Adoption, Fostering & Surrogacy

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Nesting 101: How to Prep for Baby (Without Losing Your Mind)

Phoebe Corcoran

What is a Surrogate? All You Need to Know

Cassidy Parker

What is Gotcha Day in Adoption?

Team Peanut

From the community

Recent discussions

Do people have children for themselves or for the child?

To clarify, because they want to be a parent & have a family, or because they want a new child to have life & experience the world

Do you think you'll have more children?

Baby rent pending.
Currently in the ER with my 6 year old and was talking to the registrar lady. Shes telling me how I need to give my daughter a sibling since she's my only child. This woman lost her son when he was 21, so I'm sure it came from a good place.
It was always the plan to have more children, but I also accepted that it may not be in the cards for me. My partner is 6 years older than me with children already. I'll be 31 this summer, and I'm genuinely not sure if more children will be in the future. In a perfect world, I'd get my 3, but I think I have also come to terms that I may not have more.
But there's the fear of my next pregnancy having the same complications that my last one did because you don't just forget your loss and it creates a level of anxiety you didn't have before. Let's normalize not telling people to have more kids though lol.

Do you feel the need to justify to other people how many kids you have? Whether you have a lot or only a couple?

I’ve just noticed people list lots of reasons unprompted, why they have as many or few kids as they do, it’s interesting

Would you continue a potential friendship if their kid keeps hurting your kid?

I recently met a woman whose child is the same age as mine. We’ve only met about two times so far. She said she’d like to meet again and suggested doing a playdate.

The problem is that every time we’ve seen each other, her child has been physical with my kid. The other day he pushed and then fell on top of my child, which made my kid cry really badly. Today we ran into them again and he hit my child on the head with a book.

Even though the mom does tell her child not to do it, it keeps happening. I also noticed that her child does this to other kids too. Today at the park he hit another child and made them cry.

But I realized something: whenever I’m around them, I feel really stressed because I constantly feel like I need to watch closely and protect my kid.

The reason I was initially open to the friendship is that we’re from the same country and speak the same language, and since we don’t have family here it seemed like it could be nice to build a friendship.

But now I’m not sure.

Would you keep trying to build a friendship and do playdates in this situation, or would you just step back before the friendship really starts?

What are thoughts on “Free-Range Parenting”

Free-range parenting is a style that fosters independence, self-reliance, and resilience by allowing children age-appropriate freedom to explore, make decisions, and play without constant supervision. It prioritizes self-sufficient skill-building over high-risk fears, often allowing activities like walking to school alone, playing in parks unsupervised, or running errands.

Where does your parenting style fall on the spectrum?

https://www.healthline.com/health/parenting/free-range-parenting

Colostrum

Have you managed to collect colostrum, or are you not bothered? I have had little success so far 😔 (advice welcome!)

How long until your LO settled into nursery?

All 2 settling in days and first day so far have been a struggle, day 2 tomorrow. Nursery days are Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday

FET

Finally starting my FET. This will be my second FET hoping to give my boy a sibling ❤️ feeling pretty nervous. Anyone else starting their journey?

Failed FET

Testing negative 11dpt. Official test date on day 14 but accepting I'm probably out.

Did you change anything after a failed FET and go on to have success? Whether that's supplements yourself or did they change your protocol?

I had zoladex injection to down regulate, then evorel patches, then 5 days before transfer started 2x cyclogest pessaries. Then evening of transfer started lubion injections.

Finally Got a BFP!

On March 27 I had an embryo transfer for a day 5 frozen embryo. On Wednesday, April 1 (I know- the irony!) I got my first ever positive on a digital test after 6 years of trying and multiple rounds of IVF. I tested again on Thursday, Friday and this morning (Sunday, April 5) with regular line tests and got positives on all of them! I go for my official hcg test tomorrow!

Child element

Will payment be automatically updated for third child?

Not ready for visitors after birth

I wished I had a more proper chat with my husband about handling visitors after birth. Baby has been cluster feeding and tiredness from broken sleep has now caught up with me. I felt a bit overwhelmed with my husband's family wanting to come visit us a few days after giving birth and I also found it difficult to say no because then it would make it look like I'm being difficult. I didn't say no to the first visit. We're meant to have his sister and partner today too and another brother and his partner another day.

Has anybody declined visitations aside to parents on both sides and what are your thoughts about this?

One on one time with each child

Advice please - if you have more than one child, how do you give one on one time to each child? Or how did your mom do this?

I have three and I’ve always thought time should be spent together as a family but I’ve been told that not giving one on one attention to each child can cause resentment.

I’m wondering how I can do this?
Do you take one child to the mall and leave the others at home?

So nervous 😭

So my genetics test came back earlier today , I still haven’t looked I’m so nervous 😭 I have 3 boys & im hoping this is my girrrllllll , I’m tryna calm my nerves so I can look 😂

Only one kid

Has anyone in this group still only got the one child? I feel like so many people have had their 2nd which I want to as well but I’m scared of everything that comes with having 2 kids and feel like I’m running out of time as the age gap would be getting bigger and bigger

Colourism

So I am Canadian-Jamaican and it’s such a spicy topic regarding skin colour. I have always considered myself black as both parents are from Jamaica. Externally, my dad would be considered “mixed” which stems from slavery. His family goes 2 generations back of mixed heritage. My mom is the descendant of Maroons that escaped to the mountains of Jamaica. When people ask what are you mixed with? I give them the spunky response with, “my mom and my dad.” Or when I tell them both parents are Jamaican they insist I give them more of a response.

Now that I have my daughter I already knew I had no control what DNA did in terms of skin colour. My fiancé is a dark skinned man from Antigua. When our daughter was born, she came out lighter than me. She is now 6months and basically is my twin except for when she frowns, that is all her father.

Now my mom has her “light skinned preference “ and has made comments on me dating a dark skinned man and she has also made comments about my daughter and her “good hair” and “nice skin.” Even my own dad has also chimed in on the skin colour of my daughter.

As a kid I struggled with identity and my blackness in schools that were predominantly East Asian. The very few black students in my school never wanted to be my friend because of how “light” I was.

I know times are different for some kids, but I wonder if any other moms out there struggle with colourism within your family or in the public?

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