I am almost 24 weeks pregnant. I manage an organic CSA farm with my best friend, Aby. This is physically and emotionally challenging work, as is baby-making. Although I am happy for the fresh air, exercise, and access to nutritious food, especially while pregnant, this has definitely not been as easy as I might have originally thought. Heck, I pretty much planned the pregnancy around the farm season (many of you may know farmers can be slight workaholics), thinking "Oh this will be perfect! I'll be pregnant during the whole farm season, work as I've always worked and when the baby is ready to come, the season will be winding down and I can take a rest!" To boot, this goes with the assumption that life with a newborn is restful. I never said I wasn't naive.
As my pregnancy has progressed, I've wondered about all the other pregnant farmers out there. I never hear much about them! I know they're out there. When I google such things, info about lambing or Farmville comes up, or bad news stories about violence against pregnant farm workers (Not what I want to be reading). I'm interested in sharing my experiences, and hearing about other people's. Challenges, funny stories, whatever. I'll try to do a little bit of backtracking to bring you up to speed, as I will be moving into my 3rd trimester fairly soon.
Also, I've never blogged and don't know anything about uploading photos, designing blogs, and don't have much time for it, so hopefully you can deal with the basics. Eventually hopefully I'll get a little more creative.
good luck with your blog! i'll try to add any stories I can think of. i also remember not being able to find any information about farming while pregnant. just do the best you can and follow your instincts is what worked for me. I don't think you will find there is any "perfect time" to have a baby while farming, but it's all worth it and very very difficult and satisfying too! love the name mamamira
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to what you have to share. I know a few farmers with kids out there, so I think this will be a great read for many like them.
ReplyDeleteThe easiest way to post updates with photos, etc. is to download Windows Live Writer, that is if you have a PC. It's a free download:
http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D85741BB5E0BE8AA!1533.entry
You just need to enter your log-in info and once it's set up you can do all of your writing in there and post by hitting "publish". If you have a Mac you can buy a cheap program called Ecto that will make life easy on you as well.
Good Luck!
I love you! Thank you so much for taking the time to share what it's like to be a pregnant farmer. And with humor and honesty no less!
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I have been having the maybe-we-should-have-a-kid talk but I am terrified that it would mean having to give up my farm, which I just can't picture doing. (Workaholic? Most definitely.) We think we want to have a family, but most examples of farm women having babies involve husbands that also work on the farm, which is not the case for us. I am the farmer, and it would be me and my belly and my farming partner doing the work.
The fact that you worked through a growing season gives me such hope. Even just knowing how hard it would be, that it really sucks sometimes, but that it's possible, is so incredibly helpful. Thank you, thank you!
Now if you ever want to post about how it is to harvest with a kid on your back, that would be awesome too... :)