Mom guilt can serve as confirmation that we care, and it can remind us that we aren’t perfect. I’ve had to apologize to each of my children at some point for not getting “it” quite right, and I’ve also broken down and cried on every vacation as my perfect plans fell apart. Those things have taught them humility and how to deal with plans going awry in ways that making all of the “right” choices never could.
The changes to your body during pregnancy are many, but the emotional changes are often the ones that women find they have the most challenging time dealing with. We all expect our bellies to grow, to be a little clumsy and tired, but the surging hormones can affect everyone differently.
I remember thinking “I’d be 20 weeks now,” or “today would have been my due date.” I was mad that my body failed me, I felt guilty that my husband was grieving, I was scared I may never become a mother.
The unexplained death of a baby less than a year old is tragic and often a source of worry for parents to be. This phenomenon, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, while rare, is still the cause of over 3500 deaths per year in the United States.
If you have made the decision to breastfeed, it’s time to start investigating breast pumps. They are not all alike! An excellent resource to start with would be your provider or a lactation consultant.
When you find out you are pregnant, you can feel overwhelming emotions and a huge responsibility to the little human you are growing! One of the things that many women worry about is exercising. Is it safe? Who do you listen to, your mom who says you need to take it easy, or your girlfriend who insists she went to spin class right up until the day she delivered?
Years of TV watching have taught us that when women get pregnant, they want weird foods like pickles and ice cream and that they need to avoid fish and never, ever eat spicy food. Well, not all of that is true.
I had convinced myself this was my new normal. I never had any thoughts about harming myself or Mason, so it couldn’t possibly be postpartum depression (according to what I read online). I had never experienced depression before, these new feelings were just something I needed to get used to.
Bringing a new baby into the world is amazing, miraculous, and well, a little terrifying! The "baby blues” can be a common occurrence after childbirth, as many as 80% of new moms report various ranges of mood swings, weepiness, and feelings of overwhelm.
A pregnancy is, generally speaking, 10 months from the time of conception to the time of birth. That’s 40 weeks. 280 days. And in that short period of time, your baby goes from a fertilized egg, which is roughly 0.1mm (not even visible to the human eye), to a full term, living, breathing human who on average weighs around 7.5lbs at birth.
