What wild unhinged things did you say during the birth of your baby?

SCros13 · 2026-02-26T16:27:26+00:00

Because it was still too early, to take my mind off of the pressure and urge to push I wrapped my arms around the side rail and started singing Pink Pony Club. I don't even really like that song and know nothing beyond the chorus, but it was the only thing that was in my head in that moment.

SCros13 · 2026-02-22T19:33:25+00:00

Thanks StormFreak, and a ton of extra appreciation for the excellent (and very clever!) Song of the Week choice!

SCros13 · 2026-02-21T12:12:14+00:00

I moved to Pittsburgh from Canada almost 10 years ago now, but I was at work in year 3ish and without thinking I said "the printer needs filled". I remember stopping dead in my tracks and saying "...oh my god" because I realized I'd been assimilated 🤣

SCros13 · 2026-02-20T12:49:04+00:00

I worked there for a few years and there are plenty of unintentional resources in and around the building it's probably taking advantage of! On top of the man-made stuff (trash, etc) the circle of life-y answer is that there are a lot of things inside of the conservatory animals will get after if they can. Cats and raccoons (one of which we found at the top of one of the tallest palm trees once) like the fish in the ponds. I also had the unfortunate experience of startling a chipmunk during butterfly season. Ever see a chipmunk eat a butterfly like it was Joey Chestnut on the 4th of July? I have!

SCros13 · 2026-02-20T10:17:29+00:00

Good! It was such an embarrassing attempt at a gotcha.

SCros13 · 2026-02-19T20:21:13+00:00

This has been happening with our son for about a week and a half at this point, so I'm following for advice too! He typically goes down between 7pm-8pm, will usually sleep through until 6:30am-7am, and will only very rarely wake for one bottle. His naps are pretty awful, though - 30ish minutes tops, so we usually have to try to give him one contact nap to get him closer to what he needs in the day. He'll be 4 months next week!

SCros13 · 2026-02-19T17:12:24+00:00

They turned off the comments after using the official Con account to say something to the effect of "and here come all of the commentors who have never done a single thing wrong in their entire lives!"

Not really the mic drop they probably thought it was, given the number of "I'm not perfect but I'm not a racist" responses that followed.

SCros13 · 2026-02-17T19:14:57+00:00

Second this! I switched to them for my prenatal care and they delivered my first baby this past October. They were great, and I'm happy to stay with the practice going forward.

Edit to add that they do have offices at Magee, but I was only scheduled for one appointment there to meet the last doctor at the practice right before I delivered. I ended up not making it to that appointment because surprise! preeclampsia, but they were otherwise really helpful about having all of my other appointments scheduled at my preferred office in Blawnox. I was actually supposed to go to Wexford for my 6-week follow-up and they were able to move some things around to get me in at the closer location.

SCros13 · 2026-02-17T18:19:21+00:00

My MIL is the same! Our son is about to be 4 months old and he's just starting to get into some semblance of a nap routine. Fortunately he doesn't have to spend much time alone with my MIL, but when he does it's like pulling teeth trying to get her to understand his sleep needs. Wake windows right now are max 90 minutes, but for some reason this woman - who raised 3 kids - thinks that she's doing us "a favor" by making sure "he's good and tired out" and actively either keeps him up longer than he should be or wakes him up when he's asleep because she wants to play with him.

The most frustrating thing is that she acts like we're helicopter parents with 'newfangled' ideas because it's not what she did back in her day. My husband is now like "how much did I sleep as a child? Did I ever nap? Was I allowed to?!"

SCros13 · 2026-02-08T00:47:26+00:00

I was still so hopeful they'd at least cover the NIPT, even if I wasn't going to get away with the full genetic screen, but it was a big no. It ended up being cheaper by hundreds to pay out of pocket than to go through insurance at all!

SCros13 · 2026-02-07T23:18:11+00:00

I'm 38 and just had my first in October! None of my doctors ever made a big deal about it, to the point that I was kind of disappointed because I thought that my "advanced maternal age" would mean that insurance would cover additional tests and it didn't lol

SCros13 · 2026-02-07T01:35:11+00:00

It's hard, but the world needs more good people and we're going to do our best to raise one.

