Long story short—the process was the same—IVs, screaming, tears—but this time 3 injection sites instead of 1. It was an outpatient procedure, and we were home the same day. The whole process went a little smoother (on mom and dad’s end anyway) because we knew what to expect.

Infertility can put you in a dark place, and it can rear its ugly head when you least expect it. Mother’s Day should have been the perfect time to celebrate my own loving mother and wonderful mother-in-law, but living far away from family then had me feeling selfish.

Perhaps if I hadn’t been so confident, I might have heard the discussion about the amount of pain that comes with a C-section. My post is not meant to scare anyone. But I’m hoping that by sharing my experience with pain, those of you who go through a C-Section are a little better prepped for the pain than I was.

When you’re struggling with infertility, babies enter your mind countless times a day. And not just in the jealousy of seeing a new mom pushing a stroller, or the countless pregnancy announcements on Facebook. Your whole future seems blurry and full of what-ifs. The size of your family quietly creeps into daily decisions.

It’s okay to cry.  It’s okay to be angry, to feel betrayed by your own body.  It’s okay to feel bitter when your friends share miraculous stories about getting pregnant on the first try.  It’s okay to sit quietly as one of your friends complains about their pregnancy, and then excuse yourself to go sob silently in the bathroom.

We all know laughter is an amazing thing. It boosts our immune systems, alleviates pain, and reduces stress. So why don’t we do it more often? Why do we take ourselves so darn seriously?

When I ended the blog last time, I found myself sitting in the office of a pediatric rheumatologist with my 4-year-old daughter, whose knee was the size of a softball, wondering how in the world we ended up here. We had been through knee aspirations at the surgery center, specialists, testing, etc., with no answers yet. Did kids really get arthritis? Or–was it something worse?

March is National Nutrition Month and the perfect time to think about ways to improve your family’s eating habits. We can always do better when it comes to feeding our children and ourselves. My husband and I have experimented with various ways of eating in the past, but now that we’ve added children into the mix, meals (and eating in general) have definitely changed.

All the reasons we really like this easy-to-make, grab-and-go recipe. And bonus: it includes everything from veggies to fruit (avocado) to whole grains to protein! We call it “Not your Grandma’s Chicken Salad” since we’re replacing the often-used mayo with savory avocado.

Back to sleepless nights…this time for completely different reasons. Even though we may not get eight continuous hours of sleep in the foreseeable future, an optimal wake-up time is still within our reach. An optimal wake-up time? Let me introduce SmartWake by Verlo.