pregnancy – Some Punny Bunny

A Little Baby Update

Posted on September 15, 2026 by Eryn 🐰

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Well… Baby was born yesterday.

She’s here. She’s perfect. And somehow, after spending the last nine months wondering what she would look like, what she would be like, and what it would feel like to finally meet her, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that she’s actually here.

I’ll write a much more in-depth birth story later because, honestly, there is a lot to unpack. It was a bit of a traumatic experience, if I’m being completely honest.

I ended up needing an emergency C-section. Thankfully, I’m recovering pretty well so far, but it definitely wasn’t the birth experience I imagined for myself.

And then today threw us another curveball.

Baby’s blood sugar levels have been really low, so she’s currently in the NICU. As of right now, her levels have bounced back up a little, which is encouraging, but the doctors are still trying to figure out why.

She was fine yesterday.

Today, we’re in the NICU.

And I think that’s the part I’m struggling with the most. I went from finally getting to hold my baby and thinking, We did it. She’s here. We’re okay, to suddenly having doctors and nurses monitoring her blood sugar and trying to figure out what’s going on.

So, that’s where we are right now.

She’s perfect. I’m recovering. We’re taking everything one moment at a time.

I’m not ready to tell the whole story yet, but I will. For now, I just wanted to give a little update because apparently motherhood decided to skip the gentle introduction and immediately throw me into the deep end.

Welcome to motherhood, I guess.

Lifestyle

The Beautiful Little Fool

Posted on September 13, 2026 by Eryn 🐰

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I’m 38 weeks pregnant.

At this point, I’m supposed to be nesting. I’m supposed to be washing tiny clothes, organizing bottles, packing the hospital bag, wiping down everything that doesn’t need to be wiped down, and generally preparing for the arrival of this baby.

Instead, we got the crib up today.

So, technically, I did one nesting thing.

The hospital bag? Still not packed.

And honestly, I’m sad and angry all the time right now.

I’m just tired.

Tired of everything going on. Tired of feeling like I have no control over what is happening around me. Tired of constantly having to adjust, wait, figure things out, and make peace with circumstances I didn’t exactly choose.

And the whole not cooking thing is really starting to piss me off.

I want to cook.

I want to make my soups and casseroles and all the cozy food I had planned for this season. I want to feel like I’m preparing my home and my life for this baby instead of constantly feeling like I’m in limbo.

I know I need to relax.

I know I need to focus on the fact that my daughter is almost here.

I know I should be enjoying these last few weeks and preparing for her instead of sitting around being sad about everything I can’t control.

But sometimes you can know exactly what you should be doing and still not have it in you to do it.

Part of me is just too sad.

And maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking about Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby.

There’s that moment when Daisy looks at her daughter and says she hopes she’ll be “a beautiful little fool.”

The older I get, the more I understand why she said it.

Not because I think women should be fools. Quite the opposite.

I think there’s something heartbreaking about becoming a mother and realizing that one day, your daughter is going to be a woman just like you.

She’ll love people.

She’ll trust people.

She’ll make mistakes.

She’ll make decisions she absolutely should not make.

She’ll ignore advice because she needs to learn things for herself.

And eventually, she may look back at some of the choices she made and wonder what the hell she was thinking.

Because I know I have.

I look at my own life and realize I have been an idiot woman at times. I’ve made stupid decisions. I’ve stayed too long, trusted too much, ignored things I probably shouldn’t have ignored, and allowed other people and circumstances to influence choices that ultimately belonged to me.

And now I’m going to raise a daughter.

A daughter who will hopefully learn from my mistakes.

A daughter who will hopefully have enough confidence to make better choices than I did.

A daughter who will hopefully know her worth before somebody else has the opportunity to convince her that she doesn’t have any.

But the funny thing about motherhood is that I can teach her everything I know and she is still going to make her own mistakes.

She is still going to have her own heartbreaks.

She is still going to make decisions that make absolutely no sense to me.

And I’m going to have to sit there and watch her learn the same way I had to.

I just hope her mistakes are different from mine.

