Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?
I live in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, a farming/manufacturing city of roughly 34,000 people. I did not grow up here but very close; half an hour away in a tiny town called Tweed with a population of 1,800 people. Everyone knew who I was growing up, not only because of the size of the town, but because my father was the manager of the liquor store (popular man). (more…)
Several years ago, when I was in college, my whole vision of my future was about making a career.
I wanted to be independent and free. I wanted to be free from my, at some point, pathological father and cold as a stone mother.
I wanted to achieve something on my own and be proud about it.
I went to London for a summer break and worked as a waitress 15 hours a day, barely knowing English. I went to Germany and worked installing hardwood floor. (I know!!!)
Very close to the last year at University, I already knew I was not going to use my degree, as it is useless. Mass Media Education. Go figure!
Anyway, I became involved in two radio stations. (more…)
Ewa was born, and raised in Poland. She graduated University with a master's degree in Mass-Media Education. This daring mom hitchhiked from Berlin, Germany through Switzerland and France to Barcelona, Spain and back again! She left Poland to become an Au Pair in California and looked after twins of gay parents for almost 2 years. There, she met her future husband through Couch Surfing, an international non-profit network that connects travelers with locals. Today she enjoys her life one picture at a time. She runs a photography business in sunny California and document her daughters life one picture at a time. You can find this artistic mom on her blog, Ewa Samples Photography, on Twitter @EwaSamples or on Facebook!
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I started this article many, many months ago, (and finished it a couple of months ago… only now do I feel ready to have it published). Perhaps, you know what it is like. You get the news, and you are just so excited and just want to shout it out loud!
But, as you are not supposed to say anything until week 12, I thought I’d put it into a blog post to be published at a later date. That way, I felt like I shared the news without giving away this “secret”, after all…
I wrote about how I discovered the news: (more…)
When I was younger I always envisioned myself with a large family. I thought for sure I’d be a mother of four. When my husband and I talked about starting a family, he seemed to dream about a large family, too. I am currently a mother of two little girls, ages 6 and 2.
A friend of mine asked me when my youngest daughter was only six months old if we’d be adding a third to our little family. I brushed the question off with, how could I possibly think of another baby when I was just pregnant 6 months ago?!
You know what it’s like, if you are dating someone everyone always asks you “when are you going to get married?” Then, when you get married they ask “when are you going to have a baby?” After you have a few kids, “when are you going to have another baby?” What’s the next round of questions after that?
Which brings me to my next question… when do you know you are done having children? (more…)
“You get a year of maternity leave?!”
Her tone, and rightly so, was incredulous. I – a Canadian – was in Washington, DC, speaking at a conference. I was six months pregnant and the topic of maternity leave, for some reason I no longer recall, came up during the Q&A.
In the hall afterwards I ran into one of the women who had attended my session, and, as she was a new mom, we got on to the topic of babies and maternity leave in Canada versus the US.
I didn’t know anything then about what having a newborn was like. I dreaded sleep deprivation (oh, how little I knew how much I should dread it) and was in awe that this new mom, her baby only six weeks old, was already back at work. After she described her new routine – sleepless nights, pumping at work, and all that fun stuff – I had to ask.
“How do you cope?!” (more…)
It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to me. Yet, two agonizing days after the birth of my first child I knew that things weren’t right. It had nothing to do with my brand new baby boy, Max. He was perfect.
The beautiful, full-head of dark brown hair and angelic dark blue-eyed newborn was healthy. No, he was everything I’d ever imagined him to be and more. Instead, it was me. There was something wrong. Terribly wrong.
I brought my new son home less than two days after a long, exhausting induced labor and was scared beyond belief to leave the hospital. I had never been around babies before.
I was almost thirty-three years old and had no idea how to even change a dirty diaper let alone breast-fed a baby. I was afraid to hold him, panicked when I heard him cry and felt unbelievably exhausted, sore, anxious and scared. (more…)
