Category: Baby

My Eight Tips for Happy (Screen-Free) Road Trips

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Since the birth of our first child 4.5 years ago, my husband and I have taken our daughter(s) on 26,054 miles worth of road trips divided between about 20 trips. That means we have driven more than the equivalent of once around the world with little kids in the backseat! We travel a lot. We travel because we live hundreds of miles away from many people that we love, and we like to travel. I’d like to think we are becoming experts on traveling with little kids, and we have yet to occupy our children at all with screens. Here are things we do to make traveling smooth:

1. Packing List: We always make a packing list. If we did not we would forget something essential. At times we have forgotten essential things, but usually we do not. Further, it keeps us from packing things we don’t need.

2. Food for the car: I know that a lot of families have rules about food in the car. On road trips, food is essential for happy, well-contented children. Some people like to stop for lunch, even when it is just a sack lunch. On full-day road trips we always eat lunch in the car, sometimes even dinner. If it takes your children 30 minutes to eat dinner, that is 30 minutes of content and happy road time, and 30 miles of road gone by. Sometimes we even do dinner on the road. When choosing food for the car I like to pick easy to chew foods. One of my favorite foods for the car is string cheese, even our 10 month old could eat this in the car. We always bring a small cooler, since having cold snacks is a nice break from room temperature crackers and pretzels. The kids each have a snack cup that they can easily hold, which we refill with snacks and meals at each stop.

3. Toys and books for the car:  We have several essential car toys. The first is a magna-doodle per child. baby doll per child. Since our oldest was one she loved having her doll in the car. It is perfect for seated, imaginative play. I am not sure what would be a good comparable toy for a boy (dinosaurs?). And finally, lots and lots of books. The girls have a basket of books placed between their seats and they spend much of each trip looking through these books. I always pick out books that are thin paper backs with lots of pictures. We have a number of children’s magazines that they love to look through also. That is it. We started our road trips four years ago with these types of toys and they have not failed us.
We bought them here.

Our 2.5 and 4.5 year old spend hours drawing on their magna-doodles every road trip. Since the pen is attached, they never lose it, and it is mess-free! The second is a


4. Good Music and Audiobooks: My husband and I both collected a lot of music before we met, and after many years of road trips we have our favorite road trip music. The whole collection of our favorites usually gets us there and back again. Plus, our kids have a taste for and enjoy the music as well. Our oldest is now able to simple chapter books, so we have started to use audiobooks for the family to enjoy. Though we did our last 1900 mile round trip with just music.

5. On the Nursing Baby: I have traveled with three nursing babies over the past 4.5 years. In general my babies have been able to wait 2-3 hours in between nursing, which is generally about how long we drive between stops. I have always brought a pump so that I can bottle feed the baby when a stop is not convenient or we are trying to make better time. I know some mom’s who exclusively pump while on the road. For us, we have found that we can do a stop in 20 minutes even with nursing if I take the older girls to the bathroom while M changes the baby’s diaper in the car (with a minivan there is no need to take the baby into the restroom). When I return to the car, I feed the baby and M get’s his turn on the restroom. When he comes back, he sets up the kids with snacks and gathers the toys and books back to their basket.

*I would advise against nursing the baby while the car is moving (leaning over the carseat). I did it once, but shortly after read thispost about the dangers of doing so. The safety of a baby is more important than saving 10 minutes.  
6. Rest Stops: I explained the basic idea of rest stops above, but I will reiterate it. We find that arranging them so that no parent is waiting around is the most efficient way to stop. Further, everyone has to go at EVERY stop. If we had boys, I suspect we would stop even faster since then I could go to the restroom alone… Another tip I have is for newly potty-trained children to travel in a diaper or training pants. Accidents happen.

7. Empty Gas Station coffee cups (with a separate lid) are great for road sickness. Trust me, you don’t want your child to miss the cup…

8. When possible travel with favorite pillows, toys, blankets, white noise machines, travel beds.  I could devote a whole post to my favorite travel items. Our favorite white noise machine is this: 
Dohm-DS Sound Screen
 It pulls air through itself, making a soft but powerful sound blocking white noise to make the sound of home anywhere we are. We use a Pack N Play for the baby, and this portable cot for toddlers.

That is about it. Happy traveling!

