Browsing Category: Pregnancy

Second Baby Answers – Our decision about baby #2

Second Baby Answers

(Photo credit: Becca Gutierrez with Rusty Metals Photography  // @RustyMetalsPhotography) 

I’ve written about this question a couple times. First I wondered when we should start thinking about a second baby, and then I went on a whole ramble about second baby questions and concerns. The reality is, that there is no right answer. I know that some people dream of having large families while others never want kids. Some people fall into second pregnancies while others struggle to conceive once. We were going to wait until Harley was three to even have the conversation, but I sorta jumped the gun with Dean, which ended up being a good thing.

I promise I’ll share more with you below, but the main thing that I took away from the conversation and reaching a conclusion about it is realizing how big the topic was becoming in my head. Did I want another baby? If so, when? And what about all the worries and concerns? Even when I was busy with other tasks, I’d find myself thinking about a baby, or not a baby, or the impact it would have on our family, and how much time did I have left, and what impact it would have on my body. Well, now we have a decision, and it feels like a weight has been lifted. Continue Reading

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The second baby conversation that I keep having in my head

The second baby conversation that I keep having in my head

Maybe it’s because Harley is almost 2.5 years old, and is acting more and more like a big girl. Maybe it’s because with Harley being such a big girl, people are asking me the question more. Or maybe it’s just a timing thing, but I keep thinking about the second baby question. Dean and I agreed that we would only have the second baby conversation when Harley was 3, but considering how ridiculously fast the time has been going, I feel like I’ve been getting a head start in my head.

But it’s so confusing for me. Not like children are a pros and cons list. There’s something inherently primal about the decision to make a new person. You can have all the reasons why and why not lined up, but when the animal brain kicks in and you want to make a baby, it’s hard to think about much else. So, I preface all of this with that knowledge – this is basically all the logical, reasoning, thoughtful stuff, which could all get thrown out of the window if the biological mandate rears its ugly head. Continue Reading

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Procreating has made me even more pro-choice

I have always been pro-choice. It’s a woman’s body, it’s her right to choose if she wants to fall pregnant or if she choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. End of story. I was lucky and careful enough to never experience an unwanted pregnancy, but I have every intention that if I conceived without the desire to have a kid, I’d get an abortion – it was just that simple. Even now, after creating my tiny human, it’s something that I’d do if Dean and I didn’t want another tiny human, either due to timing or money or whatever else.

Harley was incredibly planned. I already talked about how Dean and I changed from saying we never wanted to have kids, to eventually going off the pill and falling pregnant. Having her grow inside me, come into the world and now live every day as my tiny growing person has put me in awe of the miracle of life. But that doesn’t mean my stance on abortion has changed. If anything, it has only made my beliefs stronger. Continue Reading

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Six weeks later

Today, I went to the doctor for my six week post-op check up. It’s kinda hard to believe that six weeks ago my life changed so completely. It feels like an eternity since then, although that could just be because I’ve been mostly awake for the past week of it, but still – so much has happened that turned everything upside down. I already sorta wrote about what I went through, although I’ve realized that there is so much more to the story. I mean, imagine being Dean, waking up to a wife with a mouth full of blood having a seizure? What about the ambulance that didn’t come, or the fact they couldn’t do the surgery until my blood pressure went down and it just wouldn’t, staying at a life-threatening 240/180 no matter how much medication they gave me.

Lately, I’ve been focusing on the day to day of being a first time mom to my princess Harley. I will continue to do so, but I think at a milestone like this, it’s important to look back as well. So much has changed in such a short period of time, it’s kind of hard to even process. That’s probably why I’ve been feeling so down lately, too – sleep deprivation will do that, but so will some PTSD and the emotional shock of adjusting to a complete lifestyle change a full two months before I was expecting it. Continue Reading

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Eclampsia and Emergency

In the kitchen, there is one tool that I would never want to own or use, no matter how cool I think it is in theory. I’m not afraid of knives or food processors or whatnot, but I have never owned a pressure cooker, and I don’t even like going into other people’s kitchens when they use one. They creep me out and make me anxious – I’m always afraid that they’re going to burst or something, no matter how safe everyone always tells me that they are. Well, it seems that we can’t avoid those things we might like to; last week, my heart became a pressure cooker.

I am still only finding out about the story as time goes by, so I’m not 100% sure of what happened, but here’s the stuff I do know for now. It’s been quite an emotional time for me, and every time I talk about it, I well up with tears. The same will probably happen as I write these words, but if it can help just one person, it’s worthwhile. Continue Reading

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