Introductions!

[scraphappy-Red]

Finally!!! :

I'm Michelle...
-Married to DS for eight years (met in college)
-Mom to three great kids
-Getting ready to 'really' start homeschooling this fall...but am mostly an unschooler
-Due around 4/4 but I ovulated late so I think it will be closer to 4/10
-Wanted to get pg, but now that I actually am...I keep thinking...ahhh "What was I thinking? Am I crazy????"
-Currently searching for a midwife...send good vibes.

I can't wait to read everyone's intro's!!!

[Jude-a-buddies-mom]

Hi,

I'm Michelle also
I've been married for 10 years to the best hubby ever
I have a 4 and 2 year and this 3rd baby was a surprise : Due 4/9
I am also a homeschooling mama, mostly Montessori and Charlotte Mason.
I have my own home daycare and I am not quite sure how that will work out during the pregnancy and afterward but we'll see.
I was blessed to have a HBAC last time and I am planning another homebirth I already have my midwife picked, I just need to tell her.

Can't wait to get to know all of you and congratulations!

[lisa_nc]

I am Lisa.

I have two great kiddos who are seven and five and I have been a gestational surrogate to twins twice. This is OUR baby and will (really!) be my last pregnancy. As much as I love being pregnant, this will be the seventh child to pass through my womb in seven years, so I am trying to savor every moment of this last time. That being said, we are very excited to be planning a homebirth : after my twin VBAC in February. We're not finding out the sex or getting any ultrasounds at all. Anyone else going as non-medical as possible?

We homeschool our kids (although my DD wants to try Kindergarten desperately, so I suppose I will let her start this year) and I work (mostly from home) as a real estate agent. I am also a doula, but not practicing a ton right now. I've been married to my husband, who is active duty Marine Corps, for almost nine years and he is (sadly) getting ready to deploy for 12+ months a few months before the baby is due. I am hoping that he will be able to webcam for the birth and if he can, we have already said that we would like for him to find out the sex first and then tell me. I don't know how practical that is, but it's worth a try.

According to fertility friend, I am due April 5th. And now I have talked too much. LOL!

[lynxeyedkat]

Hi ladies!

I'm Katherine. DH and I have been married for a year and (almost) a half. We've been together for five and a half years, and friends since 1998 (met at camp in middle school).

We're THRILLED to be expecting our first. I can't wait to be an AP mama!

Lisa, we're planning a homebirth and trying to do this as un-medically as possible. We'll see how all of that goes, this being our first go-around and me learning to stand up for myself.

[Sundance_11]

I'm Melanie
-Married to DH, Mario since Dec '07
-We have a DD, Emily, born May '07
-I live in New Brunswick, Canada
-I'm a SAHM, was working on my BSc in animal science before DD #1, will finish it one day
-I'm a country girl who is learning to do as much as I can on my own (produce and preserve much of our own food, make clothes and diapers, etc.)
-I will hopefully homeschool when my DC are older (DH doesn't want to though, but I'm working on him!)
-Will be having a hospital birth (because of blood clotting disorder), with an OB (because there are no midwives in NB yet). I would love a homebirth with a midwife though, but I'll just dream about it!

Ok, that's all for now (wow, that was a lot of brackets!)

Melanie

[smocklets]

Hello!
I am Gen, married for 10 years. We have three kids- 9yo dd, 7yo ds and 4yo ds. We also homeschool and we love Charlotte Mason!

[iana703]

Hi I am Iana.

I have been married to DH for a year! Our anniversary is Aug. 30. We were engaged for 3.5 years before we got married.

We have one DD who will be 2 on Aug. 21st. I cannot believe my baby is going to be two in a few weeks .

If AF doesn't show up tomorrow, this baby will be due April 16th. It was a surprise pregnancy but we were planning on being pregnant this year. I had just hoped to be down to my goal weight before we got pregnant. It's ok though because I am 35lbs lighter then when I got pregnant with DD!

I am a doula and student midwife. Things have been slow though, I have one client a month now. Just had a little boy born last night!

DD was a natural birth in the hospital with a midwife and doula, great birth only 7.5 hours. I am hoping that the next one will be a home waterbirth. Considering a UC but I want my doula there so I may just have my midwife attend because I just love these women. I am also trying to go as un-medical as possible, no tests or ultrasounds so this baby will be a surprise. I hope its another girl, everything we own is pink but we will take whatever God gives us!