Seven Quick Takes-Friday, Sept. 6

1. It’s been a few weeks since I wrote Quick Takes. Last Friday (the normal day for Quick Takes) we were in the middle of our summer visit with my parents in St. Louis. It was a wonderful visit. We did all the normal St. Louis things: St. Louis style pizza, Cardinal’s baseball, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, Toasted Ravioli, etc.

Picture from St. Louis Business Journal

2. It was typical hot St. Louis summer weather, so we threw in a trip to Grant’s Farm to make sure we really appreciated the 97°F day. My favorite thing about Grant’s Farm was the hospitality of the employees. They did things like take our strollers for us when we got to the tram and gave free samples to the adults of the Bud Light Lime-a-rita.
I promise I do not ever drink Bud Light, but the Lime-a-rita served over ice was pretty good on a hot day with three little girls in tow. I appreciate the offer of a drink to parents out with kids…

3. The baby has reached the age in which car naps last 30 minutes and no longer. This means our 9 hours on the road was with her mostly awake and often not happy about it. Oh well. This, too, shall pass. All of the children are able to content themselves with books and toys in the car. They don’t even know that we have a DVD player in the car. I think we will keep it that way, since screens in the car for kids who never use any screens would probably be a recipe for disaster.

4. G (4.5) is finally at the point where she can follow audiobooks. Last trip we did Farmer Boy by Laura Ingals Wilder and this trip we did Little House in the Big Woods. We all enjoyed listening to the stories, and it made me very happy that I do not live in a little house in the big woods of Wisconsin with bears for neighbors. Also, I have time to do things like blog and read novels in the evening instead of constantly working to keep my family fed and clothed. I suppose I should think about that when I feel annoyed about having to shop for clothing… at least I don’t have to make it!

5. Saga of the Leaky Pipe Update:  Things are progressing slowly. The did not do much while we were out of town. I think we are still at least a month out from things being completed.

6. We started a scheduled life this week with our pre-school. I am trying to take the advice of every home schooling mom I have heard on the subject of pre-school and to not try to do too much. I am sticking with about an hour a day during the baby’s morning nap. I am finding that it might be easier to just include L (2.5) in everything G and I are doing. She likes to be included and if she is doing something different than G, G is completely distracted. I would not be surprised if we combine subjects with them in the future and if L is one of those really early readers.

7. Because of my scheduling, we are done with school around 10 am. This means I have a full two hours before lunch to get things done everyday! I need to get more disciplined with myself and get things done! Such as, taking the baby monitor out to the garage and starting a furniture painting project before it gets too cold around here. I am waiting on the basement to do any sewing things I have in mind.

That’s all folks. Head over to Jen for more quick takes!

Kuplink! Kuplank! Kuplunk!

The two girls each had a little tin pail as they eagerly ran to the blueberry bushes. Kuplink! One found a blueberry and dropped it in her pail. Kuplank! Her sister found a berry. Kuplunk! That is how it went as the girls ran amongst the bushes picking a berry here and a berry there, asking to try them, and looking for the bears.

Their excitement at picking blueberries was inspired by the Robert McCloskey’s book, Blueberries for Sal. It is a sweet little book about a girl and her mother who go to Blueberry Hill to pick berries for canning and a bear and her cub who are also on the mountain. I love the simple story, and the depiction of a small child wandering about eating blueberries to her heart’s content. The illustrations are really nice as well; my favorite drawing is the canning scene at the end of the book. I admire the mother in the story for canning with a toddler in the midst of her canning supplies.

We checked the book out of the library mid-July and, as we are with library books, held onto it for about three weeks. The girls asked to go blueberry picking, so we made a family outing of it the last week of the blueberry season. The whole week leading up to it they talked about how they each needed a little tin pail (I found these in the $1 section at Target!) and how the blueberries were going to sound as they dropped them into their pails. It was a lot of fun, and next year we hope to go at the height of the season so that we to can get some blueberries for canning.

Another highlight of the trip is that I reached a new level of mom-skills: nursing a baby who was in the baby carrier that I was wearing. It is definitely not my preference, but when the baby is fussing and we are out in a field picking berries there is not really any other option. Further, I had to point out to M what I was doing for him to be able to notice. 🙂

The Right Baby at the Right Time

I have been thinking a lot lately about the personality and temperament of each of my children, and one of the things I have noticed is that each child’s temperament fit with the time of life that I had them in perfectly. It seems like God knew the kind of baby that I would need at each time and gave that child to me.