And if there is one thing I really hope she takes from me, it’s this:

Never make a life-changing decision just because of a man.

Love someone. Build a life with someone. Make compromises for someone.

But don’t lose yourself for someone.

Because I want my daughter to be many things.

Beautiful, sure.

Smart.

Kind.

Funny.

A little weird.

Strong.

But most importantly, I want her to be her own person.

Maybe that’s part of what scares me about becoming a mother.

I’m not just preparing for a baby.

I’m preparing to raise a whole human being who will eventually become a woman with her own choices, mistakes, heartbreaks, opinions, and hopefully enough common sense to avoid at least some of mine.

For now, though, I’m 38 weeks pregnant.

The crib is finally up.

The hospital bag is still sitting there, unpacked.

And I’m trying to remind myself that I don’t have to have everything emotionally figured out just because the baby is almost here.

Maybe nesting doesn’t always look like perfectly organized drawers and matching newborn outfits.

Maybe sometimes nesting is just putting the crib together while you’re sad.

Maybe sometimes it’s admitting you’re angry.

Maybe sometimes it’s accepting that you don’t feel in control and doing the next small thing anyway.

Today, that thing was the crib.

Tomorrow, maybe I’ll pack the damn hospital bag.

Body & Being

A Year Later, I’m Still Learning to Rest

Posted on September 13, 2026September 11, 2026 by Eryn 🐰

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Last year, I answered the prompt, “How are you treating your body this month? What does your body need to feel better?” by saying I needed rest, relaxation, better meals, better sleep, and more movement.

And honestly? If we’re doing a little annual progress report, I’d say… some things have changed. Some things absolutely have not.

I am definitely eating better meals this year, so go me! One point for personal growth.

Better sleep, though? Yeah. About that.

I’m not a side sleeper. I have never been a side sleeper. And despite spending this entire pregnancy being told that I should sleep on my side, I still hate it. My body is basically like, “Oh, you want me to sleep in the position I have spent my entire life avoiding? While also being nine months pregnant? Fun.”

So better sleep is probably going to have to remain a future goal.

And really, the biggest thing my body needs right now to feel better is pretty simple:

I need to give birth.

According to the baby books, a lot of these aches and pains should start going away once the baby is actually outside of me. Of course, I’m sure they’ll be replaced by an entirely new collection of aches and pains because apparently motherhood comes with a complimentary subscription to Back Pain™.

But honestly? Fine.

I’ll take the newborn-induced exhaustion and whatever other fun little postpartum surprises are waiting for me if it means I can stop carrying an entire person around in my abdomen.

The funny thing is, though, throughout this entire pregnancy, I really have been taking better care of my body. Since finding out I was pregnant, I’ve been much more aware of when I need to slow down, rest, eat something decent, or just generally stop expecting myself to function like a normal human when I am, in fact, growing another human.

When I was staying with my parents, I was actually pretty good at relaxing. Everything outside of the little bubble of me, my parents, and their dog stressed me out, but as long as I was home with them, I was fine. I could settle into that little bubble and just… be.

Now I’m back in California and without that safety net, I know it would be really easy to fall back into my usual habits of constantly doing something, worrying about something, or convincing myself that I should be doing more.

So I’m going to have to force myself to keep relaxing.

Not “I’ll relax after I finish this one thing.”

Not “I’ll rest once everything is taken care of.”

Not “I’ll just quickly do this first.”

Actually. Relax.

Because if there is one thing pregnancy has taught me, it’s that my body is going to do what it needs to do whether I have a five-point productivity plan for the day or not.

And maybe that’s the real answer to this year’s prompt.

My body needs good food. It needs movement when I’m able. It definitely needs better sleep, although we’ll circle back to that one after the baby arrives.

But more than anything, my body needs me to stop treating rest like something I have to earn.

So, for the rest of this pregnancy and hopefully beyond, I’m going to try to be a little gentler with myself.

Even if my body is currently shaped like a tired little question mark.

Lifestyle

I Know She’s Okay, But…

Posted on September 12, 2026 by Eryn 🐰

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I don’t know why, but the closer my due date gets, the more my brain seems determined to come up with new things to worry about.

