What to Consider When Choosing Birth Control After Having a Baby

01/09/2018 by Kate Antoniades 41 Comments

Choosing birth control before you were a mom was complicated enough . . . but we thought we’d talk about birth control considerations after having a baby. We haven’t talked a lot about birth control here (although a few years ago we had a post over at Corporette about IUDs), so we thought it’d be a great topic to discuss today. What did you consider when choosing birth control after having a baby? Were you concerned about breastfeeding, hoping to get pregnant again soon, or worried about other issues? Are you using the same type that you did before getting pregnant, or did you switch to something else?

What were (or are) your deciding factors? The efficacy of the method? The potential side effects? The length of time that it stays effective? Whether it’s hormonal vs. non-hormonal? Whether or not you’re planning to have another baby soon?

Here are some pros and cons that moms find themselves considering when deciding on birth control after having a baby: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Family Planning Tagged With: birth control, posts

How Did You Decide How Many Kids to Have?

07/12/2017 by Kat 95 Comments

Here’s a fun topic for today: How did you decide how many kids to have? How did you decide whether to try for a second (or third, or fourth) child — or when to stop having kids? Were you influenced by an outside factor (such as money or your own health), experience (either your own childhood, your birth experience, or your general experience with your first child), hope (such as “trying for a girl” vs, say, abstaining from trying because you hoped for a promotion), or some amorphous factor (such as “feeling like everyone is here now”)? For me, the decision to both try for a second as well as to stop having kids was a combination of all of these reasons, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

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Estate Planning and Kids: Open Thread

01/27/2016 by Kat 45 Comments

Have you been on top of your estate planning, ladies? Once you have kids it certainly feels like a pressing issue — and yet my husband and I still haven’t sat down with a lawyer to get our wills or other details buttoned up. Whoopsies. We’ve talked about getting your accounts in order for labor, but estate planning is a bit bigger than that — and it can change with each birth depending on how things are worded and what other situations are (family members living, dying, etc.). How did you find your lawyer for a will or trust? What other estate planning did you do — and did you find any service that simplified it? (Wouldn’t it be great if there were something like MissNowMrs for estate planning for parents?)

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Family Planning, Mom Issues Tagged With: estates, personal finance, posts

Job and Career Changes After Baby: Did You Make Changes? How?

09/02/2015 by Kat 17 Comments

Ladies, have you made career changes after having your baby? If so, how did your career, job, and general standard operating procedures change because of family? Did you effectively plan for the change before meeting your son or daughter, or did you change plans midstream? We talked once about planning your career for babies (back when I was pregnant with Jack!) but not really since, and I’m curious for your take.

Kate recently sent me a snapshot of a local article, quoting a pregnant television producer/host:

DeTar hopes to film Fringe Benefits past the second season and expressed interest in moving into other countries and writing a companion book for the show. With a child on the way, she doesn’t expect her aspirations or goals to change.

“I feel so thankful for the timing of all of it… maybe I’m being really naive, but I don’t see anything changing,” she says. “I… have the most supportive husband in the universe, and I don’t think he would let me not continue with the show.”

This is well-timed with other stuff I’ve been seeing recently — there was a recent article in Forbes about how a lot of women become freelancers, contractors, or entrepreneurs when they become mothers. And there was a great discussion (on this site and Corporette) on how to have a baby when both parents are working in BigLaw. SO, ladies, let’s hear it — how, if at all, has your Plan changed since having kids? Were there particular deciding factors (money, time, etc.), or was it a more general sense of “everything is different now“? For those of you who HAVE adhered to your Plan (since I’m assuming, cynically perhaps, that most of us have switched gears a bit) — how much focus did it take? Were there factors that were must-haves (double nannies, SAHD, etc)?

Pictured at top: Whychus Creek, originally uploaded to Flickr by Ian Sane.

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Filed Under: Career, Childcare, Family Planning, Work-Life Balance, Working Mom Tagged With: BigLaw, career, career changes, posts

Secondary Infertility: Dealing with Your Emotions at Work

03/25/2015 by Kat 23 Comments

If you’ve planned on adding a second child to your family but have had trouble conceiving (also known as secondary infertility), how do you deal with your emotions at work when no one in your office knows what you’re going through? Reader A wonders…

I am dealing with a difficult situation and I was wondering if you would consider posting something on it. I had my son 2 yrs ago and have been hoping to have another child soon after. We started trying when my son was 9 months old and have been unsuccessful for over a year now. We are finally going to a fertility clinic but the process is grueling and I find myself crying all the time. The other aspect I can’t seem to be able to control is insane jealousy towards current pregnant women or those with 2 kids (including you:). I am trying to deal with these emotions and be thankful for my son but most days it is very hard to act like everything is fine. Would love to have yours and other’s perspectives on this.

I’m so sorry you’re having a rough time of it, A; big hugs to you. I debated whether to post this question at Corporette proper, or here at CorporetteMoms, and ultimately decided that there are important differences between a conversation about this among moms versus non-moms. So let’s discuss. (Note that over at Corporette, we’ve talked about miscarriages and the office and handling frequent doctors’ appointments (including pregnancy-related ones), as well as how to deal with hormones at the office.) [Read more…]

Filed Under: Family Planning, Parenting, TTC, Working Mom Tagged With: posts

The Parents’ Budget

02/12/2015 by Kat 32 Comments

Ladies, let’s talk BUDGET. Mine has changed after having a kid (and definitely after my second) — how has yours? Do you miss the days of being a DINK? Are you going into debt for childcare (i.e., paying to work)? Is the money coming from savings? Credit cards? If you’ve made cuts for your budgeting, how keenly do you feel them? (Pictured: Rebecca Minkoff ‘Ava’ Zip Wallet, available at Nordstrom for $110; was $165.)

For my $.02: I remember hearing a lot while pregnant about kids and budgets, and to be honest, it was all noise to me. I just didn’t get it — I thought people were talking about diapers or toys or something. (I’ll wait while you catch your breath from laughing so hard.) Obviously, childcare is the tremendous expense I didn’t foresee — but other things add up, like classes (preschool and extracurriculars), food (damn those $1.40-per-pouch babyfoods), and yes, the ever-present need to purchase a seasonally-appropriate wardrobe that fits. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Childcare, Family Planning, Lifestyle, Money, Parenting, Working Mom Tagged With: posts