How do we break it to our family members that we’re Child-Free?
My husband and I recently tied to the knot, and here’s the thing: I love my mother-in-law. She is a super sweet woman… but she also wants more grandchildren. She has one, but she wants more. Here’s the catch: we’re not having any children. Ever.
How to make a baby: sperm donors, IVF, and mad science experiments
Choosing a sperm donor is a little bit like setting up an Xbox avatar. You begin by deciding on the ethnicity, hair color, and eye color of the fellow whose sperm you’d like to combine with your egg to make your baby. Then you enter that criteria into a sperm-bank search engine, which returns a list of matching anonymous males who passed rigorous genetic tests and filled out detailed questionnaires. Finally, you pore through each donor profile, considering things like his height, weight, build, SAT scores, family medical history, sexual orientation, whether or not he has moles, the shape of his nose and mouth, and in some cases, his baby photo or voice sample.
Foster parents: how do you deal when your foster child is adopted by another family?
We’re both gravitating to fostering over adoption for a whole bunch of reasons that basically boil down to it’s what we think would work best for us, save for this one issue. How do you emotionally cope when your foster child moves on to a permanent family?
A Rule is to Break: A Child’s Guide to Anarchy
Are you busy raising a little anarchist? Then you’re gonna looooove A Rule Is To Break: A Child’s Guide to Anarchy.
9 tips for enjoying a family road trip
We just finished most of the holiday season, so some of you may have survived your latest family road trip barely intact. It’s summer in Australia, so plenty of us are gearing up for another trip soon — and if you’re getting ready for road tripping with your smalls, I’ve got some ideas to keep them occupied. I’ve had my fair share of road tripping with kids — with or without my partner Matt — it can be tricky. But over the years I’ve figured out what works and what doesn’t, and what’s absolutely imperative.
A high school English teacher on 5 books every teen should read
The Huffington Post ran a piece last month about the five books every high school student should read before going to college. It was a pretty good list, and I agree that most of those books are incredibly important for teenagers, but I couldn’t help but think, if I had five books to give my students that they HAD to read, what would they be?
A happy and healthy birth center story
Only 10 minutes after talking to her, contractions started coming quickly and more sporadically and I began to get nauseous at their height — even in my state I knew it was a sign of transition. Even though I never got the classic “I can’t do this” mindset, I suddenly felt out of control — more of a “I have no idea what the hell I’m doing” mindset. I only had to say it once and Ryan knew it was time to leave.
I’m trying to conceive and feel like it might not happen
The road taken when trying to become a parent is already long enough. You weigh this and that — a new house or a child? My wedding or the birth of someone greater than a piece of paper from the state? Cloth or disposable diapers, when should I start stocking up on either? And then there’s fertility: even if everything checks out fine, you still have a 20% chance of conceiving a child each month.