Lately, I’ve had this lingering fear that maybe the baby will have some type of disability or that there’s something I’m supposed to be noticing that I somehow haven’t. And I know that sounds dramatic. I know there are scans, appointments, measurements, and doctors who are actually trained to look for things. I know that if there were concerns, there would probably be signs or conversations happening.

But pregnancy anxiety does not always care about what I know.

Sometimes it just shows up anyway.

For me, lately, it has been about her movements.

She moves. That isn’t the problem.

If I lay on my side and pay attention, I can count ten movements. I’ve been reassured that everything sounds normal. She is active.

She just isn’t active all the time.

And for some reason, that has gotten into my head.

I see other pregnant women talking about how their babies never stop moving. People complain about being kicked constantly, about not being able to sleep because their baby is doing gymnastics at three in the morning, and sometimes I find myself wondering why my experience feels different.

Because she does move. She squirms. She kicks. She has her moments where I’m very aware that there is, in fact, a tiny person living inside of me.

But there are also stretches where she’s quieter.

And even though I’ve been told that can be normal, my brain starts doing what brains are apparently very good at: taking something that has already been explained and turning it into a completely new reason to panic.

What if she isn’t moving enough?

What if the way she moves means something?

What if I’m supposed to know the difference between normal baby movement and something that isn’t normal?

What if everyone else just somehow got a baby who is constantly doing backflips, and mine is suspiciously calm?

Then, of course, I had another thought.

Maybe we’re just on opposite sleep schedules.

Which, honestly, would be very on-brand for us right now.

My personal sleep schedule is completely fucked.

At this point, I’m usually awake from around 4 p.m. until 8 a.m., with multiple naps sprinkled throughout the day like I’m a cat who also has a severe lack of routine.

So when I actually stop and think about it, I’ve noticed something.

She seems more active when I’m up and moving around during the day.

If it’s 10 a.m. or noon and I get up, walk around, start doing something, or generally exist like a functioning human being, she starts moving.

But after 10 p.m., I’m usually in bed or on the couch. I’m barely moving. I’m scrolling on my phone, watching TV, or, if we’re being honest, watching House and pretending I don’t need to Google every medical thing that happens on the screen.

So maybe she’s asleep.

Maybe I’m awake.

Maybe we’re already working on an incredibly inconvenient mother-daughter sleep schedule.

And maybe that is all this is.

I think that’s the part of pregnancy that nobody can fully explain to you before you’re in it. There are so many things happening inside your body that you can’t actually see. You can feel her, but you can’t check on her whenever you want. You can’t ask her, “Hey, are you sleeping, or are you just being suspiciously quiet today?”

You just have to trust your body. Trust the information you’ve been given. Pay attention when something actually changes. And somehow not spiral every single time your experience doesn’t look exactly like someone else’s.

Which is easier said than done.

Especially the closer I get to meeting her.

Because I think, underneath all of these random worries, there is something much bigger happening.

I’m scared.

Not necessarily because anything is wrong.

But because soon, she’s going to be here.

She won’t just be a collection of kicks and squirms and hiccups happening inside me anymore. She’ll be an actual little person that I get to look at and hold and learn about.

And I think the closer that gets, the more my brain realizes that there is so much I can’t control.

I can’t control who she’s going to be.

I can’t control what kind of personality she’ll have.

I can’t control whether she’ll love to sleep at night or decide that 3 a.m. is the perfect time to start her day.

And I can’t spend the rest of my pregnancy analyzing every movement she makes—or doesn’t make—trying to predict an entire future from the way she squirms inside me.

So, for now, I’m trying to remind myself of what I actually know.

She moves.

I can feel her.

I’ve been reassured.

And maybe she really is just sleeping while I’m lying on the couch at midnight watching TV.

Maybe we’re on opposite schedules already.

Maybe she’s preparing me for motherhood by making sure I understand that she has her own routine and absolutely no interest in following mine.

Honestly?

That feels more likely than anything being wrong.