For example, F (9 months) is the most laid back baby I have had. She is happy to play alone for long stretches, and in fact gets upset sometimes when others interfere with her solo play. She was born right after we moved to a new city and then we decided to start house hunting when she was three months old. Things were supposed to slow down after we moved into our house this June, but with the leaky pipe and the long wait for repairs to be completed in the basement, things are still fairly high stress in our home. F is teaching me to be more like her with her laid back, patient, simple personality. She also goes to sleep really easily which is exactly what I need when there are so many other things making life stressful. A baby that sleeps makes it all a lot simpler to a busy mom.

Not the current baby… 🙂

L (2.5) was my baby at a time when life was fairly settled. I had established a good support system of friends in Buffalo and she fit right into our family life. She was a very high strung baby, but also very cheerful. She made life joyful, so her mood swings were not stressful but just taught me to attend to her based off of her personality and not panic when she screamed at the top of her lungs about small problems.

G (4), my first baby is more like me, and maybe that was best for me with my first baby when I knew nothing about taking care of babies. Our moods often fit and reflected each other, and with her I learned how to be a mom. I still am learning how to be a mom with her as we encounter all of our firsts. And with such a laid back baby sister, our first year of more serious preschool home schooling should be easier to tackle.

God really does provide in a growing family, giving the right baby at the right time.

Seven Quick Takes-July 26

1. We made it to end of July, and it is the weekend my sister and her family were supposed to visit. We delayed it because of the basement water damage, and we learned this week that the the damaged floor tiles that were under the carpet that was ripped up are asbestos tiles. Oh boy! This means we have to get those taken care of before repair work begins. Which means another week of work to get the whole job done. Thus, the whole summer is being taken up by a stupid leak in a pipe…

2. My sister and I spoke yesterday about their upcoming visit and decided no matter what state the basement is in we are going to make this basement happen. It just means that we will have six girls and four adults between three bedrooms. That is not so bad. We might even let the four girls who aged six, four, and two and a half share one room: a cousin sleepover! It will also give F a chance to practice sleeping in a pack n play before we visit St. Louis later in August.

3. M has been teaching a class this summer two nights a week from 5:30-9:30 pm. This means that I have to get the kids to bed alone. It has not been so bad except for that L (2.5) will not stay in her bed for about an hour after I tuck her in. Our bedtime routine consists of her coming out of her room about 30 seconds after each tuck in, and me trying not to lose it with her. When M is home he takes care of the older girls at bedtime, but he is also having the same problem. We have decided to give them about 15 minutes with a dim light and book at bedtime to give them time to settle down in their beds. It worked last night. I hope it continues to work and the time they get to read books is about as long as it takes to get F to fall asleep, so it might work great in terms of timing on the nights M is gone.

4. As I predicted last week, F (8 months) is on the move. The legless army crawl is her motion of choice. She needs her PT aunt and godmother to come and get her up on her knees. Remember my musings of last week about where she would end up once she could crawl? It is not at my feet as I cook. She is making her way to various rooms of the house. I caught her heading into my bedroom earlier.

5. I have gone back to making my own yogurt again, since I can make 8 cups of Greek yogurt for about $3 instead of spending .85 on 6 oz at Aldi. I have never made it plain before, usually flavoring it with vanilla, but I did this time. I am now addicted to a breakfast of Greek yogurt flavored with our homemade jam, and granola. The girls prefer their yogurt with Grape Nuts.

6. I really want to take the kids raspberry or blueberry picking this next week. I think they might be in season by now. I just need to find a good picking place. Anyone reading this in the Twin Cities who knows of a good place?

7. I have seen this vine growing in our yard for a few weeks now.

 M saw it today when he was out playing with the kids and thought it might be a pumpkin vine.  There was a smashed pumpkin in the yard after we closed on it (hidden under the snow when we first saw the house) and we can’t remember where it ended up to decompose. A quick image search of pumpkin vines showed me several like our vine, but also other varieties. Anyone know anything about pumpkins? Is this really a pumpkin vine? We might be able to tell once it takes over the yard. It would be pretty cook if we inadvertently grew a pumpkin plant. 🙂
And now I am linking up with Jen who hosts the Friday Quick Takes.

