Born: December 11th, 2012 at 11:36pm. Birth story to follow, but in the mean time enjoy this video that the Hubs made of us growing together from week 18 until his birth:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YUCBuAx5zM&feature=youtu.be]
When the unthinkable happens
I thought this quote from the Bahá’í writings was very timely and fitting in light of the recent events in Newtown, Connecticut.
“O thou beloved maidservant of God, although the loss of a son is indeed heart-breaking and beyond the limits of human endurance, yet one who knoweth and understandeth is assured that the son hath not been lost but, rather, hath stepped from this world into another, and she will find him in the divine realm. That reunion shall be for eternity, while in this world separation is inevitable and bringeth with it a burning grief.
Praise be unto God that thou hast faith, art turning thy face toward the everlasting Kingdom and believest in the existence of a heavenly world. Therefore be thou not disconsolate, do not languish, do not sigh, neither wail nor weep; for agitation and mourning deeply affect his soul in the divine realm.
That beloved child addresseth thee from the hidden world: ‘O thou kind Mother, thank divine Providence that I have been freed from a small and gloomy cage and, like the birds of the meadows, have soared to the divine world—a world which is spacious, illumined, and ever gay and jubilant. Therefore, lament not, O Mother, and be not grieved; I am not of the lost, nor have I been obliterated and destroyed. I have shaken off the mortal form and have raised my banner in this spiritual world. Following this separation is everlasting companionship. Thou shalt find me in the heaven of the Lord, immersed in an ocean of light.”
-‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Bahá’í World Centre, 1982 lightweight edition, pg 320
I’m Going Cloth
Cloth diapers that is. I don’t exactly remember when I first started thinking about using cloth diapers, but I think it was while I was living and working in Israel. A good friend of mine was expecting her first child and I did a lot of research to help her navigate all the information out there. While doing all that researching I came across cloth diapers and how they were better for your baby, the environment and your wallet. I was sold. Even though it would be close to 4 years later that I would be expecting my first child, I knew I wanted to use cloth diapers.
So why cloth? Here are my reasons:
1. They are better for your baby. Babies who are kept in cloth diapers generally get changed more often because they can feel when they are wet sooner, which results in fewer diaper rashes. *However it should be noted that if you don’t change your child’s diaper soon after they have wet or soiled it, the “ increased skin wetness, may lead to increased friction and increased abrasion damage, skin permeability, and microbial growth.” This is a fairly old study, and there have been many advances in cloth diapers since then, such as the use of fabrics like micro-fleece that wick the moisture away from the skin, leaving your baby feeling dry. Personally, I would prefer to change my baby’s diaper promptly anyway, because who wants to hang out in their own waste? *
2. Children who are cloth diapered generally potty train at a younger age because they learn what it feels like to be wet.
3. It is better for the environment, although only slightly. Disposable diapers are estimated to take 250-500 years to decompose and represent 4% of all solid waste. In fact disposables are the third largest single consumer item in landfills. Even though this is really gross, when you look at the issue from a Life Course Perspective, the cumulative water requirements, waste water particulates and environmental emissions associated with laundering cloth diapers at home outweighs those associated with using disposable diapers. While, the cumulative solid waste volume of disposables is far greater than that of cloth. However when you factor in the energy value of converting raw cotton and trees into these products, disposables and cloth diapers (that are laundered at home) have about the same impact, while cloth diapers that are laundered using a diaper service come out a little bit ahead. Check out THIS article for all the specifics, the cloth vs. disposables portion begins on page 11. Now, many people argue that there are many ways to wash cloth diapers that don’t have such a negative environmental impact, this includes using energy-efficient machines, line drying and using the correct water temperature as opposed to very hot water. So this point could be up for debate. *I will say however, that whether you choose to use cloth or disposable diapers the only proper disposal of poop is in the toilet. Most people who use disposable diapers don’t take the time to dump the poop in the toilet before throwing the diaper out and this has HUGELY negative public health consequences. Human feces are about as foul and bacteria riddled as anything comes and when you throw it in the trash it can get into the soil and water and then you have e. coli contamination or cholera outbreaks. Something to think about. HERE’S a statement by the APHA on the topic.*
4. It is easier on your wallet. When using disposable diapers you will spend roughly $1500-$2500 from birth to potty training PER child. With cloth there are so many options that you could spend anywhere from $200 for a basic stash to around $800 on a large and fancy stash and that stash will generally last you through multiple children AND you can even sell them and recoup some of the cost once you’re done using them. That’s a HUGE savings for something that your child is just pooping and peeing in anyway.
So there you have my reasons for going cloth. I know a lot of parents out there also site the cuteness factor as a reason that they love using cloth diapers, but I can’t really speak to that yet. I’ll definitely let you know more once my child is actually born.