But if you’re pregnant too and you know what I’m talking about—the weird little worries that pop into your head even after you’ve been reassured—I think maybe that’s part of it.

Maybe motherhood starts before they’re even here.

Maybe it starts with loving someone so much that every quiet moment makes you wonder if you should be worried.

And maybe part of learning how to be her mom is learning when to listen to that instinct—and when to take a breath, put my phone down, stop overanalyzing every single squirm, and remember that she might just be sleeping.

Even if her mother absolutely is not.

Lifestyle

I Don’t Think I’m Making It to My Due Date

Posted on September 10, 2026September 8, 2026 by Eryn 🐰

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I’m 37 weeks pregnant, and I have officially reached the point where every stomach ache is a potential emergency.

Not because I know what labor feels like.

Quite the opposite, actually.

I have absolutely no idea what labor feels like.

I’ve never done this before.

So basically, I’m just walking around waiting for my body to give me a very clear announcement like:

“HELLO. THIS IS LABOR. PLEASE REPORT TO THE HOSPITAL.”

But apparently bodies don’t work that way.

Instead, I get a tummy ache and immediately start questioning everything.

“Okay… was that a contraction?”

“Was that Braxton Hicks?”

“Is the baby coming?”

“Am I in labor?”

“…or did I just eat cheese again?”

Because there’s a very important piece of information here:

I’m lactose intolerant.

And apparently, despite having a mother who has made it very clear that dairy and I are not friends, this baby has decided that dairy is basically a food group.

In the last two days, I have eaten five grilled cheese sandwiches.

Five.

GRILLED.

CHEESE.

SANDWICHES.

I would like to make it clear that nobody forced me to eat these grilled cheese sandwiches. These were my choices. I made these decisions willingly and with absolutely no regard for the consequences.

And then there’s the milk.

I have been drinking an embarrassing amount of milk over the last few weeks.

Okay, fine.

Chocolate milk.

But let’s not pretend that makes it better.

Milk is milk, and my digestive system knows it.

So naturally, I’ve been having a lot of tummy aches.

And every time one happens, my brain immediately goes into full detective mode.

I’ll be sitting there thinking:

“Hmm. My stomach hurts.”

Pause.

“Wait.”

Longer pause.

“IS THIS IT?”

Then I start trying to determine if the pain is coming and going.

Is it getting stronger?

Is it lasting longer?

Is it a contraction?

Is it gas?

Is it the grilled cheese?

Is the baby trying to escape?

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?

And honestly, I feel like this is the worst possible time in my life to have a food intolerance.

Because at 37 weeks pregnant, there is already enough happening inside my body without me having to wonder if every intestinal rumble is the beginning of childbirth.

I genuinely cannot tell the difference.

I’m just out here with absolutely no experience, trying to distinguish between labor pains and the consequences of my own poor dietary choices.

Imagine having your first baby and thinking you’ll know when labor starts.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be sitting on the couch clutching my stomach like:

“Okay, this feels serious.”

And then five minutes later:

“Actually, I think I just need to poop.”

What a beautiful journey motherhood is.

And this is why I’m starting to think I might not make it to my due date.

Do I have any legitimate reason to think that?

No.

Has my doctor told me I’m going into labor early?

No.

Have I had any real signs that I’m definitely about to give birth?

Also no.

But do I have a very strong feeling?

Absolutely.

And honestly, I think it’s because I’m now at the point where every weird sensation feels like my body is preparing to launch a baby.

A cramp?

Baby.

Backache?

Baby.

Tummy ache?

BABY.

Need to pee for the 47th time today?

Probably baby.

Feel slightly uncomfortable?

Definitely baby.

Hear my stomach make a weird noise after eating half a block of cheese?

…probably not baby.

Probably the cheese.

At this point, I’m just waiting for the moment when I finally realize, Oh. Okay. THIS is actually labor.

Assuming I ever figure it out.

Because for all

Lifestyle

Becoming a Mother Has Made Me Think About My Own Parents

Posted on September 3, 2026September 3, 2026 by Eryn 🐰

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I’ve shared a few times about my relationship with my biological dad, my relationship with my stepdad, and the fact that my biological dad and I have been estranged for a long time.