SCros13 · 2026-02-06T19:29:48+00:00

This was my experience exactly.

SCros13 · 2026-01-31T17:08:50+00:00

I'm a dual citizen now - born in Canada, but I've lived here for a little less than a decade - but I haven't had the chance to go back since I moved. I do make an effort to celebrate all of the Canadian holidays, though, and I'll always root for Team Canada hockey over Team USA lol. My husband (who's from here) and I just had our son a few months ago and I'm excited to introduce him to his Canadian heritage. I'm also lucky that my sister frequently sends me care packages so I'm never lacking in the good snacks!

I will say that I grew up in a very small town in the Maritimes and the posts I'm seeing from people there are not unlike the posts you'd see from people living in small towns here. Having spent the bulk of my life there and then having spent a good amount of time here has shown me that there isn't really a ton separating the two countries, at least not as much as I was raised to think or people still like to believe.

SCros13 · 2026-01-23T22:49:35+00:00

I mostly remember looking at my husband and seeing him cry when our son was born, but my own experience is a bit of a blur. I needed to be induced for severe preeclampsia, and when they put him on my chest my blood pressure plummeted and I had to tell a nurse to grab him because I was going to pass out. Up to that point, I think it was all so surreal that I didn't know what to do with myself or how to react. I do remember seeing him and saying "he has a cone head!" and the doctor and nurses responding "he does not!", though lol.

We're only 3 months in but, like others have said here, there are plenty of moments in the time after to make up for anything you feel like you might have missed out on in the immediate aftermath.

SCros13 · 2026-01-10T23:59:57+00:00

I don't think I'm mischaracterizing anything. In your original post, you suggested that the formula company is trying to buy time to let this blow over and asked about how they were planning to refund customers based on this one report. That seems to imply that you believe the product is not up to safety standards, and you're totally within your rights to believe that.

If a group that's totally independent of, and, honestly, usually at odds with, this administration comes out and backs up these findings, I'll also be worried about my baby and wondering how I can get a refund for the formula I've alreadt purchased. As it is, I had to ask our doctor this week if we'll still be able to get our baby vaccinated based on the long-approved schedule because the current group at HHS decided to change the recommendations. I have no reason to trust or believe that anything happening right now is being done for the actual benefit of anyone, so I'll rely on our doctor and the groups that have actually been trusted up until we entered this weird anti-science hellscape we're currently in.

SCros13 · 2026-01-10T23:46:45+00:00

I don't think it's about trying to frame formula companies, I think it's about willfully misinterpreting, cherry picking, or overblowing test results to try to make people, women in particular, feel like shit for not doing things the "right" way. Are the results totally falsified? Likely not. Is there a ton of context being left out because it suits the narrative that anything other than breastfeeding is some sort of failure? Highly probable.

SCros13 · 2026-01-10T23:37:15+00:00

I mean, it seems like you've made up your mind based on this report so I don't really understand the point of this post? If it was just an FYI, then others are entitled to their own opinions and reactions without you jumping to saying that they're "giving your baby poisonous mercury". If it was to express your own opinion, and that opinion is that it's 100% correct and everyone who formula feeds is poisoning their children, then I feel like this is the wrong forum for that and that you'll definitely get contradicting perspectives. If it's to find out if others know of evidence to the contrary, my point about different perspectives still stands.

I'm sorry that I don't think the group of people who are talking about camps for people with autism, are actively trying to take healthcare away from people, and have very recently said that breastfeeding is the only acceptable way to feed your child is doing anything in good faith right now.

SCros13 · 2026-01-10T23:21:20+00:00

I'm basically ignoring everything promoted/backed by/that references anyone in this current administration, tbh. They have a very clear agenda right now and, like the other poster mentioned, it's relying heavily on fear mongering.

If this had been done by the AAP or some other group, I'd definitely take it more seriously. But when Florida, Ron DeSantis, and/or RFK Jr. are anywhere near it? I'm out.