[ms.shell]

Hi mamas (and mamas to be)!
I'm Michelle. Dp is Matt. We have been together 2 years (tho we were friends growing up and have known each other 15+ years) and will be getting married eventually, lol. We are thinking maybe Christmas eve. I have 1 ds who is 6.5 yo, about to start 1st grade. this will be Matt's 1st baby, altho he is already a dad; he has helped me so much w ds and calls him his son. (DS biological father has no contact w ds).
I work from home pt and will be going back to school full time starting in 2 weeks.
I have always been very ap with ds, who naturally weaned around age 4. Am going to need some help converting dp to the ap mindset- hoping he'll sign up here and learn some stuff before this babe is born. As it stands now he is very opposed to late nursing and cosleeping and has said some things about me and ds being a little too attached. He is a really great guy tho and certainly wants the best for his babe, so I am going to assume he will come around.
We lost twins at 16 weeks in december, and this was the hardest thing i have ever been through, so i am pretty nervous this time around. looking forward to our ultrasound next week. i must admit i am really hoping to see only one baby this time.
Hope everyone has a great day today and i hope to get to know you all well.

[Degas]

- Second baby, fourth pregnancy (two early miscarriages).
- Married for 7 years
- Wanted to get pregnant but also wanted to wait a few months, but this is a welcome surprise
- Work full time, but will probably SAH when baby is born
- Deciding on midwife

I'm going non-medical, and no interventions as much as possible. I would love to UC, but I'm not quite there yet as far as being comfortable with it. I would *love* to have a homebirth with a midwife just be in the other room though and let me do my thing though. My last birth was totally over medically managed and a lot of interventions.

My husband is a little freaked out about everything - to him a hospital birth is "normal," since he has never met anyone who has had a homebirth. But he's learning about it and accepting that it is what I need. I've got to get him to watch the Business of Being Born!

[stiles' mummy]

Hello to all my fellow DDC members

I'm Sharon. Married for (gulp) 11 years to my High School Sweetheart.

We have one son who just turned 5 in June. He has been pleading for a sibling for over a year now:

Live in Toronto, Ontario. I work full time as a Marketing Manager, but may decide to stay home and be a full time SAHM when my maternity ends.

I had a very large fibroid whilst pregnant with my son. Because of that I had a few extra ultrasounds. Will absolutely find out the sex of this baby when I get my ultrasound. Although I've been having dreams of a little girl (with my son, I kept dreaming about a little boy). Who knows?

this was kind of an "opps" baby. I was on the fence for so long about adding another child to our family. My dh wanted another very soon. But..have to admit I was so hoping that the pregnany test I took would be positive!! Truth be told. I knew waaay before I took a test that I was pregnant. I also knew when I was with my son.

[secondimpression]

I'm Emily.
Just got married on 7/23 and found out we were expecting on 7/27, talk about timing! I'm due with our first on April 10th and am going 100% unassisted for pregnancy and birth. We lost a baby last year and are both excited to tears to be expecting again. Since we're going UP/UC and first babies in my family and DH's tend to go overdue, we're waiting to tell our families and will probably tell them the baby isn't due until May. I'm sure we'll have enough to keep us worried without everyone else getting us worked up as well. Oh, we also concieved this baby less than a week before our shotgun wedding, so it also gives our families time to digest their new DIL/SIL before dropping the grandbaby bomb on them

[CatholicBFMama]

Hello ladies!
I'm Aimee, pregnant with my second child and due April 14. DH and I have been married a little over 3 years and have a daughter who will be 2 in September (wow, how time flies!).
We didn't find out the sex with her, but we haven't decided if we want to this time around or not.
We are hoping for a water homebirth with the same midwives who attended my first birth at a freestanding birth center. Now that we have a house instead of a tiny apartment we have space for the tub!
I'm hoping for a boy this time around, but I would be thrilled with another little girl, too.

[dex_millie]

Hi,

I am dex_millie
Married for 4 years (oh gosh, I just remember our Anniversary it was Aug. 1st, I guess we both did forgot, we was on vacation and just got back today, due to a very long delay and an overnight stay in maimi)

I was suppose to get my period down there and I didn't. So I just checked 5 minutes ago and it seems like I am pregnant. DH doesn't even know as yet.

I am not sure what to think. It is 4 months earlier than I was planning too. I wanted to wean DS first around 2, then take out my silver in the teeth and do a gallbladder flush. I guess I will have to wait a next 3 years don't know.

I am feeling so so right now. As I didn't want to wean DS based on milk drying up but I guess that will help huh.

Nursing and being pregnant makes me nervous that it will increase my changes of a miscariage also and that I am losing a lot of vit. and Minerals. Sorry to right a book. I still am trying to make this feel real. I don't feel pregnant. I am not even sure when my EDT should be. I am thinking my last AF was around June 22nd-25th. I was just getting back into NFP but being lazy about it.