I don’t really have anything new to report on that front.

But the closer I get to becoming a mother, the more I find myself thinking about it.

And not just my relationship with my dad.

I keep thinking about my mom, too.

Because my mom actually had a very similar situation growing up, except hers was worse.

Her mother took her from California and left my grandfather behind. Then, at some point, my mom was left with aunts and uncles in Texas while my grandmother continued on to Mississippi. My mom has three other siblings, and from what I understand, pretty much everyone was dropped off at different points between California and Mississippi.

Eventually, my grandfather got his children back and gained custody.

My grandmother wasn’t really in my mom’s life for a very long time.

And as a kid, I was furious about it.

Not necessarily because my grandmother had done anything directly to me, but because I was angry for my mom.

I remember thinking, How could you do that to your own child?

Then my grandmother came back into my mom’s life when I was a teenager, and I remember still carrying that anger. I couldn’t understand how my mom could let her back in after everything.

But my mom forgave her.

And eventually, so did I.

I think I’ve always understood forgiveness as something you do for the other person, but I’m starting to understand that sometimes forgiveness is really just putting down something you’ve been carrying for way too long.

It doesn’t mean what happened was okay.

It doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

It doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences.

It just means you don’t want that hurt to own you anymore.

And now I’m pregnant.

And somehow, pregnancy has made all of those old family wounds feel a little closer to the surface.

Because suddenly I’m thinking about my mom as a teenager.

And I’m thinking about myself as a kid.

And I’m thinking about my dad.

There was a point when my mom connected really deeply with “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” She eventually sent the song to her mother because it was her way of saying, You hurt me. This is how I feel. I don’t know how else to say it.

And honestly, I wish I had done something like that.

I wish I had the courage to have sent my biological dad the song that would have said everything I couldn’t.

Because there are things I wish he knew.

I wish he understood how I felt.

I wish he knew what his absence felt like.

I wish I could have explained the parts of growing up without him that I didn’t know how to put into words at the time.

And maybe that’s why I connected so strongly with Kelly Clarkson’s original version of “Piece by Piece.”

Not the rewritten version after her divorce. The original 2015 version.

The version where she’s singing about her father and the way that experience shaped her.

At the time, I didn’t even know that Kelly Clarkson was pregnant when she sang that version on American Idol.

Now I’m sitting here pregnant myself, and that detail feels almost surreal.

Because I understand that song differently now.

I’m not just hearing it as someone’s daughter anymore.

I’m hearing it as someone’s mother.

And that’s a completely different kind of gut punch.

Because I’m about to have a daughter.

And I’m suddenly thinking about all of the things my parents did right, all of the things they did wrong, and all of the things I desperately don’t want to repeat.

I’m thinking about the kind of mother I want to be.

I’m thinking about what my daughter will remember about me.

I’m thinking about whether she’ll ever sit in her room as a teenager and wonder why I did something the way I did.

I’m thinking about whether she’ll ever be angry with me.

And honestly, I hope she is.

Not because I want to hurt her, obviously.

But because I want her to feel safe enough to tell me when I’ve hurt her.

I want her to know she can be angry with me and still be loved.

I want her to be able to tell me that I fucked up.

I want to be the kind of mother who can hear that without making her feel like she has to protect my feelings.

Because I know what it feels like to have things you don’t know how to say.

And I don’t want that for her.

At the same time, I’m not trying to stir up drama with my biological dad.

He has said that he wants to be there for the baby.

And we’ll see.

I’m not going to deny him the opportunity to have a relationship with his grandchild.

The same goes for Hector’s family. I’m not going to deny them the opportunity to know her either.

But I will say that, in both situations, I want to be present for the interactions.

I don’t trust either side enough to leave my child alone with them.

I know some people will disagree with that.

And honestly, that’s fine.

People can have whatever opinions they want about how I handle my child and my family.

But I’m not willing to gamble with my daughter’s safety or my own peace of mind just to make someone else feel comfortable.

