pregnancy

Kiwi on the way!

catherinemryan

2015 is shaping up to be a big year for us: We bought a house, Eric will finish his first full-time year of teaching and he’ll graduate with his teacher’s certificate and another master’s, and—drum roll—we’re expecting another little bug!

Kiwi, as we’ve taken to calling Baby #2 (Peeper Jr. just didn’t seem right!), is due mid-July—right after (but hopefully not on) Peeper’s second birthday. So far the pregnancy has gone very smoothly, as long as you don’t count feeling horribly ill for three months straight.

Peeper Mama BeachPeople keep asking me if being pregnant is different the second time around. The most striking difference, I’ve found, is that I got bigger way faster—I’m showing about a month sooner than I did with Peeper. I was also a bit sicker in the first trimester and felt more tired, but that could have been because I was busy running after a toddler and so couldn’t rest as much.

Now, at 21 weeks, I’m smack-dab in the middle of the pregnancy—and the second trimester honeymoon period. I find myself thinking, “What the hell were we thinking?” a lot less often these days. Not that we don’t want Kiwi 100%—it’s just that when your first child is a hot mess and you haven’t eaten anything that wasn’t beige in like two months and you are tired enough to lie down on the kitchen floor and never get up, the thought of adding a nurse-all-the-time, sleep-none-of-the-time newborn into the mix sounds like a lot of crazy. Peeper bump hugSo I’m fully enjoying my in-between trimester. I love feeling Kiwi kick and can’t wait for the first time Peeper feels her little sister move. Sometimes Peeper waves hello at my belly, greeting Kiwi. And in the last week, she has taken to lying with her head on my growing bump as I rock her during wind-down time.

Peeper’s still too young to get that she will soon relinquish her only-child status, but I like to think that she and Kiwi are already forging their sister bond. My siblings and I grew up casting each other in elaborate make-believe games, arguing over whose turn it was to bring down the dirty laundry and relying on each other for pretty much everything. I can’t imagine life without them. And I can think of no better gift than to give Peeper a sibling.

Own your c-section birth story

catherinemryan

Now that I’ve entered the club of motherhood, I’ve noticed a lot of women feeling judged (by others and themselves) because they birthed their baby via c-section. Research also shows that dissatisfaction with your child’s birth is linked to postpartum depression, so I felt compelled to address the issue of women feeling as if they had failed by having a child surgically.

I wrote this piece for Fit Pregnancy about how to come to peace—and even embrace—your birth story. I talked with Brooke Kyle, MD, an OB who delivered all three of her kids in the OR.

“I do feel like there are a lot of pressures in my community and nationally that make people feel like their birth is less worthy if they have to choose a c-section, like they’re less of a mother and they didn’t try hard enough,” Dr. Kyle told me. “I even feel those pressures because I aim for a vaginal birth in my practice and that’s what I’m known for. The goal for my patients is to get a vaginal birth, and that was the plan for myself, too.”

Yet childbirth is unpredictable, and many of the things we script out—delivering vaginally, opting for a home birth, going med-free—change.

(A quick aside: Childbirth can be traumatic. It’s important to recognize that many women have a difficult time, and that a bouncing bairn is not the only legitimate concern. Validating mothers’ conflicted feelings around childbirth and their birth story shows them that they’re valued, too—that their worth is not limited to bringing a child into the world at any cost.)

Kyle shared with me a few tips on how she kicked the disappointment of delivering via cesarean and came to love her birth story.

Did you feel disappointed in how your child’s birth went? (No judgment here.) How did you come to terms with it?

Own your c-section birth story

catherinemryan

Now that I’ve entered the club of motherhood, I’ve noticed a lot of women feeling judged (by others and themselves) because they birthed their baby via c-section. Research also shows that dissatisfaction with your child’s birth is linked to postpartum depression, so I felt compelled to address the issue of women feeling as if they had failed by having a child surgically.

I wrote this piece for Fit Pregnancy about how to come to peace—and even embrace—your birth story. I talked with Brooke Kyle, MD, an OB who delivered all three of her kids in the OR.

“I do feel like there are a lot of pressures in my community and nationally that make people feel like their birth is less worthy if they have to choose a c-section, like they’re less of a mother and they didn’t try hard enough,” Dr. Kyle told me. “I even feel those pressures because I aim for a vaginal birth in my practice and that’s what I’m known for. The goal for my patients is to get a vaginal birth, and that was the plan for myself, too.”

Yet childbirth is unpredictable, and many of the things we script out—delivering vaginally, opting for a home birth, going med-free—change.

(A quick aside: Childbirth can be traumatic. It’s important to recognize that many women have a difficult time, and that a bouncing bairn is not the only legitimate concern. Validating mothers’ conflicted feelings around childbirth and their birth story shows them that they’re valued, too—that their worth is not limited to bringing a child into the world at any cost.)

Kyle shared with me a few tips on how she kicked the disappointment of delivering via cesarean and came to love her birth story.

Did you feel disappointed in how your child’s birth went? (No judgment here.) How did you come to terms with it?

Love your postpartum body: My beautiful linea nigra

catherinemryan

How I loved my linea nigra and postpartum body. New moms, find a positive body image! Ten Thousand Hour Mama

New mothers find plenty of things to dislike about their bodies after delivery: lopsided boobs, stretch marks, a perma-pooch. Tabloids in the check out aisle highlight celebrities who managed to LOSE THE BABY WEIGHT IN 5 WEEKS! (and shame the women who take longer—not that it’s anyone’s business). Despite these changes, I managed to love my postpartum body and find a positive body image—by appreciating my linea nigra. Read more →