Expecting Rainbow

This week I welcomed one of my closest mom friends to the show, Emily McConnell. I wish we could say we met at a “mommy and me” class or that our kids went to the same daycare, but no, we met because our children died. We were mom friends before we had living children to show the world, mom friends through PAL, and now mom friends who are parenting after loss. Tod ay, Emily shares about her daughters Margaret and Elyse, what it was like to go through a PAL during a pandemic, and the importance of counting kicks. Resources mentioned in this episode:Read more about Margaret's story on Emily and Dustin's blog at https://www.stillourmaggie.com/ Learn more about Count the Kicks at https://countthekicks.org/If you are currently pregnant, download the free Count the Kicks app, available for both iOS and Android, to keep track of your baby's kicks! Use this app every day during your third trimester of pregnancy to track your baby’s movement patterns. Be sure to alert your provider immediately if you notice significant changes in your baby’s movements.

March is Pregnancy After Loss Awareness month! In this episode, I briefly share how I wanted to feel more control over my rainbow pregnancy and why I decided to do things differently.

I'm proud to welcome my very first guest, Kate Joseph, who is a mother of three beautiful boys. We cover a lot of topics, including her experience going through pregnancy after loss (both planned and unplanned), experiences with great MFM's and some doctors who could do better, trying our best to ensure our earthside babies know their siblings.Visit Kate's blog at https://hellocade.wordpress.com/

In this episode, I talk about what it was like to TTC after Steven's death and thoughts I had deciding to get pregnant again after loss.

We got some sad news about my grandma last week and I've been processing what it means to lose loved ones and how that has affected me.

My rainbow baby Everett's first birthday is coming up this weekend, and I wanted to share some of the thoughts I've been processing as we get ready to celebrate.I didn't mention this in the episode, but I have had moments of overwhelm thinking of how to best celebrate Everett's birthday and I keep wondering, am I doing enough? Because there is so much I want to do to show him how grateful I am that he's here. But ultimately, there is no better way I can think of spending his birthday than for us to enjoy his presence, to play his favorite toys with him, to watch him entertain himself with the springy doorstop, and to watch him experience his first bite of cake. So here's to your first year, babe, we're going to have such a fun day. Happy birthday, my son!

In this episode, I talk about why I struggled with the phrase "rainbow baby" and why we need to be thoughtful when using this phrase.