I’m pregnant, take two
I wasn’t planning on announcing my second pregnancy quite yet. Perhaps I should have thought of that before I mentioned it to the reporter from CNN who was interviewing me about things I’d learned and experienced during pregnancy. Oh well. These things happen. So, surprise!! And in case you’re remembering my declaration in our Christmas letter that we wouldn’t be announcing a new baby anytime soon … I was already pregnant when I penned that, but didn’t know it. I knew it shortly thereafter though, and have been enjoying frequent reminders in the form of nausea, fatigue, and...
Read MoreBest of 2011
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.” (Annais Nin) Happy New Years Eve! In the spirit of celebrating roads already travelled on this last day of the year here were your favourite posts of the year, my favourite posts of the year, and Mike’s favourite photos from 2011. Your favourite posts The most popular posts from this past year (judged by traffic) were all pregnancy related. I guess there’s a reason why so many “mommy blogs” become big deals. Ten Great Gifts for Pregnant Women and Thirty Great Gifts for Pregnant Women and New Parents Introducing...
Read MoreLooking Like Love: A Letter To My Parents
It’s been five months since I stepped off the plane from Asia, roundly pregnant at 28 weeks, and saw you both there waiting for me and smiling. The hills here were green, the cool air smelled of wet eucalyptus and the pancakes that we stopped for on the way home were heaped with berries, tiny crimson waterfalls falling from the stack. As I unpacked in this bedroom later that morning I thought that five months seemed like an eternity. So many milestones in life had to come and go before I would depart – Mike’s arrival after ten weeks apart, the baby’s arrival, then...
Read MoreBreastfeeding lessons from cows, take two
This post is an addendum to one of my favorite posts from the last year, Life lessons in pregnancy and breastfeeding from cows. 5AM this morning: Me: “Dominic!!” Mike: “What’s he doing?” Me: “He’s latching on repeatedly, sucking nicely once or twice, then tossing his head from side to side before yanking backwards – still holding on, mind you – until my nipple finally pops out of his mouth. Then he opens his eyes wide in panic and lunges forward like a small, desperate, vacuum cleaner until he finds it again.” Mike: “Do you want me to tell you what the cows on the farm...
Read MoreLessons learned during labour and delivery
I don’t really know where to start when writing about labour and delivery. For starters, it was such an intense experience that even now, almost two weeks later, I’m struggling to find the right words (any words) to tell the story well. And secondly, while I was pregnant I was incredibly curious about other women’s experiences of the whole process. Yet I’m not sure that hearing all those stories actually served me well. Almost no one I talked to spoke positively about labour and delivery, and it seemed that for every woman who had experienced a relatively trouble-free birth there were...
Read More
