Same-Sex Households
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Mrs._F
sahm ~ toddler breastfeeder ~ cloth diaperer ~ baby wearer

Re: PCP/TTC/ATP Wednesday
QOTD suggestion: Do you think your family and close friends will be "on board" with your parenting practices? If you are already parenting, have you had any family or friends judge decisions you've made?
Blogs: Our Growing Family - CT Working Moms



I just posted on LGBT about touring the hospital yesterday. All in all I liked the hospital. There were a few aspects I wish were different but the Catholic thing wasn't an issue at all. And I'm not worried in the least about K being treated as an equal parent.
I'm starting to look more pregnant than fat and fewer and fewer pairs of work pants are fitting. I'm hoping to avoid buying anything new until after I return from CA so I can go straight to fall/winter wear instead of having to get summer cloths for CA (it was 100+ at my parent's last week).
I'm ready for everyone to know about this baby so I can start sharing more of the excitement with people.
QOTD: I think so. I'm sure K's mom will drive me crazy with advice about what worked for her 40+ years ago. But if we tell them we're doing delayed vaccines or something I don't think anyone would be an uproar.
CT, I love this QOTD
. C and I have talked about this a few times. I don't know how vocal people will be, but we know that some of our family will think we are nuts/wrong with some of what we do. We are hoping to do some kind of cloth diapering, and we definitely lean towards attachment parenting styles of babywearing, cosleeping (in a co-sleeper by our bed), and breastfeeding for as long as I can. Some of our family will be supportive of some things (my mom breastfed my youngest brother until he was two, and used a cosleeper when he was an infant), but I know we'll get some flack. We have already noticed some big differences in philosphies when certain family members have made comments about other people's parenting. So we are very interested to see how it all unfolds! 
Update: 10 weeks today!!! I am really excited to be in the double digits, and only 2 weeks away from our next midwife appt and first ultrasound! I continue to need lots of rest, so my life pretty much revolves around sleep and navigating my food aversions... Oh, the food aversions! Some days, it feels like I don't like anything. I can barely choke down former favorite foods. And I get full really quickly, and then hungry shortly after, so I have to keep finding things to eat!! I'm really hoping for these aversions to get better soon, as I feel like I am always struggling to feed myself.
In other news, my belly is getting bigger! I joked with C the other morning - "What if there's two in there???" I can still hide it with loose-fitting clothes, but I am going to be pretty obvious, pretty soon at this rate. It's tough finding outfits for work, but C and I both love looking at my growing belly at home
sahm ~ toddler breastfeeder ~ cloth diaperer ~ baby wearer
We seem to be coming to the end of our rediculously long licensing process...our file has been officially submitted for licensure and we've been told to expect placement within the next 3-4 weeks. Yahoo, right? except, i cant bring myself to be happy about it. at all. i know this is self preservation, but i've actually felt really sad since I've found out and the days seem to be dragging worse than ever. ugh.
QOTD: While I dont necessarily think our family and friends will be mean/judgemental when it comes to our parenting practices, i'm guessing we may get the side eye for a few of our non-conventional ideas. So far everyone seems to be onboard with our CD and organic baby food plans (although one friend did mention his disgust for cloth diapering...just before I mentioned that this was our plan....). But, the few times I've mentioned my preference for delayed/reduced vaccine schedules, I was met with some resistance. And you should have seen my mom's face when I mentioned teaching a toddler to sign....I have a feeling its going to be interesting!
Blogs: Our Growing Family - CT Working Moms



