Pieces of Anna

The story in my family goes that I did not sleep through the night until I was three years old. Whenever that story would come up, I would chuckle and comment on how I must have been a difficult baby. That was before I became a mother. Now that I have a baby of my own, I wonder how my mother survived those three years (answer: she had lots of help from her parents as three generations lived under one roof). The point is, before I had my baby, I was completely clueless about what it's like to be a mother. This was true even despite all the stories I'd heard about my own childhood, despite the stories my own friends shared with me. In the world of science, we talk about the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. I thought I had prepared myself somewhat for the known unknowns by reading a ton about pregnancy and childbirth, by taking childbirth and breastfeeding classes, and by mostly avoiding extreme parenting books. But then, there were the unknown unknowns. Which really c...

Parenthood has redefined the concept of time for me in so many ways. In those early sleep-deprived, hazy weeks, the days seemed so long. Getting through the day was so challenging, that I could not fathom being able to get through weeks, months of caring for an infant. Eight months later, the days are still long (though much more manageable). But the months are very, very short. I cannot believe that my baby is approaching the one-year mark, and her first birthday will be here before we know it. She is closer to toddlerhood than to her newborn days, she is starting to wean (a whole other blog post), and she is growing up so quickly that I find myself scrambling to pause and commit to memory the wonderful, fleeting moments we share together now. So, the cliche that the days are long but the years are short turned out to be true. But time has been altered for me in other ways as well. There are so many every day things that need to be done, items that need to be checked off the to-do l...

Before our daughter was born, we considered using cloth diapers instead of disposables. I did not know much about cloth diapering at the time, but I was inspired by this post at Young House Love. There is a ton of information out there on the different types of diapers, and there are even classes one could attend to learn about the different options. I found this 7-part video useful in figuring out what types of cloth diapers would best suit our family. Also, Amanda at Poppies and Ice-cream has a good overview of the cloth diaper options and some of the reasons for using them. CHOOSING CLOTH DIAPERS After educating ourselves about our options, we decided that we would go with the bumGenius Elemental All-In-One One-Size cloth diapers. We liked the ease of an all-in-one (AIO) diaper, since it requires no "assembly" or taking apart for laundry. We also liked that the insert inside the diaper was 100% organic cotton. I was also happy to find out that these diapers are mad...

Remember how I wrote about leaving my job and being a stay-at-home mom for the first year of my daughter's life? Well, things have changed a bit, and as of today, I am working from home as a freelance medical writer. Because I am still taking care of my baby full time, my freelance hours are very limited. Nevertheless, I believe this officially makes me a work-at-home mom! This opportunity came about when my old company that I left after giving birth offered me to work for them on a freelance basis. This was back in November, and I was not ready then. But they contacted me again in December, and this time I was up for it. This was mostly due to the fact that my daughter was sleeping through the night. I know, I have that unicorn baby that started sleeping 11 hours at night at the age of 3.5 months. But don't hate me yet because she is going through the infamous 4 month sleep regression now, and we are no longer sleeping through the night! Even though I am now sleep deprive...

Before our baby was born, we started getting ready for her arrival by spending tons of money on baby gear. We managed to get the basics before her early arrival, and caught up on the rest later. Though it's misleading to say that we "caught up" as we are still hemorrhaging money on baby stuff on a regular basis (my credit card statements look like this: Target, Amazon, Amazon, Target, Target, Netflix, Amazon, Amazon, Target, Amazon, etc). Here is my review of some of the "essential" baby items that we've purchased: Baby gear 1. One of the first items that we purchased was a crib. Keeping in mind our color scheme for the baby room (white/gray/turquoise/yellow), we decided that we wanted a white crib with a modern look to it. I searched for a crib that was made of solid wood (to avoid potential fumes from glue used in MDF) and had extra storage (as we live in a small place and always lack storage space). After much research, we decided to go with Bab...

If I had taken the "standard" 12 week, unpaid maternity leave that is available to (some) women in the United States, I would have been back at work by now. But, I did not qualify for maternity leave. Instead, I quit my job. How is it possible that I did not qualify for maternity leave? Well, under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a primary caregiver is entitled to 12 weeks unpaid leave under some circumstances, including a birth of a child, with a few caveats. One of those caveats is that you had to have worked at your current company for at least 1 year before taking leave. I was only there for seven months, so strike one against me. Individual states have their own maternity leave policies in addition to the FMLA. In Massachusetts, there is the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act (MMLA), which allows for 8 weeks of unpaid leave (woo hoo, how generous). My employer told me that to be eligible for MMLA, I had to have worked at the company for 6 months after the proba...

If there is one thing I learned during pregnancy, it's that we have so little control over how the body functions. At least, that was my experience. Everyone talks about the food cravings, but I hardly imagined how powerful those cravings would be. In the second trimester, once the nausea wore off, my body craved croissants on an almost daily basis. How convenient it was that my work was located around the corner from a delicious bakery! Anyway, I would like to talk about pregnancy weight gain, not my cravings for croissants. (I'm sure the two have nothing to do with each other...) According to the Babycenter website, I should have expected to gain an average of 25 to 35 pounds over nine months, almost all of it in the second and third trimester, and the weight gain was supposed to be more or less linear. That is not what happened. What happened was this: True to my nature, I charted my weight gain throughout pregnancy. During the first trimester, I lost a couple of p...