So I guess I will be seeing everyone around.

[katiedidbug]

I'm Katie, married to Dh for three years. We have one DS, Atticus, who is 21 mos. We live in MO, and are planning an HB. I'm active in LLL and other AP groups in the area.
I'm a part-time Journalism high school teacher; I do the yearbook and newspaper. I'm hoping that this upcoming school year will be my last, since I'll have two LOs.

[JenMidwife]

I'm Jen

-I'm 29

-married to dh for 9 years

-mom to Erin who was born on 8/16/06 (same month as scraphappy-Red's Madeleine!)

-this is my 3rd pregnancy (we lost our son Owen on 3/22/08 @ almost 23 weeks, see the link in my siggy for the story if you're interested)

-due around 4/9/09 by LMP (dd was born @ 41+3 weeks so I don't pay much attention to my due date! )

-planning another hb (though Owen was born in the hospital w/ an epidural & I have a great OB if I need to go that route)

- can't decide if we'll find out the gender of this babe. We didn't w/ dd & it was just the best surprise ever! We did w/ ds, who we lost, & that was actually a really good experience, knowing he was a boy. Now I'm really hoping to have another boy (though of course will be okay w/ a girl), so I can't decide if it would be better to be surprised or find out

-dh & I used to live in Australia. I'm a direct-entry midwife there, but when we moved back to the US, my qualifications didn't transfer so I went back to school (AGAIN!) & have just become a RN

[wobblykate]

I'm Kate, 28, married to Nathan for less than a year (our anniversary is 9/22). We've been together 8 years. The baby's due on 4/2. I'd love to hit 4/5, my dear nephew's birthday. We're planning on finding out the sex of the baby as soon as possible. I hope to give birth ( in the nurse-midwifery birth center with my cousin as midwife. We planned this pregnancy, but didn't expect it to happen as quickly as it did!

We have one cat and a great roommate (who is almost as excited about the baby as we are). We also have a band and a garden. I plan on doing as much sewing for the baby as possible, including diapers. We're going to try and do things low-impact, environmentally and financially speaking, and use mostly hand-me-downs and used items.

:::

[acp]

I'm Amanda. I have a daughter who's 14 months, and was pretty surprised to discover that I was pregnant last week. We were planning on trying in a few months, and so I went off the mini-pill several weeks ago and we weren't being super careful - but I thought I'd probably get AF back first! I'm still nursing, and plan to continue for a while, but don't think I'm up for tandem nursing.

Since there was no PP AF, I don't know the exact due date, but I'm guessing around April 10 or 11.

I'm torn on where to give birth. IL is a difficult state for HBs, with VERY few providers, and no birth centers. So last time I used a midwife in a hospital and had a great all-natural birth, despite a long back labor, and LOVED my midwife.
I have a great relationship with her and would like to use her again, but I also think this is likely to be our last child, and I've always wanted a HB. I think I'll at least interview the two HB options I have.
We didn't find out the gender last time, but I promised DH that this time we would (he really wanted to last time).

What else? I'm 33, and work fulltime as a journalist, mostly from home. I love my job, but after this next baby I'd love to cut down to 3 or 4 days a week, but don't know if it will be feasible. Any other working mamas here?

[carolhagan]

Hello all!

I am Carol
-Momma to two boys (5&7)
-We were TTC for four years and FINALLY got pregnant
-I had two unnecessary c-sections and will be planning a UBAC with this baby
-I am a doula/childbirth educator
-My husband is in the Navy, and we have been married for eight years.
-We will not be finding out the gender, or getting any ultrasounds.

[Bexo]

Pregnant with Baby #2

Hi Ladies,

My husband and I just found out we're expecting baby #2 : ! We currently have a son who is 10 months old. I am still nursing him. We had a wonderful birth with our first son with a midwife at a free standing birth center. We plan to go the same route again. It looks like I'm due around April 11th I am also currently training to become a birthing instructor teaching the Bradley Method :-)

Can't wait to hear everyone's introductions!

~Rebecca
: : : : :

[iluvmybabies]

My name is Kirstin and I am pregnant with # 3! I have 10 yo boy and a 2 yo girl! I am still nursing my dd and am planning to try and tandem nurse. I am currently trying to talk my dh into a homebirth, but he is not quite convinced-because the closest hospital is 25 miles away and that freaks him out a bit. I have hyperthyroidism and need to be monitored somewhat during my pregnancy so I can't go completely medical-free but my ob is AWESOME!
I had an insanely fast unmedicated birth last time in the hospital so I am a little nervous that this one will just come flying out like the last one- but I will be prepared this time!