Donating Breast Milk: Jessica H’s Story
As a follow-up to my post, Donating Breast Milk- A Mama’s Gift to Mamas and Babies, I wanted to interview a few mamas who’ve had personal experience donating breast milk. My goal was to find out how the process of becoming a donor actually works and share this information with you, our MSW readers. Jessica [...]
Newborn Jaundice, Again
When my oldest son, TJ was born in 2009, my husband and I had no idea he had a handful of risk factors for developing newborn jaundice. He was born a few weeks early, he was half Asian, and there was a family history, I had it as a newborn. So when we headed home [...]
Faith, Hope, and Love: My Breastfeeding Journey
When I was pregnant with my first child, I said plenty of ignorant things. Don’t we all make ridiculous statements before we have kids of our own? I had no clue what it was really going to be like, and now I look back on pre-children me, I shake my head and chuckle. Oh, self! [...]
10 Ways to Encourage Sibling Bonding in the First Year
Preparing for the arrival of your second child is very emotional for many reasons. One of the biggest reasons is your concern for how to help your first born adjust to, and hopefully embrace, this addition to the family. My son was four years old when I was pregnant with my daughter. For four years [...]
I’m Not Crying Because I’m Sad!
Right after I had my baby girl (her nickname is Peeps, which I’ll be calling her on this post) almost 2 years ago, I remember my husband wheeling me out of the hospital when all of a sudden…the tears started flowing and I could NOT STOP. I cried on the whole drive home. I cried [...]
My Experience With Placenta Encapsulation
I think it’s fair to say that when most people hear about a woman consuming her placenta their gag reflex kicks in. At the very least, most people find it incredibly strange and wonder why anyone would consider doing something so downright “icky”. But I also think it’s fair to say women who’ve had a [...]
What I Learned About Tongue Tie
Since Christina posted her experience with her daughter’s tongue tie, I’m seeing and hearing more and more about this not-so-uncommon occurrence with newborn babies. Depending on where you are reading, experts say it occurs in anywhere from 2% to 16% of babies. But I wonder if that number is much higher because it goes undiagnosed [...]
Why I Hired a Doula
When I stared down at my positive pregnancy test on the morning of Tuesday, June 17th, I knew I was in for a world of physical and emotional change over the next nine months, but what I couldn’t predict was the amount of knowledge, perspective and empowerment I would gain through my pregnancy. When I [...]
Exercise During Pregnancy
I found out I was pregnant as I was walking out the door to run a 10k time trial. After the initial “Holy shit!” moment, the next thought was “What happens now with my training?” Versions of these thoughts cycled through my head as I was running that day. I was registered for the upcoming [...]
My Birth Center Experience
Even before I became pregnant with my second baby, I knew I wanted to go a different route when it came to my prenatal care and birth support team. While my experience with my OB and a hospital in 2009 wasn’t awful, I felt I got very lucky with supportive nurses when it came to [...]
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