Stay tuned to learn all about my cloth diaper stash!
Did You Know? Pregnancy Weeks Vs. Months
When you get pregnant your due date is calculated roughly 40 weeks from the first day of your last period. 40 weeks. I once heard a guest lecturer in one of my graduate classes say that most people believed that pregnancy was 9 months long, when in fact it was 10 months long and she backed this up by saying that 40 weeks, with 4 weeks in each month added up to 10 months. At the time my mind was totally blown, but then I started thinking about it and I realized something that should have been blatantly obvious all along: Most months are longer than 4 weeks. There are exactly 4 weeks in the month of February (when it isn’t a leap year) but that’s the only month where that rule applies, for the rest of the months, that leaves 2 or 3 days unaccounted for, which over the course of a pregnancy can really add up.
So what am I getting at? Well, if you want to wait until you’re 3 months pregnant to announce your pregnancy and you announce it when you’re 12 weeks pregnant, then you are announcing just over a week early. During my first pregnancy I was one of those people. I announced I was pregnant at 12 weeks exactly only to find out at 13 weeks that I had miscarried. Had I waiting until I was actually 3 months pregnant I would have known about the miscarriage before making the announcement and I would have been able to avoid a lot of questions and explanations that I didn’t want to deal with at the time.
I can’t tell you how many times I hear women say that they are 5 months pregnant when they go for their 20 week ultrasound, or 7 months pregnant when they are 28 weeks along. This just is not correct. It’s like when someone says: “for all intense and purposes” rather than “for all intents and purposes.” More than anything I just want to educate people about what’s accurate and correct.
My 40 week mark is December 5th. I was exactly 9 months pregnant as of December 1st, which means that by my 40 week mark I will be 9 months and 4 days pregnant…nowhere NEAR 10 months. Just saying.
*As a side note, I think it’s worth mentioning that the average pregnancy actually lasts 41 1/7 weeks, which is why even though my due date is December 5th, I tell everyone I have until December 19th in the hopes that this will help quell all the calls and messages I have been getting from people who are lovingly over eager for the baby to arrive.*
Recipe: Happy Thanksgiving!
UPDATE: We adopted a plant based diet in September 2013 so, while this was definitely yummy, it no longer reflects the food we eat.
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and eat lots of delicious food. Raf and I will be spending the holiday with my Aunt and Uncle in Baltimore, and I can’t wait to stuff my face! Raf’s mom makes a cheesy potato casserole that Raf absolutely loves and it was his only menu item request this year…as it has been every year. So I’d thought I’d share the recipe with you.
Cheesy Potato Casserole Recipe
Ingredients:
1.5 pound bag of Hash browns (thawed)
8oz Sour cream
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
3 cups Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Salt and Pepper to Taste (go generous with the pepper)
2 Tbsp Butter, cut into small pieces
Sour Cream and Onion Chips, crumbled
Directions:
Preheat over to 350 degrees F. Combine hash browns, sour cream, cream of mushroom soup, cheese, salt and pepper in a large casserole dish. Mix well. Top mixture with crumbled chips. Top chips with pats of butter spaced evenly apart. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
It’s that easy! This is not the healthiest dish, but it’s SO good. In any case it’s OK to indulge in moderation once in a while.
Gobble Gobble everyone!
The Stay at Home Mom Stereotype – Breaking the Mold
In my last post, I hinted at the feelings of self-worth I have been struggling with as a stay at home wife/homemaker, but I didn’t really delve into the topic too deeply because I wasn’t certain about how I wanted to approach it. In general I have a problem with the term “working mom” as compared to a stay at home mom. The reason being, I think the term “working mom” sends the message that stay at home moms don’t work. It is especially important to be careful when using these terms around children. I think when it comes to our kids we need to be super careful about the messages we’re sending them consciously or subconsciously.
My mom was a stay at home mom for most of my youth, in fact because the Island we lived on lacked good schools, she even home schooled my brothers and I up until high school. Let me tell you, I know we were a huge handful, and home schooling us must have been a huge challenge for her. She really did make the ultimate sacrifice for us. However when I was younger I can remember over hearing conversations between my parents where my dad would saying something like, “well I have to work” and I can remember how upset this made my mom and how my dad would quickly try to rectify the situation, but I think on some subconscious level these snip-its even though they were immediately retracted sent me the message that the work of being a stay at home mom wasn’t as valued or recognized as the work one does outside the home. So I have long since struggled against the idea of being a domesticated house wife. Yet, the rational side of my brain knows full well that there is tremendous value in being a stay at home mom. The challenge is redefining that role and perhaps my own perceptions of it and making it into something that I feel just as proud to display (if I end up assuming this role) as I would being a top CEO.