Seven Quick Takes-Friday, July 5

1. I bet you are all just dying to know how much jam I made:

8 quarts, or if you want to talk about it in a different way you can say 8 pints and 8 half pints. Or you could say 2 gallons. That is a lot of jam. It only used 7.5 lbs of my 20 pounds of strawberries. We have been eating them a lot. 🙂 The plan for the rest of the berries is freezing and eating. I am going to freeze enough crushed berries to make a triple berry jam when raspberries and blackberries are in. Yum!

Half berries, half sugar, pectin, an lemon juice makes super red jam!

2. I have a small vegetable garden for the first time this year, and by small I mean six tomato plants leftover from a friend’s gardening and a wicked creeping thistle plant that I have to dig up constantly or it will surround my tomato plants and kill them. I am hoping for delicious tomatoes and a dead thistle by the end of the summer. I would really love to can some tomatoes this year, but it might be more cost effective to continue to buy the huge can of crushed tomatoes whenever I need sauce until I can grow a larger garden. I am going to research gardening at some point in my life, like maybe when the basement stops flooding.

3. The basement, yeah, I guess water mitigation teams and contractors don’t really like to do things in a timely manner. We are waiting, waiting, waiting for them to do something besides rip things out and stick a monster dehumidifier in the basement which probably will double our electricity bill for the month. My only hopes for the project to be finished are that it is done for my sister and her family to visit either the last weekend of July or the second weekend of August. Do you think insurance will cover a super nice guest suite?

4. I am just going to say that the nearly 8 month old baby of mine just ate roasted red pepper slices and roasted broccoli for dinner. She could not get enough of the red peppers. M is doing the dishes and she is still eating dinner. This was the baby who would not let me eat vegetables all pregnancy without gagging.

5. We did our first book on tape audiobook road trip for G this last trip. I wanted to do a Laura Ingalls Wilder book and the first one that came into the library was Farmer Boy. She absolutely loved listening to it and I am fairly certain she followed the story, except for the words she did not understand. The best part for parents about the book is how well behaved the Wilder children were; I have been using Almanzo as an example of good behavior to G ever since we started the book. And another positive thing about the book is that L actually napped in the car (which she never does), whenever we turned on the book she took a nap!

6. One of the fun things about buying a house in April is the surprise of the first Spring and Summer flowers. These are the latest ones:

I love lilies. There are at least 20 more buds of these.

These are on three flowering bushes in front. 

7. This was the theme song for M all week, which he shared with me about halfway through the week. We listened to it for the first time (since a few years ago when we listened to Switchfoot every roadtrip) while we were on the road. We related to the line , “Everything is broken.”

For more Quick Takes head on over to Jen.

This Month in Girls-May 2013

I have been neglecting this monthly themed post, but I am going to do it for May. This month I am going to talk about each kid and what I love about them. 🙂

With the baby F, I delight in her little face and happy smile. I love how she curls up into my lap when she nurses to sleep. I love her little way of grabbing food off her tray and trying it out with her mouth. Her sisters talk about how she is angry when she tries a new food, because her expression is always a quizzical frown. I love when she can’t stop smiling whenever one of her sisters is looking at her and how they make her laugh more than M or I do. I even love how she needs me and how being worn in a sling is all she wants. I love how when her sisters play games with her, she can’t stop giggling and then all three are giggling together. I love waking up with her squealing next to me every morning. I am not sure why I disliked co-sleeping so much with the other two, but with F it is really sweet.

For L, she is my sweet 2.5 year old. I love that she is cuddly now that she is older, and will behave in Church if she is able to sit on my lap and be held by me. I love that her favorite breakfast is a piece of bread with butter (we were fighting her for weeks to eat cereal and milk before we discovered this). I wish I could take her to a store without her escaping the cart or screaming to get out, but that is not the two year old way, so I suppose I love the humility of having a screaming child whenever I shop. I love the way she does the Sign of the Cross (it is too random to describe in words) and how she does the “mea culpa” chest pounds perfectly. I love that whenever she talks about the past it always starts with, “Yesterday…” even when the event was weeks ago. I especially love her cheeks; they are so squeezable! I love how she knows just how to torment her big sister, but does it because she loves her. I love that she loves to play with G and wants to participate in all the pre-school activities.

