In a few days I will become my best friend’s gestational surrogate
My friend delivered the devastating news that she had been diagnosed with cervical cancer; it was invasive upon discovery, and she had had an emergency hysterectomy. She was dealing with tremendous shock at the diagnosis and the necessity of facing mortality at the mere age of 31. When she began researching surrogacy, I volunteered myself.
Kynslie and Taylor: From Mormon wedding in Utah to expecting a baby in Idaho (by way of Georgia and the UK)
WOW! It’s been a pretty wild two years (and three months) for us. We went from Utah to Oxford, UK, to beautiful Savannah, Georgia. Then, due to my husband being laid off, we packed up our things in a week and headed west. BUT it’s turned out pretty good! We ended up buying an adorable house, getting a second dog, AND dun dun dun… found out in February that we are expecting our first baby (it’s a boy!) on HALLOWEEN!
Why we’ve never waited twelve weeks to tell people we’re pregnant
My partner and I just can not keep a secret. The excitement for new things is just too much to hold in and inevitably leads to early Christmas gifts and disclosing information possibly too prematurely. We have never waited to tell our friends and family we are expecting. Our children know within days of a positive pregnancy test and share in our excitement and wonderment the entire pregnancy. It was no different when we found out that we were expecting our fifth child on my birthday in 2011. Our family celebrated welcoming a brother or sister while I blew out my candles.
We didn’t think we wanted to know our baby’s sex — then we did
I was absolutely fine with keeping the sex of our baby a surprise. Really, I was. But then something happened to me around 22 weeks. I suddenly had a deep desire to know exactly what sort of babe was moving around in there. I felt detached and found it strange to say “the baby kicked me” and “do you want to feel the baby?” I needed a pronoun. More than that, I wanted a name. (We had a short list of lovely girl names to choose from, but absolutely no boy names. Which of course meant that we were definitely having a boy. In my head at least.)
I’m a new Pagan and I’m expecting: how do I continue to explore both identities?
My husband and I have recently found that that after a mere six months of marriage I’m pregnant. We’re happy but surprised: we were told by my doctor that conceiving would be more difficult since I have Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). I’ve recently decided to explore the path of Wicca, but since I’m new to Wicca and pregnancy I’m lost.
Baby Beer Bottles! and 9 other games to play at your co-ed baby shower
Last year I hosted a baby shower for my sister. The goals were to make it fun, have people bring adorable baby stuff. The challenge, like a lot of baby showers, is that they can kind of suck — no one wants to watch a woman open onesies and bottle sets and nipple cream for two hours. There’s a lot of amazing baby shower inspiration out there — and here’s mine!
What’s the best way to announce a new pregnancy after a miscarriage?
I recently found out that I am pregnant. I had a very successful first pregnancy which resulted in a gorgeous daughter, and a second pregnancy, which I found out was not viable at six weeks. I am dying to tell everyone about this third pregnancy, but I also don’t want to be embarrassed if it turns out to be another chemical pregnancy, and have to explain myself… again.
We couldn’t find a childbirth class we liked so we made up our own
I knew almost immediately that the class was not what I was expecting it to be. I expected my husband to be a little resistant, but I also expected to feel like I should defend the class. I couldn’t. He said he hated how it all felt like a sales pitch for itself, that it tried to tell us, “Yes, you CAN have an unmedicated birth, but only with US!” and I agreed with him. He hated the format of the class, too — the instructor read us questions straight out of the workbook and we wrote down the answers. Not a good learning style for either of us. I don’t know how much of this is related to the method, and how much was our particular instructor. I know Bradley classes are great for some people. They just weren’t right for us.