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Motherhood can do a number on a woman’s hair. Sure, it starts out great with the hormone boost during pregnancy – it’s thicker, fuller and shinier. Once baby arrives, though, it can change significantly in its texture, curl and volume. You might remember some post-baby showers when your once-glorious hair came out in handfuls and went down the drain (along with your hopes of a Pantene endorsement deal).

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Both my parents were teachers. There were lots of benefits to that, but you know what the BEST part was? That last day of school when they returned home with arms full of gifts from students. If you had asked me back then what the best gifts were, I would have said all the chocolate. But the actual teachers may have a different opinion. Here’s what I now think they REALLY want:

I don’t play the lottery very often. I have seen the odds and it barely seems worth it. 1/30,000 isn’t something that could happen to me, so I always brushed-off those odds. When you are told your baby has a rare chromosome abnormality, and that the odds are about 1/million, you learn to never assume those odds can’t happen to you. Receiving a rare diagnosis Nine months after my baby was born we were told she has Uniparental Disomy. This is, in a nutshell, when a person inherits 2 chromosomes from one parent, and none from the other. Rather than one of each. The clinical results can differ greatly depending on the chromosome affected. We had received prenatal genetic testing when I was pregnant and were told that it looked good, we moved forward thinking that the odds of our baby having down syndrome (which was the only genetic disorder…

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Every year around Mother’s Day, a huge fuss is made for Moms. You know, make sure Mom has time to put her feet up, send her flowers, go out to eat so she doesn’t have to cook, give Mom some time to herself, and so on and so on. Don’t get me wrong, as a Mom myself I definitely agree that Moms are deserving of all of these things and more! I’ve just found that not nearly as much of a fuss is made for Dad’s on Father’s Day, and I think there should be!