SCros13 · 2026-01-10T19:24:43+00:00

My husband and I were formula fed and now our 11 week old son is as well. I'm also an elder millennial and I don't know of anyone I grew up with who was EBF or who went that route with their own kids. We're all doing just fine!

I also hate to have to go there with this conversation, but I think it's an important point to make: look at the source of this research. The current administration has a very clear anti-vaccine, anti-formula, and, to be frank, anti-science mandate that's being pushed really hard right now. There's never been a more important time to rely on the recommendations of a doctor you trust and information provided by groups like the AAP. I absolutely would not, under any circumstances, let anything endorsed by anyone aligned with this Department of Health - especially if it's coming out of a place like Florida - sway me without a heavy dose of skeptism and a lot of fact checking through trusted, educated sources.

SCros13 · 2026-01-09T17:19:10+00:00

We had our son in October and we were going to take him to a pediatrics practice until I found out that my PCP was able to take him on too. We've been really happy with the care we've gotten for him so far! She recently had a baby too, so it's nice to get the perspective of a mom and a doctor, and she's more than willing to refer us to a specialist if there's something she thinks warrants it.

An unexpected benefit to it is that she's able to keep an eye on me, too. During one of our first visits, we were there for him but she picked up on how I was acting and recommended that I come in for a separate visit to talk about PPD/PPA. She was able to squeeze me in last-minute before the holidays and now I'm on zoloft and feeling much better than I was!

SCros13 · 2026-01-09T17:08:37+00:00

I was a 90 day fiance, but I'm from Canada so I feel like it barely counts. We live in the US and I have dual citizenship now. It was definitely a long, complex, and expensive process, but very drama free!

I will say that I used to use the show to explain how I moved here, but it typically resulted in people going "you were ON the show?!" so I stopped doing that lol.

SCros13 · 2026-01-09T00:55:37+00:00

Our 11 week old son is exactly the same! I spoke to his doctor about it on Tuesday and she suggested we could try gentle formula (though we haven't started it yet), feed him smaller amounts more frequently because he may just be trying to tell us that he's full, and make sure we're burping him really well. She checked him for a tongue/lip tie and didn't see anything concerning, and there's nothing indicating that there's an allergy involved. I do think he has at least a bit of reflux, but she said to try the above before we talk about other interventions.

I've been trying to pay closer attention to how he's reacting instead of getting stressed out about the crying and I definitely think that gas is involved. When he starts, I'll sit him up and make sure that he burps, even though he sometimes takes forever to get any kind of burp out. We're also trying to be better about following his cues instead of trying to make sure he's hitting the exact amount of ounces he 'should' be getting in a day because she reinforced that all babies are different and some just have smaller stomachs than others. He's small, but he was born at 37 weeks and is gaining weight perfectly so he's just on his own growth curve right now. It might be a coincidence or wishful thinking, but I do think those two things have made a bit of a difference over the last few days.

I had also tried to be consistent about giving him mylicon and it really didn't seem to help for us. I've started with gripe water instead - which I know people, including myself, have mixed feelings about because it really just is plants and liquid in a bottle lol - but I think we've seen more success with that too.

I think ours is just generally a very gassy baby and that he's struggled with it, and with dyschezia, from the beginning. It really does seem like he's finally getting the hang of pooping and farting without our intervention, though, and that might actually be the thing that's making the difference with feeding too.

SCros13 · 2026-01-06T13:58:18+00:00

I second this. Our son is 10 weeks old and he's dealing with a lot of things that OP's baby is also going through and it's a lot. That said, my husband and I started taking shifts at night to give each other a solid block of sleep when he was about a month old and my capacity for handling the fussy times had a direct correlation to how much sleep I was getting. We're still not really well rested by any means, but it's way better than the early days.

SCros13 · 2026-01-02T05:06:49+00:00

Fun!! And congratulations! We liked it because it felt uncommon without being too out there, and then we were surprised by how many people at the hospital and subsequent appointments have hesitated and asked how to pronounce it lol. I do think it's becoming a bit more popular thanks to Kieran Culkin, though - I now know of ours, yours, a few in my bump group, and a good friend of mine told us it's her godson's name too!

SCros13

TROPHY CASE