it was clean, it looked pretty good. And then, around 3 months PP, all hell broke loose. From what I heard after frantically reaching out to all my friends, my story is not unique BUT what I’m here to share is a few tips I found (and used religiously) to help combat the…
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Surviving: Sleep Training
So I want to begin with: if you’re here to pass judgment on our decision to sleep train, I understand BUT remember we are all entitled and should make the decisions that WE feel are best for our children and families. That is the beauty of parenthood, you make the rules (obviously safe ones, duh). Our decision to do a modified sleep training was not made easily or hastily. It took months of sleepless nights, research, conversations with my husband, prayer, and ultimately decision making. Before I was a parent, I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about the “cry it out method”, and looking back, its funny because I’m…
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Surviving: The Newborn Stage
Any one who’s ever been pregnant (or been the partner of someone whose been pregnant) knows just how many people love to tell you how much, “your life will change” when the baby comes. For many new mothers, that phrase is something that becomes like nails on a chalk board through out pregnancy. I can’t tell you how many posts in my little pregnancy FB group I joined were rooted in the unsolicited words from strangers. For me, it was something that I sort of blew off and honestly didn’t take offense to because, well duh it was going to change. We were having a baby! We WANTED things to…