Maybe that changes someday.

Maybe it doesn’t.

I don’t know.

And that’s the thing about becoming a mother.

I suddenly have all of these questions about the future that I can’t answer.

I don’t even know if I’m going to have another child.

Everything is expensive. Life is expensive. Babies are expensive.

And getting pregnant wasn’t exactly as simple for me as I thought it would be.

I didn’t get pregnant when I expected to.

For a while, I wondered if it was even going to happen.

And then I ended up pregnant without even knowing I was pregnant.

I wouldn’t change that for anything.

I truly believe it happened in God’s timing, even if it wasn’t my timing.

But being grateful for this pregnancy doesn’t mean it has been easy.

It hasn’t.

There have been a lot of stressful moments.

There have been health concerns.

There are things I haven’t really talked about on this blog because, frankly, they’re scary.

There are some things that become a lot more frightening when you’re not just worrying about yourself anymore.

I’ve been on bedrest.

I’ve had to deal with not being able to work the way I normally would.

I’ve had moments where I’ve been scared about what was happening with my body and what it could mean for my baby.

And I think that’s part of why all of these thoughts about my family have been coming back.

Because when you’re sitting still, literally forced to slow down and spend a lot of time inside your own head, you start thinking about things you normally keep moving past.

I’ve been thinking about my grandmother.

I’ve been thinking about my mom.

I’ve been thinking about my dad.

I’ve been thinking about the little girl I used to be.

And now I’m thinking about the little girl I’m about to meet.

It’s strange realizing that I’m carrying not only a baby, but so much family history with me.

There are things that happened before I was born that still affected me.

There are things that happened when I was a child that shaped who I became.

And now I have the opportunity to stop some of those things from continuing.

I can’t change what happened to my mom.

I can’t change what happened between my parents.

I can’t go back and send my dad a song when I was younger and say, This is what you did to me. This is how it felt.

I can’t make my childhood different.

But I can make choices now.

I can choose to communicate.

I can choose to listen.

I can choose to apologize.

I can choose to give my daughter room to have feelings that make me uncomfortable.

I can choose to love her even when she’s angry with me.

I can choose to break whatever pieces of this cycle I can.

And maybe that’s what becoming a mother is really doing to me.

It’s making me look backward at the same time I’m looking forward.

I’m grieving some things.

I’m forgiving some things.

I’m questioning some things.

And I’m realizing that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

But I do know one thing.

I want my daughter to grow up knowing that she was wanted.

That she was loved.

That she was safe.

And that no matter what happens in her life, she will never have to wonder whether her mother showed up for her.

Maybe I can’t change the family history I was given.

But I can decide what I hand down.

Body & Being

Ending August Off With a Bang

Posted on August 31, 2026 by Eryn 🐰

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So we are ending August off with a bang.

I haven’t confirmed anything yet, but I think I may have a fungal infection, which apparently is pretty common during pregnancy. And if you’ve had one before, pregnancy can apparently make it worse. So I don’t really know where I stand with that yet, but I do know that lately I’ve been having a lot of dry, flaky patches popping up on my skin.

And when I say dry, I mean DRY.

No matter how much moisturizer I put on them, they stay dry and flaky. There’s also some skin discoloration, and no matter how much I scrub these areas in the shower, they still look exactly the same.

At this point, that can only mean one thing: something is going on.

I think I’ve already posted about how I haven’t really been able to visit a doctor while I’ve been here, and of course, I didn’t think to schedule an appointment while I was in California because apparently remembering basic things is too much to ask of me.

But dry, flaky skin combined with changes in skin color can be a symptom of tinea versicolor, which is a common, non-contagious fungal infection caused by an overgrowth of yeast on the surface of the skin. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what I have, but considering what my skin has been doing lately, it’s definitely something I want to have checked out.

The good news is I’ll be going back to California in about 10 days, so I’m going to schedule a doctor’s appointment for when I get back and hopefully get an actual answer instead of playing dermatologist with Google.

Until then, I’m going to try a few things at home and see if anything helps.

