Blog
January 07, 2013
Dear Matthew,
This is the story of your birth, from my perspective as your parents doula:
Contractions started early Friday morning, about 1:30am. After a bit your mommy woke your daddy up and then called me around 3am. I was so excited to hear you were on your way! I told your mommy to try to sleep as much as possible to save her energy and to call me when she wanted me to come. Around 4:45am your mommy called me back. She had some bloddy show and was too uncomfortable to sleep - every time she did get comfortable, a contraction would start. I packed up my stuff and started for your house.
I arrived about 6am. Desty barked when I knocked on the door which woke up your daddy. Your mommy was doing a great job coping with the contractions. She learned on the birth ball, or got on her hands and knees while using deep relaxed breathing. I rubbed her back a little bit and hooked up the TENS unit for her to use. We relaxed in the living room watching the news and patiently waiting for
December 20, 2012
Earlier this month, our Ergobaby "Elves" were thrilled to be a part of Santa’s Secret Workshop presented by Bill Horn and Scout Masterson. We got to mingle with fans and all for a good cause! In the giving spirit of the holidays, the event benefited L.A. Family Housing, whose mission is to help families transition out of homelessness and poverty through a continuum of housing enriched with supportive services.
[caption id="attachment_4744" align="aligncenter" width="819"] A lovely pregnant Malin Akerman
December 13, 2012
Dinner. Dishwashing. Christmas cookies. And … cue the chaos!
My days were going something like this:
Hold baby on hip and collect bowls one-handed. Perform world record juggling act that will never be recorded.
Switch baby to other hip and get ingredients from the pantry. Take two trips because I can’t carry them all at once.
Put baby in bouncy seat to rummage through freezer.
Soothe baby’s crying. Back to the freezer. Pick baby back up.
Attempt to hold baby while cracking eggs into bowl. Wipe up spilled egg.
Hold baby and bowl with one hand while stirring with other. Wipe up spilled batter.
Put baby down to spoon doughballs onto cookie sheets. Put baby’s binky back in about eighty-seven times.
And on. And on. Cookie baking was quickly becoming a world-class mess. And dinner prep was taking forever and it was just quesadillas!
I needed a new recipe for cooking with a baby in the house!
I was missing the main ingredient – my baby
December 07, 2012
I see scary carseat/shopping cart situations all the time. I know you must see it too. Perhaps you're even in the habit of placing your baby’s carseat on top of the cart when you’re shopping.
Way back in the late 90's when my oldest son was a toddler, I saw a woman's baby fall off the cart at the drug store. I can still remember the sound that kid's head made when it hit the floor. She scooped him up and ran out with him while the store manager ran out after her. I don't know what happened after that but I remember being horrified by what I had just seen (and heard). That experience stayed with me and from that day on I have always been super-conscious about how my kids were secured in shopping carts. However, I am obviously in the minority because far too often I witness dangerous shopping cart situations. Sometimes I'll say something - in the nicest way I can, of course. But giving unsolicited advice to strangers can be more dangerous than playing in New Delhi traffic, so usually I
November 29, 2012
The number of LGBT parents in this country is growing – and many people in the LGBT community have become parents through adoption. When looking into adoption as a path to parenthood LGBT people examine the same choices as straight parents do: domestic agencies, international adoption, foster care with possibility to adopt. The difference is that the legalities of same-sex couples adopting varies state to state with some states passing legislation prohibiting same-sex couples from petitioning jointly to adopt a child. These obstacles prevent kids in need being paired with loving homes. The good news is that more and more people are realizing that LGBT people can make wonderful parents and as public opinion changes, so will the laws - opening the doors for more kids to find a stable, loving and permanent home.
My partner and I decided I would carry and birth our two children – yet adoption is still a part of our parenting story - because we are lesbians. Even though we both equally wished
November 28, 2012
I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to be mom to three little ones. Two came from my body, where they grew inside me, heard my voice and knew how I moved. I ‘wore’ them for 40 weeks before I ever saw their faces. My third child I met in an orphanage in Ethiopia. The first time I held him I loved him, but to him, we were strangers. Welcome to the world of adoption.
Just like many people who have adopted, somewhere in there we always knew that we would adopt. We assumed it would be down the road, maybe after our biological children had left the nest. But one day I clearly felt like God was saying "Why wait when those children are here now?" That was when I started doing a little research.
It's overwhelming to know where to begin. You can know that there are literally hundreds of millions of children that need parents, but how in the world do you know which one is yours?! Lots of prayer and discussion later we decided on Ethiopia. The process took a little over
November 14, 2012
When my husband and I started feeling the tug on our hearts to start a family, we couldn’t shake the feeling that God was nudging us to add children to our family through adoption, specifically international adoption.
We had no idea to where to begin. Where were we supposed to adopt? Every country has different guidelines, requirements and costs.
After months of late-night adoption and orphan care research and lots of prayer, we were discouraged and confused. We firmly believed in adding to our family through adoption, but we didn't understand why and couldn't figure out how to do it. We were just 22 and a completely ordinary young couple from the middle of Iowa.
Thinking international adoption wasn't meant to be, we still believed that caring for orphans was going to be an important part of our lives.
We looked into foster care, but at the time the door was shut. We looked into being house parents at a home for pregnant teens, but felt pulled in a different direction. We even
November 09, 2012
Congratulations to Carolyn Bookholt of Sykesville, MD, her "Anchors" carrier was selected as the Grand Prize winner of our Design Ergobaby's Next Carrier Contest!
Congratulations to Elizabeth Goertz of Wichita, KS, her "Pink & Grey Chevrons" carrier was selected as the First Prize runner up.
And finally, congratulations
November 09, 2012
Have you ever noticed that it’s rare to find picture books with images of babies at the breast or cradled in a carrier? Stop by any bookstore and you’re bound to notice the omission. Though there certainly isn’t anything wrong with cribs and bottles, I’d also love to see more imagery of babywearing, cosleeping, and breastfeeding in children’s books…to help normalize these wonderful practices for little ones.
Illustrator Marla Frazee has done a particularly outstanding job in this category. Take, for example, “Everywhere Babies” – a book that features all of the amazing things that babies do – including being carried by their parents all around town. Written by Susan Meyers, the rhyming text is sure to immediately captivate young ones (and parents too).
November 07, 2012
I knew at age 19 that getting pregnant would not be an easy task. What should have been a routine appendectomy ended up costing me a fallopian tube. Not to mention the fact I had suffered from PCOS pretty much since the onset of puberty.
So when I married my high school sweetheart at 23, I didn’t want to waste much time before starting a family. I knew it wouldn’t come easy for us. We started seeing a reproductive endocrinologist for treatments shortly after our first anniversary. After 18 months of medications and procedures, all unsuccessful, we decided to take a break. During this break my husband and I discussed adoption. My sister had adopted twice from Korea and we couldn’t have loved those boys more. We looked into domestic and international adoption but realized we could not afford such a great expense. We went back to the fertility clinic after a short break and started our first IVF cycle. The medications involved made me very sick and the procedure did not work.