Family leave is important!

This past week, General Mills was all over the news in the Twin Cities. Not for a cool new cereal, but because they overhauled their family leave policies to better support their employees. Instead of 3 months maternity and 2 week parental leave, now General Mills employees are eligible for 18-20 weeks of paid maternity leave for a birth mother and 12 weeks paid leave for partners and adoptive parents…how amazing is that?? This news, along with the fact that it’s Labor Day weekend, got us thinking about parental leave policies in general and why they are so important.

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What should I pack in my hospital bag?!

At some point during your pregnancy, this becomes a frantic thought that spins around and around in your head. If you’re anything like Karen, you may be anticipating being in the hospital for the next several months and pack your entire house. Ok, so that was a little tongue-in-cheek (not really, just ask Zach), Karen really did pack far too much. Kristin was much more mindful of what was necessary while in the hospital, mostly because she obsessively read recommendations on what to bring.

Read on for our own recommendations – and let us know if we forgot anything you think is essential!

Postpartum Survival Guide

You had a baby! Congratulations! …now what?

Take it easy.

Take a minute and think about what your body just went through. You pushed a kid out of your body or had a c-section! It’s hard to force yourself to slow down and allow time to heal, but do it. I was probably 5 weeks postpartum and got really confident and started trying to go out and about like I did before baby. My body let me know REAL quick that I needed to cool it. I was sore again like I had been weeks before and my bleeding increased (I’d say TMI but whatever, we’re all adults here.). So listen to your body and allow yourself that time on your couch guilt-free.

Ellie’s Birth Story

I found out that I was pregnant in mid-September 2016. I could not wait to tell Zach. I took two pregnancy tests and did the first thing anyone does in this situation. I ran to Target and bought a box of Star Wars Lego and a box of fairy Lego. You see, I am married to an engineer who has a very large Lego collection – this was my version of pink and blue onesies to announce the pregnancy to my partner. Next, was announcing the pregnancy to our families. We’re Harry Potter fans as you can see from the picture below. Ellie’s name in utero was Dobby, we REALLY like Harry Potter. Here are our dogs letting the world know of our news.

Finn’s Birth Story

My due date was October 18th and that came and went very uneventfully. At my 40 week appointment with my OB we talked about scheduling an induction, and since I was definitely ready to be done being pregnant (oh, and meet this baby of course…) I agreed. We were scheduled for October 25th at 11am, and no surprise I couldn’t sleep the night before. Around midnight I realized I was cramping pretty regularly…”oh shit, I guess these are contractions!” Not convinced this was the real thing I stayed in bed for about an hour before getting up to fill up my water bottle in the kitchen and whoops! My water broke! (This is the thing I was told and read many times would not actually happen until I went into the hospital, but I guess I’m special that way)

Welcome!

Hi there! We’re new(ish) moms and when we were going through our pregnancies and new mommyhood we realized no matter how many books we read or googling we did we weren’t prepped for how weird and hard things could be. Morning sickness, weird pains (before and after birth!), breastfeeding, and feeling like we were going crazy – why didn’t anyone talk about this stuff more? Well here we are. Let’s talk about it.

Kristin & Karen

p.s. check out our intro posts here & here!