So for now, I’m off to buy Nizoral shampoo because apparently a LOT of people online recommend it for this. Hopefully it helps, but either way, I’m definitely going to have this checked out once I’m back in California.

Because apparently pregnancy wasn’t already giving me enough things to keep track of. Now my skin has decided it wants to join the party.

Lifestyle

36 Weeks Pregnant and Still Figuring Out Where I’m Giving Birth

Posted on August 30, 2026 by Eryn 🐰

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I’m officially 36 weeks pregnant, which means I have technically got about four weeks left… assuming this baby actually cares about my due date. Which, considering she is already her own person, who knows. She could show up tomorrow.

My hips are absolutely killing me. I feel like I’m eating constantly, but then I realize I’m really only eating like two meals a day. Mostly fruit. An absolutely unreasonable amount of fruit.

Also, my baby book didn’t even list this as “week 36.” It called it month 9, which annoyed me way more than it should have. I want my WEEK 36, thank you very much.

And as for preparing for this baby?

Hospital bag: not packed.
Nursery: lol.
Everything ready: absolutely not.
Do I even know what hospital I’m giving birth at?: NOPE.

We’re still waiting to hear back from a few apartments in California, so at this point I genuinely have no idea where this baby is going to be born.

If push comes to shove, I already told Hector that closer to my due date I may just have to go stay with him and his parents until we figure out the living situation. I genuinely did not think getting an apartment would take this long, but here we are.

We’re giving it until around September 10th to figure things out because my due date is getting very close, and by then I really need to be in California if that’s where I’m going to deliver.

Because the alternative is giving birth out here and paying completely out of pocket, and apparently childbirth likes to casually cost around $32,000 on the low end.

The easiest solution would probably be for Hector to fly out here early in the morning—it’s literally only a 30-minute flight—rent a car, or more realistically a U-Haul van, load everything up and drive back to California.

Because an SUV barely fit everything we brought to Vegas in July, and I have acquired even MORE stuff since the baby shower. The kid isn’t even here yet and somehow she already has more shit than I do.

But honestly?

I want to stay in Vegas.

It’s cheaper. I don’t really have responsibilities here right now. I can lay in bed all day. I can eat my weight in fruit. I have my parents here. I can actually rest.

Obviously I’m not planning to live with my parents forever, but it would be a lot easier to stay here until I have some solid footing. And honestly, there are approximately one million hotels in Vegas, so finding a job out here would probably be easier too.

It really just depends on Hector and what happens with California.

And then there’s the whole hospital situation.

Our new health insurance starts in September, but because I’m not in California, I can’t actually use it here. Once I’m back in California, I can change the hospital I’m currently registered with and potentially deliver at a better hospital.

Which honestly… I WANT TO.

Because I recently looked up the hospital I’m currently registered to give birth at and apparently hospitals can have Yelp ratings??? I didn’t even know that was a thing.

It has a 1.9-star rating on Yelp.

Then I looked at the Google reviews and it has an overall 3-star rating, and some of the reviews are… concerning. People are complaining about medications not being administered properly, and there are reviews alleging that the hospital doesn’t respect HIPAA.

Now, obviously, I’m not taking random internet reviews as absolute fact, but when I’m supposed to be giving birth there in approximately FOUR WEEKS, suddenly I’m doing a lot more research than I ever thought I would.

Like, why does my hospital have Yelp reviews?!

So yes, hopefully once I’m in California and the new insurance kicks in, I can change hospitals because I would really like to feel a little more confident about where I’m going to deliver this baby.

So when people who aren’t super privy to all the details ask about the baby, I’m like:

“Yeah, my due date is really close! It’s exciting but also a little scary!”

And internally I’m like…

Ummmm actually it’s significantly more scary than exciting right now.

I am excited to meet her, obviously. But right now I’m mostly excited about one thing:

THE OPPORTUNITY TO SLEEP ON MY BACK AGAIN.

That’s it. That’s the dream.

