18Nov 2023 by Sarah Glenn
What you need to know if you’re trying to get pregnant

What you need to know if you’re trying to get pregnant

Health, Infants, Life, Parenting, Pregnancy, Relationships
What you need to know if you're trying to get pregnant and may have fertility questions. *By definition “fertility is the natural capability to produce offspring.” FERTILITY: Such a beautiful word! The image one might conjure up in his or her mind is of something lavish.  After all, some of the synonyms associated with this word could be: abundant, arable, fruitful, lush, productive and rich.  All of which bring allurement to consciousness.  Close your eyes and try imagery with this word. Impossible to think of anything gloomy.  Now try this exercise in relation to humans and conception.  First thoughts may have been a beautiful, perfect, angelic baby or some of you may have given in to thoughts of the activities involved in producing this angel.  Both are pleasing symbolisms. It’s…
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17Nov 2023 by Sarah Glenn

One Baby, Please, Hold the Sugar: A Birth Story

All, Birth Stories, Breastfeeding, Health, Infants, Life, New Parenthood, Post Partum, Pregnancy, Relationships
One baby, please, hold the sugar is my daughter's birth story told from her perspective. These words are her own and don't necessarily express my personal views or opinions. I welcome all women to share their birth stories! Please contact me if you'd like to publish your birth story on The Incomplete Guide to Parenting. If you are interested in my doula or lactation services, please visit my website Disclaimer: No artificial sweeteners here I've gone back and forth about putting my story out into the world. I never wanted to scare anyone, and so when asked, I would come up with a glossed over, toned down version of my story, the "polite" version. But I recently read a birth story that was such a blatant bunch of sugar-coated bull****…
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12Nov 2023 by Sarah Glenn

The Trials and Tribulations of a Young Mom

Life, Parenting, Relationships, Teens
To understand the trials and tribulations of this young mom, you should read this and this first. Being emancipated at 16 certainly makes you feel like a full-grown adult.  Everything I did was with a responsible thought process, but I certainly wasn’t perfect.  Many times, I would act like a typical teen and just have a boyfriend or hang with my friends, but work, school and sports encompass your whole life and leaves little room for fun.  As adulting does to everyone.  Even learning to drive was taught by my older friends since I didn’t have an adult to guide me, but I managed.  With a bit of scrimping and saving I bought my own $500 car at 16.  It was a necessity, since you really can’t get around on…
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07Nov 2023 by Sarah Glenn
The Captivating Home of Your Fetus

The Captivating Home of Your Fetus

Health, Infants, Life, Parenting, Pregnancy
The captivating home of your fetus is riveting when you genuinely take the time to learn each discovery. The microscopic to the most significant details will blow your mind. The more you understand about this symbiotic environment, the easier it is for you to nourish yourself a little bit more through the pregnancy. From the time you saw the pregnancy test appear favorable, you’ve likely done a lot of reading about pregnancy, labor, birth, and babies. Maybe you’ve even watched a bunch of videos or taken a class to become more comfortable with the process or perhaps talked to a variety of seasoned moms. Whatever route you are using to learn about motherhood, it probably does not include enough information about the complex environment your protégé is growing in. Parents…
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03Nov 2023 by Sarah Glenn

Are You at Risk for Burnout?

Life, Parenting, Relationships
Just like a computer, sometimes your brain needs a reboot.  If you keep adding input without taking something out (making room or some of you might remember GIGO? - I’m aging myself) you can burn out the “machine.” Your body is a delicate symbiotic system that needs a chance to catch up (like the computer’s spinning circle of death).  We can’t possibly expect to have our machines working at their best if we don’t give it a little rest, discard the garbage, update it or shut down completely for a while.  The same can be said for the body builder. If she never gives her muscles a chance to repair, those muscles will be in jeopardy of falling apart and not grow.  Defeating the purpose.  While anyone can be on…
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10Oct 2023 by Sarah Glenn
The Fourth Trimester

The Fourth Trimester

Breastfeeding, Infants, Life, Parenting, Pregnancy, Relationships
It's strange to hear the newborn period referenced as the "fourth trimester." You've spent 10 (not 9) long months on a countdown through days, weeks, months and trimesters patiently waiting until the end of the third trimester for "this" to be over so you can meet your little one. Emotionally, those first three months postpartum are a time of transformation for you, your baby, and your partner. Learning how to be a family is taxing. Physically your body is adjusting to the new spaciousness, milking breasts, and the crazy hormone acclimation. Let's not forget the exceptional changes a newborn phase through. The cerebellum alone triples in size during the first year. Those early experiences outside the womb are integral to optimize brain development. Newborns are born slightly immature at full…
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07Oct 2023 by Sarah Glenn
My Young Teen Years

My Young Teen Years

Life, Parenting, Relationships, Teens
  If you missed My Younger Years, understand that I ended the story with my mother getting remarried when I was 11.  I was completely fine with it but wasn’t aware until they got back from Hawaii.  So… Let me preface this by saying, that I absolutely loved my stepfather.  He was a troubled soul and my mother was extremely preoccupied with saving him.  Unfortunately, it was all I needed to get into trouble.  Skipping school, hanging with the “bad kids” and sneaking out were easy to do when your mom wasn’t watching.  Through it all, I still managed to skip a grade in school due to my grades (went from 7th to 9th) but that didn’t matter.  The more I sought my mothers’ attention the worse trouble I was…
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07Oct 2023 by Sarah Glenn

My Younger Years

Kids, Life, Parenting, Relationships
My “Young Me” Story Follow my upbringing to see where I landed in my adulthood and parenting!  Start at the beginning... My mother and father were 18 and 20 when they got married (she was not pregnant).  Mom delivered me 2 days before her 20th birthday, in Brooklyn, NY. So, I grew up an only child with a single mom in an Irish catholic community in Rockaway Beach, NY (that’s a part of Queens). My parents divorced when I was a baby and I never met my father until I sought him out in my 20’s. Two of my aunts lived within walking distance and I spent a fair amount of time playing with my cousins.  Matter of fact, one cousin and I were “twins,” born 18 hours apart and…
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21Sep 2023 by Sarah Glenn

Teaching the Art of Giving

Kids, Life, Parenting, Relationships, Work
When children are very young, teaching the art of giving is hard for most to conceptualize. Since birth, they have been the focus of many gifts, and very little is expected of them, rightfully so. Some children will naturally have the personality to be a giver, sometimes too much, but the other personality types may need more convincing. It's hard to grow up watching the commercialism surrounding holiday seasons (and made up holidays). Everywhere children go, there is a message of receiving a present for whatever time of year it is. I mean Christmas alone starts in July- Seriously, I went to the boardwalk in August hoping to spend a lovely weekend soaking up the end of summer (I'm in NEPA) but instead was hit with Halloween and Christmas- EVERYWHERE! …
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27Jan 2023 by Sarah Glenn

Chow Time with Kids

Infants, Kids, Life, Parenting, Teens, Toddlers
Chow time with kids can go either way. Every day is a new adventure with the fickle offspring. For a parent, planning and preparing meals is likely a daunting task and can make for tension around mealtimes. Finding what pleases everyone in a family could make you wish for a chef. Kids have a love-hate relationship with food. Have you ever noticed how fast their favorite meal this week is the hated one next week? When you think you've found a mealtime pattern of happiness, those little monsters go switching things up. In our house, a favorite saying is, "Which way is the wind blowing today?" Meaning, do you like bananas (or some other food) or not? I still say this to my 13-year-old-eye roll! I'll be honest here, with…
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