mental health Archives

Whether it’s your first baby or your 7th baby, adding a new child into your family can be stressful. There are a million things to consider, before, during, and after welcoming your new bundle of joy.

When we decided to try for baby number three, we knew that our family dynamic would forever change. There are certain things that would be nearly impossible to do with three young children — like our occasional dining out at restaurants with the kids. We knew we would have to be a takeout family, at least until all three children get a bit older.

But there are a host of other things that a person thinks about. Namely, how to properly prepare for bringing home a new baby.

And as a seasoned mom (wow, that’s still weird to say), I thought I’d share the list of things I’m doing to prepare for our new family member this time around.

1. Prepare your freezer with meals.

I made this mistake before baby number 2 — I failed to properly prep with freezer meals — and I felt it in the weeks after. This time around I’m stocking up my freezer with ready-to-bake casseroles and thaw-and-eat sandwiches that will make those first couple of weeks with a new baby run a bit more smoothly.

We’re currently 9 weeks out and I’m in full-on meal prep mode. Freezer space has been made and I’m using Pinterest to search for meals that will make a transition from 2 to 3 kids easy (just kidding – it won’t be easy — but it will be easier-ish?).

2. Consider cord blood banking.

As a first time mom, I was clueless about the benefits of cord blood banking and the peace of mind that comes with it. I learned that cord blood banking and Cord Blood Registry (CBR) have been around for over 20 years. Today, many conditions may be treatable with cord blood as a part of a stem cell transplant, including various cancers and blood, immune and metabolic disorders.* And a lot of research is being conducted to explore potential uses in the future. Most recently, a CBR funded study in partnership with researchers at Sutter Medical Center showed that a child’s own cord blood is even safe for children with autism! If you’re interested in learning more about the study and its findings click here and watch this video.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsXeBScRCSs&]

It’s advancements with trials like these that have made me confident in deciding that we will be using CBR once baby number three arrives. After realizing how potentially life-saving preserving your child’s newborn stem cells can be, it was really a no-brainer — Especially when I understood that other family members could potentially be use this resource.

After learning about the awesome potential in newborn stem cells, we have finally started the process of getting set-up with CBR (we’re only 3 months out from delivery, y’all!). If you’re interested in doing the same you just visit cordblood.com/enroll or call 888-240-1996 and CBR will ship you a collection kit. Be sure to take the kit with you to the hospital on your big day and then you call a medical courier after your baby is born. That’s it! Easy peasy!

The video also helps explain the process.

Cord blood: studying a potential treatment for children with autism

#AutismAwarenessMonth A prominent neurologist and autism researcher from Sutter Medical Center, recently published results from a CBR-funded clinical trial studying cord blood as a potential treatment for autism. Watch as Dr. Michael Chez discusses the trial and learn how CBR clients are helping to advance newborn stem cell science!

Posted by Cord Blood Registry on Wednesday, April 11, 2018

3. Have a pre-set support group you can reach out to when you need them.

Know who you’ll call if you need someone to run to the store for you; know who you can call with a question about nursing; know who you can call to take your other kid(s) for an hour or two; know who you can call to help you clean your house; and, most importantly, check with them because they will assure you that you can use them.

One of the things new moms (and seasoned moms) often forget is that it truly does take a village. And any mom knows this. If they offer you help, they mean it. I promise. So take them up on it because trying to prove you can ‘do it all’ will only leave you to suffer.

4. Load your Netflix queue!

I remember how naive I was before my first child was born 5.5 years ago. I didn’t fully understand how many hours I would spend half-awake in a 24-hour period. But I learned quickly that life with a newborn operates in a haze. And you will keep the TV on half-watching, half-feeding a tiny human, for far more hours than you can fully grasp.

I watched everything those first few months — Gossip Girl, Dexter, you name it. I went from shows I’d never even cared to watch to rewatching series I’d already finished. So for our second baby I spent a couple of hours just loading up my queue with things I really wanted to watch, to things I’d be content watching half asleep.

And I’m doing that again this time around. It’s inevitable that there will be a lot of late nights. And my good friend Netflix will be there through all of those late night feedings.

5. Grace.

Our third child is months away and I’m already prepared with grace. Grace in the sense that I’ll be giving it to myself by the boatload. I want all new mothers to understand that even though giving ourselves grace is one of the hardest things to do, it’s also one of the most important.

Having babies makes us realize, quickly, how little we truly have control of. I know that I will struggle with adjusting to life after giving birth again. And I know that the only way to recover and heal is by giving myself plenty of grace.

Learn more about CBR and cord blood banking by visiting here.

*See source here.

For as long as I can remember, I have had emetophobia. Emetophobia is classified as ‘a phobia that causes overwhelming, intense anxiety pertaining to vomiting. This specific phobia can also include subcategories of what causes the anxiety, including a fear of vomiting in public, a fear of seeing vomit, a fear of watching the action of vomiting or fear of being nauseated.’

And, for as long as I can remember, people have said things like “yeah, I don’t like vomit either.” Except, that isn’t it. That isn’t it at all.

Recently ScaryMommy shared a blog post regarding parenting with emetophobia. I immediately tagged everyone I knew in the comments as if to say “here. read this.”

It’s brought up a lot of dialogue in many circles. I’ve had to explain to people all of the ways this affects me — every. single. day. And I think it’s truly difficult for people to understand, so I figured I’d write about what it’s like living with emetophobia — the little things and all.

Here are some things that go through my head on a daily basis:

I have to sit at the window seat of an airplane, but not because I want to see out of the window. I just want to be furthest from the aisle — in case someone gets sick.

If I’m going to the movies, I’m always thinking about the potential for the people around me to throw up.
I cannot hear the word ‘puke.’ It is awful. I will always refer to it as vomit; and if I hear someone say puke several times I will politely ask them not to.
If someone (my kids, other peoples kids, anyone really) even looks like they are not feeling well, I will ask them over and over and over again if they have a belly ache.

Every place I go — whether it be the grocery store, preschool drop-off, using a public restroom, going out to dinner — the fear of someone getting sick or being sick is on my mind. Always.
In fact, if I’m somewhere and I hear that someone elses family member is sick/has been sick recently (even if they are not present), it will induce a serious anxiety — often resulting in me wondering if I’m starting to feel sick.

I carry Clorox wipes with me and use them far too frequently. I specifically keep them for shopping carts, but I do not trust hand sanitizer because it does not fight the germs that cause the stomach bug. You know what does? Bleach. Bleach will kill it. So I carry these bleach wipes with me just in case.

There is not a day that goes by where I do not think about my emetophobia. During the depths of ‘sick season,’ I can often be found with severe anxiety for days. It’s absolutely unhealthy.

ScaryMommy really summed it up with this:

Unlike many fears, emetophobia can easily affect a person’s everyday life and eventually become totally debilitating. Emetophobes are essentially afraid of their own body, and there’s no getting away from the possibility of getting sick. Anyone, at any time, could be carrying around a contagious stomach virus and not know it. Any food could be contaminated with food-borne illness. Most of us live our lives understanding those lingering possibilities, but don’t give them a second thought. And even if we do, we’re able to brush it off quickly.

My anxiety medicine certainly helps curb some of this; but the fear itself is deep-rooted in who I am. I will never be free of it — I just have good days and bad days. But please, please, keep in mind that people like me do exist — and there are far more of us than you likely know.

And their simple request for you to refrain from saying a word or talking about vomit does not go unwarranted — remember it may truly be causing them trauma unbeknownst to you.