Pregnancy

I got my first round of stretchies in the later part of my second trimester with my son. With baby #2 due in the next month, the marks are overlapping. There's no way of knowing which child they belong to. I've tried everything and taken everyone's advice to try to make them disappear. From creams to oils to laying in a tanning bed with red lights ... nothing has worked. My husband and I were very married when I felt I could expose my stomach around him. It was something he never made me feel insecure about; it was definitely all in my head. I was never apprehensive about my body until motherhood. It took years, but I finally came...

Note: This post is part our series in observance of World Breastfeeding Week and is sponsored by Woman’s Hospital.  Nursing While Pregnant My daughter was only 6 months old when I got pregnant again in October 2014. I was nursing her and pumping at work regularly without any inclination that anything would change other than a once again growing belly. While my milk supply was never abundant and there wasn’t much of a freezer stash, I was making enough for her daily bottles. By January, my supply had gradually dropped. I had researched and read that it is possible to nurse throughout a pregnancy and that sometimes only the taste may change, which could affect the baby's desire to continue. However, it is...

I'm pretty obsessed with following all sorts of lady fitness gurus for inspiration to stay in shape. When these trainers would become pregnant and still worked out, this was a foreign concept to me. I had my first son almost seven years ago, and I practically sat still for 35 weeks straight. I was nervous for good reason, however I wasn't doing anything to maintain my physical health prior. That makes all the difference. We've heard the saying that if you were running marathons before you were pregnant you can still keep doing that. I have been doing Crossfit for the last few years and contemplated whether or not I was going to continue. My first trimester was plagued with...

You Jane are way different from me Tarzan -- a concept that has been reinforced and reminded almost daily from Day One. After biology class it was quickly deduced that we men have the complexity of a garden hose and ladies, a multiple zone irrigation system. Nothing prepares you for parenthood and the new roles you become in each other’s lives, but I am most certainly still reeling in awe of this miracle of life. Still so clear is the day my wife and I found out our breeding career was complete on the first attempt. The test said it might take 5-10 minutes … 10 seconds later breath gone, stomach in throat and mind running. YES! Great! We did...

They say you're not supposed to cry at work (by the way, who is they? I don't know either). Apparently it's unprofessional and according to Sex and the City, you don't want to be known as the "woman who cries." I have absolutely no control in the matter. I am a compulsive crier.  Oh it was bad before, but now that I'm pregnant, it's incessant.  In fact it was so prevalent that our original pregnancy announcement was an abbreviated list of all the tearful situations I had been in for the previous four months. This list included life insurance commercials, movie trailers with puppies, and a time when I had an actual meltdown because I had prepared shrimp, looked down, and "that's what our baby...