This blog post by my amazing cousin, couldn’t sum up my own feelings better.
What are your thoughts?
Juggling: Reconciling career dreams with motherhood
I don’t have the answer to this issue. My biggest dream has always been to have children of my own but in recent years I’ve also developed a new dream of having a thriving career in my professional field, one that I love by the way. When Raf and I got married we decided that we would wait 4-5 years before starting a family, while knowing full well that I would be in graduate school around that time.
Well, I got pregnant with this little boy in my last semester of grad school, which I couldn’t have been happier about, but suddenly I started worrying about what this would do to my career. I was applying for jobs and soon after graduating I went on a bunch of interviews but none of them seemed to work out and then I became VISIBLY pregnant so we decided that I should table the job hunt until after the baby arrives. In any case I never felt good about keeping my pregnancy a secret from potential employers during the interviews, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still did it, because I knew that despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to discriminate, that the pregnancy would hurt my chances of being hired. It’s just the reality of the world we live in, but still it felt icky to keep the secret.
Here’s the thing. I want to have a career. I have a passionate desire to make an impact on the world that goes beyond my nuclear family. I also want to be a mom AND I don’t like the thought of anyone other than my husband or I raising our children. So how do I reconcile these two things, without feeling like I’m giving something up?
The other issue is that we want to have our children be close in age, so if we have 3 children, spaces roughly 2 years apart that could mean 10 years before the youngest is in pre-school. It would be brutal for my career aspects to take the first 10 years straight out of graduate school to raise my children before pursuing my career. How would I explain that 10 year gap on my resume? How would I stay current during that time?
I don’t have hard and fast answers to these questions. I know loads of women make it work, but I’m not sure how I am going to make it work yet. Perhaps I need to look into finding a way to work from home, or working on a flexible schedule, or finding something part-time for a while. I just don’t know. Right now I can’t really have an exact idea because our son isn’t born yet and I know that my feelings and thoughts on this subject will be a lot easier to sort out once he gets here…or I least I’m hoping they will be.
The last issue is that we have a TON of student loan debt. Even though Raf has a good job (not to mention we have very supportive families), I feel guilty about putting the financial burden solely on his shoulders, and it’s not just guilt either that eating me. I find myself struggling with feelings about my own self-worth. Right now since the baby hasn’t arrived yet, I’m feeling pretty useless as a stay at home wife. Again I’m hoping these feelings change once I have our son gets here, because then I’ll feel like we’re both contributing equally to the family, albeit in very different ways.
I wish I had the answers to these questions, but I just don’t. The only thing I know for sure, is that if I had to sacrifice one of these things, if I was forced to choose, I would without a doubt sacrifice my career for my children. I just hope it doesn’t come to that.
I wonder if anyone has it truly figured out, or if this is something that all moms with career aspirations face. If anyone has any ideas I’d love to hear them. How do you reconcile career goals with parenting desires?
“Boy” colors vs. “Girl” colors
Seeing as I was the first and only girl in my family and the first born grand daughter on both sides on my family I had a lot of pink when I was little and I mean A LOT. Admittedly, in those early years it was my favorite color, but how could it not be, everything I owned and everything anyone gave me was pink. I soon became so sick of the color that it was relegated to my most hated color, not to mention I was a tom boy and pink was just way to girly girl for me. Since that experience I have always been drawn to non-conventional girl clothing. Whenever I find out a friend is having a baby girl I always opt for baby girl outfits that are blue, brown, green, etc. but never pink and rarely purple. Just because I hate the notion of a certain set of colors being girl colors or boy colors.
When I found out I was having a boy I was totally disappointed at the lack of variety in color when it comes to baby boy clothes. Everything was red, navy, baby blue, burnt orange, brown olive green or grey. Where were all the vibrate colors such as turquoise, sunny yellow, lime green, purple and dare I say it…pink? Well they were all over on the baby girl side of the store and I found this to be really upsetting. Not to mention I didn’t want to put my son in clothing with trucks, motorcycles or skulls and bones on them, I don’t want to pigeon hole him like that. So I set out to find him something pink. Now admittedly, I don’t love the color but I felt strongly about my son growing up knowing that there is no such thing as “boy” colors and “girl” colors, but that there were only ‘colors.’
With the help of my mom and mother-in law we were able to find these two shirts (don’t mind the wrinkles). One fushia pink and the other lilac! It may be a small thing but it felt like a huge victory. We weren’t going to be constrained by societal gender stereotypes!! In any case it’s all so subjective anyway and totally subject to change, did you know that pink used to be considered a baby boy color and blue was designated for baby girls? True story. Not to mention both my husband and I look best in bright, vibrant colors, so there’s a strong chance those colors will suite our son too. And you know what? If he decides that pink isn’t his favorite color, then that’s totally his choice but he won’t ever get the message from Rafaan and I that pink is only for girls or that trucks and bland colors are only for boys.
