Becoming a parent made me better at my job
As I was approaching my last year of grad school for my Master’s in English, I had been dating an awesome, goateed, tattooed locksmith for a few months. That Christmas, as I was choosing my thesis advisor and getting ready to embark on the challenge of writing a full short story collection, my body started to feel a little weird. What I thought was nerves over the impending thesis, we came to find, was actually our little droidlet beginning to grow. Surprise! The following August, my son was born.
A photo project about Nagorno-Karabakh’s birth encouragement program
Jenn recently shared a NY Times piece calledThe National Womb, which is a project that documentary photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind underrtook. The focus is a “birth encouragement program” that the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh implemented in 2008: basically, the government gives cash to newlyweds each time they have a kid.
How to get a sickness-prone preemie home on public transportation
Having a preemie at home during any season is hard — it can be a challenge to explain to friends and family why they very seriously have to wash their hands as soon as they enter, or why you really can’t come over for a few weeks. If your preemie was born with a chronic lung condition or weakened immune system, it’s difficult to not be scared of absolutely everything or everyone he or she might come into contact with. I know from first-hand experience: my son Jasper was born two months early in 2009, and spent a month in the NICU.
How and when in the now: learning to live in the moment
I’ll admit it: I am a planner. I need to have all my bearings gathered with at least an outline of things to come. After our wedding some life situations like health issues and a death came up, our priorities shifted, and the planned window of time for having “our babies” moved up. And now it has, at last, become a real fleshy possibility.
This shadow of possibility scares me shitless like nothing before….
From a salsa jar conception to the hospital birth we wanted
Three months before the baby was due, my partner Patty and I took the birth class. I’m so glad we took the class together — the yoga teacher taught us a lot about exercises we could do during labor, breathing to help through the contractions, the benefits of avoiding interventions, and how a labor doula could really support our decisions to have the birth we wanted.
What can pregnant vegetarians eat to boost their iron levels?
I am about eighteen weeks pregnant, and I’ve had low iron since my iron was first checked at 12 weeks. The catch is, I really don’t like to eat meat, and it appears the very best sources — in terms of easy absorption — are meat, fish, and poultry. I just bought lentils, quinoa, kidney beans, and spinach, and I am going to dig up some recipes (and I know to combine them with vitamin C). I really wonder if this will suffice — or do I need meat?
Wedding decor-turned home-decor and a tent in a bright green and blue room in this week’s reader photos
Start your week with our collection of interesting articles on the web and photos from our readers. This week: a tent bed and a serendipitous score from a movie theater. In these Clicky Links you’ll find lots of sites to waste a little time on.
Click through, too, to find our links on submitting YOUR stuff to Offbeat Home!
I’m Human: a video from Alabama middle schoolers talking about what makes us different
The broadcasting team at Liberty Middle School in Madison, Alabama, is currently rocking my world. They put together this incredibly simple, yet incredibly powerful video called “I’m Human.” The video features students standing against a wall, each holding up a sign that tells you how they’re different. One is Christian, one is spoiled. Another is Mexican, and one girl has lost a friend — all of this in the first forty-eight seconds.