Pregnancy

I am now 38 weeks pregnant. Hard to believe, and yet of course I knew (or at least hoped) that I would eventually get here. I knew that, God willing, everything would progress, my belly would grow, and this being inside me would grow into a tiny person. But even though I’ve been pregnant now for the better part of the last year, I still find myself surprised sometimes that there’s going to be another person living in our house! My husband and I belong to a local Methodist church and we celebrate the season of Advent every year: counting down the Sundays between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There were moments when I thought about Mary, the mother of Jesus, in a...

Congrats! You’re having a baby! You’ve picked out a name, ordered a crib, and researched stroller systems.  You’ve spent hours drooling over tutus and LSU football onesies.  But, have you taken the time to prepare for labor and birth?  Having a baby is so much more than showing up at the hospital after your water breaks, and it’s nothing like what you see on tv and in movies.  In fact, having a great birth experience starts before your first prenatal visit.  There are several things to consider when preparing for your best birth, and this four-step guide will get you on your way! 1. Choose Your Birth Team The first and most important choice you will make is your birth team,...

My husband, Bill, and I recently took a baby care class at Woman’s Hospital. The official name for the class is “After Baby Comes (ABC): Baby Care and Parent Care. I’m now about two months from my due date, and with the holidays on the horizon we elected to go ahead and take the class in October. A word about our prior “experience” with babies: I’m a typical gal who loves to hold babies and who did her fair share of baby-sitting growing up. I also have seven younger cousins; so for the majority of my childhood, there was at least one baby hanging around. But I’ll admit that I've probably changed one diaper in the past five years and...

My journey to become a mom hasn't been the easiest. The most painful moment so far was on April 4, 2011. I was being prepped for emergency surgery to remove a ruptured ectopic pregnancy (also know as tubal although mine was not in the tube). Not realizing I was going to need surgery, we brought our only living child with us to the hospital. The nurse asking me questions said, “So, this is your second pregnancy?” It was a knife to my heart when I had to answer, “No…sixth.” When Daniel and I got married, we wanted to wait 3-5 years before having kids, so we could just enjoy married life. Well, one thing lead to another, and we knew...

I wanted to be one of those women who loved being pregnant. I went into it so optimistically, hoping the life inside me would give me a healthy glow and a sunny disposition. I. Was. Wrong. My first trimester was predictably nauseating--no surprises there. But I can tell you the exact moment that things took a turn for the worse. I was 14 weeks along and the nausea had only recently subsided. My husband and I were watching the Saints game at a friend's house and I just could not get comfortable. There was this pain in my lower back, right at the bottom of my ribs on the right side. It felt like someone pinching me hard from the...