And my first baby, four year old G, I find myself reminiscing about our time when she was the only baby. She was always good at the store, because she had my full attention. We took two naps a day together (or I would just lay next to her with a good book). I think F looks a lot like G as a baby and that must be why I am remembering her babyhood so much. I love that G is becoming more confident in drawing. She draws bodiless people, just heads, faces, and limbs and very detailed flowers; she had a lot of trouble with the fine motor skills when she was a toddler, so I love it whenever she draws or writes anything. I love how she is a good helper (when she chooses), and can clear her own place. I love how she is developing her own ideas and telling us what she thinks, “Sleeping Beauty is quite the story.” I love how she memorizes most stories, poems, and songs she hears. I love how she sings to herself whenever she is alone.

I am not sure exactly what changed or when it happened, but I am finally happy again. With my three babies I have gone into a post-partum funk, this last one it was a diagnosed post-partum depression, but besides that where I just do not feel like myself. I am fairly certain it is not a lower level of stress, because this whole moving thing is stressful. It is not the ease of taking care of three kids, because I definitely do not find that easy. But I am focusing on trying to love them and let go of my ideas of how things should be. I am learning greater patience and self-sacrifice. I am so happy I have my sweet girls, and so happy that I am finally able to enjoy them.

Moving, Late Quick Takes- Saturday May 25

M was sad I did not do Quick Takes yesterday, so here I am linking up with Jen late.
 
1. This is what my living room looks like and I am trying to ignore it so it does not drive me nuts:

 2. But then again our toys have never been so organized.

 Bedtime cleanup has been a breeze.

3. On the bright side, moving day is Monday. So maybe we will be able to live in order again soon. It also is not snowing in Minnesota anymore, so that is good. I also have fresh, hand picked, locally grown dandelions daily from my sweet daughters:

They pick only the most exquisite dandelions.
4. My new double-oven/range is at the store and will be delivered on TUESDAY! Hooray! M is going to attempt a self-installation since the installation quote I received yesterday was a little bit insane. Hopefully the youtube videos he watched will suffice since we will not have internet for about a week after we move in. Thus, I will not be around for any posting those days, but hopefully it will not be too warm out to try out my five burners and two ovens…
5. I know I promised pictures of the new house at some point, but here’s the thing. No room is entirely complete yet, and I hate to post pictures of an unfinished product. So I will post each room as I put the finishing touches on them. Mostly it is curtains and then rugs that need to be done.
6. Baby-o is working on that first tooth fairly consistently these days, which means naptime trouble and lots of crankiness. However, we also started her on solids and this time I am skipping the purees and doing Baby Led Weaning, which basically is giving the baby finger foods which she can pick up and feed herself. (“Weaning” is what the Brits call feeding babies things besides breastmilk). I tell you it makes baby feeding a lot easier since all I have to do is throw food on her high chair tray. Yesterday she ate three steamed broccoli “trees”and loved them! 
7. M is at his university’s graduation today. The house we are renting is adjacent to a house full of seniors apparently. I was explaining to the girls what graduation was and about the robes they wear when a whole group of our neighbors trooped outside with their parents and were taking photographs outside. We have been calling the house next store the “party palace” since they tend to play loud music at night at least once a week. As the girls were looking at the graduates out front I heard G say, “No L, it is called the Party Palace because they play bad music all the time!” I am glad we are instilling a love of good music in our children with orchestral and chant Masses and other good music in the home… 🙂

Seven Quick Takes: April 5

1. M is in San Diego, CA right now. He keeps on texting me pictures of palm trees, sunsets on the ocean, and panda bears. So I texted him a picture of an ugly bike rack in St. Paul. I won’t complain about our weather here because the high has been above freezing for about a week now, and many days above 40°F! He is in CA giving a paper at a conference, which he has to do to get tenure someday, and sightseeing with a college friend who lives there. I think he is having fun.

2. We are having fun here as well. While M went to the San Diego Zoo yesterday, we went to the Como Park zoo today. When I told G we were going to the zoo, she asked, “Are we going to meet Daddy there?” It would be kind of cool if each zoo had a secret connector to another or something… Also, at the zoo there were a couple of families with at least 6 kids and I wanted to stop and ask them if they were Catholic and home schoolers, but I did not of course.

3. My wonderful mother-in-law is in town to help me manage the wild take care of the children. They are extra active and willful with their father gone. Tomorrow I have to put them all to bed alone since my help is leaving at noon and M does not get in until 9pm. I am contemplating declaring it movie night (their first one!) for the big girls until I have the baby asleep because I will have no other way of preventing them from knocking down my bedroom door repeatedly (as they exit their own room and beds) as I am putting the baby to bed.