Lifestyle

Apparently, Having a Baby Is Selfish Now

Posted on August 21, 2026 by Eryn 🐰

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There’s a discussion happening on TikTok—or maybe it’s already been happening, and I’m just finally noticing it because I’m pregnant—but apparently being pregnant, or even wanting to be pregnant, is selfish.

There are so many comments saying, “You should have adopted,” or “You should have been a foster parent,” or that people are just trying to fill some part of themselves by giving a child something they never got. Then there’s the whole argument that the world is shit, politics are shit, and this child isn’t going to have anything anyway.

And my genuine question is: At what point in history was it actually a good time to have children?

Genuinely asking.

Because there’s never been a point in human history where the world was perfect. There has always been war, poverty, political instability, disease, economic problems, and people convinced that the world was going to hell. Somehow, people still fell in love, got married, had children, built families, and kept going.

Then there’s the other side of the discussion where apparently you’re selfish because the child “didn’t ask to be born.” That you’re having a child for your legacy. That you’re having a child because you want someone to love you unconditionally. That you’re trying to recreate your childhood or give a child everything you never had.

And maybe some people do have children for those reasons. But that doesn’t mean everyone does.

Not every person who has a baby sat down and thought, “How can I selfishly fulfill my emotional needs?” Sometimes people genuinely want to raise children. Sometimes they want a family. Sometimes they just love the idea of being a parent. And yes, sometimes pregnancies are accidents. Not every child is the result of some perfectly calculated five-year plan.

And honestly, a lot of this feels like another form of misogyny to me because somehow the blame always lands on the woman.

The woman is selfish for getting pregnant.
The woman is selfish for wanting children.
The woman is selfish for having another child.
The woman is selfish for not adopting instead.

But where is the same energy for the dad?

Because somehow pregnancy is treated like this moral decision that women are solely responsible for making, even though it generally takes two people to create a baby.

And God forbid you want more than one child. Then apparently you and your partner are selfish because you’re bringing another person into the world, and never mind what the actual family wants. According to these people, having another child is somehow inherently taking something away from the children you already have.

I also don’t think people understand how difficult adoption and fostering actually are.

My family has adopted and fostered, so this isn’t something I’m saying from ignorance. These processes can take years. There are home studies, paperwork, background checks, training, court processes, waiting periods, and so many other things involved. You cannot just walk into an agency and say, “I don’t want to have a biological child, give me one.”

And adoption and fostering aren’t supposed to be alternatives you choose because you want a baby. They’re about providing a home for children who already exist and need one.

I actually do want to foster and potentially adopt in the future. It’s something Hector and I have talked about doing once we’re settled, have a home, and are in a position where we can genuinely provide for multiple children. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have my own biological child.

And the part that really gets me is seeing people who call themselves feminists and pro-choice making these arguments.

Because what happened to choice?

You don’t have to want children. You don’t have to have children. You don’t have to understand why someone else wants children. But if someone makes the choice to become a parent, why are we suddenly treating that choice as morally wrong?

It also feels like we’re becoming a society that increasingly just hates children.

There’s no community anymore. There’s no village.

When I was growing up, my siblings and I played with the kids in the neighborhood. And if we did something wrong, our neighbors knew my mom. They could tell us to go home. They could tell my mom what happened. There was this understanding that the adults in the community were all responsible for looking out for the kids.

Now it feels like people want to be part of your life right up until you become pregnant.

I had a friend who wanted to reconnect with me, but after I got pregnant, she basically told me we couldn’t meet up anymore because she wanted to go to bars and drink.

And I told her, you can drink. I just won’t.

I can still go to dinner. I can still hang out. I can still have conversations. I can still be your friend. I’m just pregnant.

I’ve had people tell me my life is over.

I’ve had people act like becoming a mother means I’m no longer going to be a person.

And honestly, I think that’s what bothers me the most about this entire conversation.

You can choose not to have children. You can think having children is selfish. You can decide that parenthood isn’t for you.

But maybe we could stop treating people who genuinely want to be parents like they’ve committed some moral offense by bringing another human being into the world.

Because I’m pregnant.

And my life isn’t over.

It’s just changing.