Not too much to report here. 20 weeks, so I'm halfway there... which is just crazy! I'm feeling bigger movements in there, which is really neat. It appears that morning sickness is really over. HALLELUJAH!
Next week is the big ultrasound. Otherwise, just trucking along!
QOTD: I don't think anyone will be too judgy. My parents are old hippies and very "go with the flow", and are happy as long as we are happy and the babe is happy/healthy/thriving. His parents are across the country, so I don't think it will even come up much.
As for our friends, they all know I lean towards organic, "green", natural practices... so none will be surprised that I plan to BF as long as possible or that I'm trying to buy organic baby items when possible or even (I think) that we want to do a delayed vaccination schedule. Actually I was more surprised at Trav's complete agreement, without any need for case building, to the delayed vaccinations. Lol. So that was good.
Maybe I don't have a heightened sense of smell, but I've never smelled any vagina on my pants. -- TSD
Bloggity Blog - You know you want to...
We practice attachment parenting pretty much. I babywear, we cosleep (we actually accomadated our bed for her) I plan to BF as long as possible.
My parents are really on board with things. My dad actually wore Annie once when we were out visiting and I think he would again. They weren't too sure about things when I talked about them, but when they see how well Annie is doing they totally support it.
My IL's are not on board. It is actually to the point I out and out lie to my MIL. She asks if Annie is in her crib, I say yes. I am just not into fighting about it. She has gone behind my back a couple of times and I have had to put her in her place as grandmother and NOT mom. She actually fed Annie applesauce and pears when she was 2 1/2 months old. I went over the edge. She just believes the way she raised her kids 40 years ago is right and that there is no other way. I have to constantly make sure she does things the way Carol and I want. Like in no way do I let Annie cry it out. She is above all way too little for that still , and two... I do not want her to go through that. It took a lot of times of her starting to fuss and me going to her immediately for her to realize if she wanted to hold her granddaughter she had better get to her before I did. I think I did a pretty good job in training her
). I am sure we will continue to battle, but it comes down to I am mom and what I say goes.
Wow that was long and kind of venty. My only other update is teething sucks. I wish babies didn't have to go through it.
~Kennedy
What sling/carrier do you use and would you recommend it? I registered for a Belle Baby carrier and a Mei Tai. I feel like I'll use the Mei Tai a lot more, and Trav would be more comfortable with the more structured BB.
Also, sorry that your MIL is being such a chore about your choices as a parent, but big time kuddos on sticking to your guns and showing her that sorry, but you are the parents here.
Maybe I don't have a heightened sense of smell, but I've never smelled any vagina on my pants. -- TSD
Bloggity Blog - You know you want to...
Filling out sperm bank paperwork today. Woohoo.
QOTD: I had some kickback from my mom when I had R, and that was when I was pretty much following everything to her specifications. She still managed to do some things (Coke in a bottle, at 6-9 months, for example) that sent me through the roof, but my authority was pretty much ignored. I am much older this time and plan on doing a lot of things differently, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Luckily, I live further away, too, so it shouldn't be a battle too often. I think my MIL will be pretty good. The other grandkids are all high school age or older, so we might be doing a lot of strange new-fangled stuff (like breastfeeding and cloth diapers - !) so we'll see how it goes.
I actually worry most about one of my close friends. While we both plan to cloth diaper, breastfeed, babywear, etc., she can be really judgmental. Like making comments about how stupid anything but prefolds + covers are, or how women who have trouble breastfeeding are stupid. She's also pro corporal punishment (we've already had that disagreement!) and she didn't vax at all, so on some things we are coming from total opposites.
I think that for the most part our family and close friends will be "on board" with our parenting practices. We're definitely going to do bfing and baby led weaning, co-sleeping/bedsharing, babywearing, CDing, etc. My mom did most of those with me and my sister and my Nana is super supportive. There may be comments or questions for friends, but my knowledge of baby's surpassed most of our friends who don't have kids and the friends who do/will have kids will most likely be similar or at least non-judgemental.
My update is that I'm in my first tww and it's a lot more preoccupying that I thought it would be. I think we had pretty good timing but less than ideal technique. I had a good acupuncture session on Monday (the afternoon after insem). I'm still hoping that school and our trip to OK will keep me distracted, but I'm constantly wondering what's going on in there!
Ella is doing well. We are tired and not looking forward to being pretty much on lock down for RSV season (oct-apr). Ella has a dr appointment on Friday and I think she gets her synergis shot for RSV if she got insurance aproval. I hope so since there is already RSV being seen in the children's ER. We are going apple picking tomorrow so hopefully the weather is nice. I need to get out of the house and do something fun. EI is coming tomorrow morning an we are making a plan. I am excited that we will be getting the case coord. we saw for the eval. she was really nice and I think we will get along well. I actually can't wait for services to start. I am not excited about her dev. delays but want to start working on them.
I don't forsee any issues with family about how we parent Ella. I think since she is a preemie everyone has sort of stepped back and is letting us do our own thing. We can always blame it on the doctors and nicu so even if it is just the way we want to do it we have a "cover".
I love reading all of these updates!
My ILs are actually great and respect the way we raise the kids. L has 2 sisters who have 8 kids between them and haven't done such a great job of parenting in a lot of respects, so anything we do looks good.
My dad likes to tell me all about how spanking worked for me (we don't spank) and how I was so quiet and good that they could take me to fancy restaurants at 4y at 11pm at night. Well, my kids are....well, kids. There is no way we'd make it through a fancy multi-course meal and we stick pretty closely to bedtimes. They do fine in restaurants that are appropriate for them - but we aren't going to threaten them into submission.
My father also thinks that the grandparents role is to spoil (aka go against our wishes) and this drives L NUTS. He'll give them candy even when we say no, he buys the biggest trucks when we say we have enough, he tells them they don't have to go to bed when we say they do. Thankfully, we only see them 2x a year for a few days at a time. Otherwise this would be a HUGE issue.
But at our visit last month, he did say that the boys were "wonderful" and we were doing a really good job with them.
love the updates. nothing new here!
QOTD: I have no idea. I haven't really considered it, but now...eek.
Dropping by (late) super quickly to say we are all doing well, I'm just crazy-busy at work and haven't been on here much.
We had our first growth scan yesterday, and it was AWESOME. So cool to see how big they've gotten, and we got to see a lot of detail, like all 4 chambers of each of their hearts! They are both measuring on track (one is 2 days ahead, the other measured exactly 15w4d), and are both 5 ounces now. Yay!
IUI #3 gave us the best 2nd anniv. gift ever: 2 babies! (born 03/09/10)
Peanut and Little Man are getting so big! 2 years old already!
finally blogging again at This Will Be: An Adventure
I'm a day late but we've decided to start the baby fund.
DW has also brought up the option of finding a donor to provide fresh sperm and doing ICI's for awhile. I'm not so sure about this option (costs of having him tested, lawyers to draw up all the necessary paperwork, etc.), it makes me nervous.
Two Mommies Healing Hearts
ok, it is so not wednesday any more. i blame it on my crazy week.
we're doing pretty good. we had an appointment with the ob yesterday. her belly is measuring a little small this week, but the ob said she wasn't concerned especially since we just had the appointment last week with the other ob and all the measurements then were good. we're thinking he's finally turning and that's what's causing it since he seems to be lying horizontally right now instead of vertically like he has been.
tomorrow she'll be 35 weeks pregnant with 35 DAYS left! omg, so crazy! we'll be in her hometown for a shower there--heading up tonight and back on sunday morning.
qotd: i don't think we'll have any issues, other than her brother and his wife of course. my brothers both have kids and my parents are really respectful of their rules and what they do and never second guess them in front of the kids. knowing my parents they'll be the same with us. we've had some discussions with her parents and they seem on board with everything we've talked to them about. i imagine we'll be pretty similar to how one of my brothers and his wife are with their kids, and i don't forsee anything that our sisters would have any issues with. i suppose we won't really know until we get there!