4. I started running again this week for the first time since I was about 15 weeks pregnant with F. The weather is finally warm and I decided that I had no more excuses for putting off running. I had forgotten how much I enjoy running and how it adds in a positive way to my mood.

5. Four months is the magic age for good sleepers to become bad sleepers. I am now wishing that babies were born with all of their teeth (though I am thankful they are not during the first week of nursing). Anyway, lets just say that the only positive thing for me in F needing me next to her to stay asleep at night is that I have been going to bed at 10pm (after her first wake up) instead of 11pm.

6. I hope this is not too complainy of a post. I am feeling pretty tired and cranky today. I have not yet read the thing everyone is sharing about the Pope talking about not complaining…

7. I have been eating a lot of Easter candy this week. Let’s just say it is a good thing that running increases my appetite. I am sure the sugar intake is not helping with my stress of being husbandless for the time being, but it is a temporary relief I suppose. When M was away interviewing last winter I spent a lot of evenings with a daiquiri, so maybe candy is a better stress reliever than rum?

Head over to Jen’s blog for more quick takes!

My Tribute to my NFP practioner (who is not an iPod App)

Natural Family Planning has been a big conversation topic lately among Catholic women in the blogosphere and internets. Jennifer Fulwiler wrote on it the other day for the National Catholic Register blog, how more Catholic women are becoming aware of the Church’s teaching on contraception. My friends Mary wrote about an app she has been using. A Catholic mom’s Facebook group I am in discusses it nonstop. I am going to talk about my awesome practitioner who taught me the Creighton Model System when I was a 19 years old and engaged to be married.

Photo by Jen Pagnan

That first meeting with her when I had only been charting four weeks, with my fiance (M of course), was definitely potentially very awkward. I don’t remember any of the details really, except that I was not having normal mucus. (Ewww, I am going to talk about mucus.) Anyway, through her help and through the research that has been done on mucus discharges, I learned to distinguish different types of mucus and follow my cycles. It was not easy and I had to be consistent in checking for mucus every time, EVERY TIME, I used the toliet, showered, went swimming. I charted for 15 months before I got married, and 12 months from the wedding we were fairly certain that a honeymoon baby was in order. She came nine months and a day from our wedding…

Then came the postpartum charting, which is super confusing, especially when you are nursing a baby and have nonfertile mucus most of the time plus not really sure if you are having cycle again or not? My practitioner reminded me to start charting again after my pregnancy, did follow-ups and chart reviews, and helped me understand what was going on with the my body. I can’t remember how many times I have called, emailed, or Facebook messaged her to get advice on whatever I was charting on various days. She always looks into the research and the studies and gives me helpful advice. When I have been so confused and needed support, she has listened to me cry and helped me figure things out.

Last week, we had my first postpartum follow-up after baby F. I had been having some confusing days of charting again, and when she looked at my chart and the research (I had already messaged her about things before the follow-up) she recommended that I go see my doctor for some progesterone to help balance out my hormones. It was then that I realized that I had been having a lot of symptoms of postpartum depression and needed to be treated. If it had not been for my charting and follow up I might have continued to wallow in my fatigued, overwhelmed, unhappy state. Since I was treated just a week ago (with a progesterone injection), I have noticed a huge difference in my ability to handle everyday life. Also, my childrens’ behavior is slowly improving. We are no longer dealing with temper tantrums in the middle of the night or right before bed (though the help of new parenting strategies have aided us there as well). We would not have been able to say calmly, “It is time to be obedient. It is time to be in bed,” a billion times if I had still been dealing with being depressed. It affected everyone in the family, and the fact that I was charting revealed the problem we did not even see. It is worth it not just for knowing when I can “achieve” and “avoid” having another baby, but for all aspects of my health as a woman.

So, not to go on a tangent from the point of this post, but I really wanted to say that Natural Family Planning takes work and effort on your part and you cannot really do it alone. Even the iPod app requires a doctors advice from time to time. Pick a method, find a practitioner, and stick with it. I have a regular doctor I see for my medical needs and for prenatal and postnatal care, my kids and husband have a doctor, I go to a doctor for my eyes, I go to one for my teeth, so why not use an expert to understand my fertility and help me live my life within the moral teachings of the Church which I love so much?