On Getting Pregnant
In March 2011 Rafaan and I decided that we were ready to start a family and much to our surprise I got pregnant after only 1 month of trying. Sadly that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage in June 2011 and after waiting the two months that were recommended by my care provider we decided to start trying again in August 2011. Well things did not happen as quickly the second time around, it took us 7 months to get pregnant, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t very long, but after having a miscarriage it felt like an eternity and I began to worry that something was wrong. So this is our journey with trying to conceive (TTC), what worked for us and some general preconception health information.
First off let me say that ANY and ALL women who are sexually active should be taking a daily prenatal vitamin, even if you are not intending to get pregnant and even if you are actively trying to prevent pregnancy. The reason for this being that accidents happen. In fact in the US nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended. Prenatal vitamins specifically contain folic acid which helps prevent neural tube defects and in the 2 weeks between fertilization and a missed period those neural tubes have already begun to form, so it’s important that folic acid already be in the mother’s system. Just take a prenatal vitamin in place of a daily women’s multi-vitamin and go about your merry way.
The first thing you should do when you begin thinking about having a baby is to go see your doctor for some pre-conception counseling. You want to make sure you are in the best health possible when you get pregnant and going to pre-conception counseling can help get you there if you aren’t already.
Back to my story: In August we started trying again and at first we decided that we wouldn’t actively try but that we would just stop using contraception and see what happens. Well that plan went out the window really fast after I realized that I was still consciously trying to get pregnant regardless of us wanting to just “go with the flow.” So that’s when I decided to buy a bunch of ovulation predictor kits (OPks) and started peeing on them every day, well despite getting positive reading from the OPKs and timing our baby making sessions around them, I still wasn’t getting pregnant and I started to feel like I didn’t have a clue about my body, and being that my chosen field was maternal and child health, this kind of made me feel a bit lost. A friend of mine recommended the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which is an AMAZING resource. I seriously can’t say enough about how great this book is. I believe all women should own a copy of this book because it’s about so much more than just pregnancy. Seriously, take a look! Through using this book I learnt how to chart my fertility cycles and to become in tuned with my body so that I could recognize when I was nearing ovulation. It only took 3 months of charting my cycles for me to get pregnant and during the process I felt really empowered and that I finally understood my body again. For those of you who don’t know what charting your cycles entails, you basically take your waking temperature every morning using a basal body thermometer and you also keep track of your cervical mucus. It sounds complicated, but it really is SUPER simple and easy. If anyone wants more details about how exactly to do it or you have been charting and are confused by what you’re seeing please just leave a comment or send me an email and I’d be happy to help.
I also went to see a fertility acupuncturist, who again came highly recommended by a friend AND did fertility acupuncture work at Johns Hopkins. She put me on 2 herbal supplements; Fertile Garden and Astra Essence and told me that I needed to take 6 pills of each a day. Now I can’t say whether or not these pills actually had an effect on me getting pregnant, but I can say that I got pregnant the first full month I was taking them. The friend who recommended me also got pregnant using these pills not once but twice! The first time it was after 10 months of TTC and she got pregnant the first month she was on the pills and then again the same thing happened with her third child. I have since recommended these pills to a cousin of mine and she got pregnant the first month she used them too. Maybe this is all a coincidence, I can’t say for sure, but what I can say is that you should talk to a medical professional before taking any and all supplements. Don’t self medicate!
Once I got a confirmed pregnancy test reading on April 1st, 2012, I stopped taking the herbal supplements and then tried to be as positive as possible, but actually being pregnant is a whole other story all together, so stay tuned.
Here are some articles for anyone interested in learning more about folic acid as prevention for neural tube defects:
Werler, M. M., Shapiro, S., & Mitchell, A. A. (1993). Periconceptional Folic Acid Exposure and Risk of Occurrent Neural Tube Defects. JAMA , 1257-1261. *Sorry I couldn’t find a free link to the full text of this one*
What this is all about
I am currently 37 weeks pregnant with our first child and have been doing a LOT of reading and researching in these past 8.5 months. I have mainly been reading mommy blogs, because I’m fascinated by how other women are navigating this parenting role, and what choices they are making when it comes to their children. In all my reading I felt like something was missing. Moms would state their preferences or their view points on important topics but there was rarely any evidence based research to back their claims or opinions up, which may be perfectly fine for some people, but for me and I imagine a lot of other people out there, I wanted more. So I decided to start this blog, which I hope will be 1 part mommy blog and 1 part informative resource. My plan is for this blog to cover everything, from my personal journey into parenthood, to product reviews, to health information and beyond.
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