My Journey to being a Green Mama...by Amanda Green

My journey to becoming a Green Mama started years ago. Soon after my husband and I got married in December of 2000 he started a job at a local BioTech company. One day while at work he learned about the process of the non-organic chicken's life and death, he came home and told me of his day. That day was the day we both vowed to only eat organic meats and we've never gone back. We learned that this path into a "green lifestyle" was a slippery slope and soon everything in our lives was "green." All of our vegetables, household cleaning products, paper products, laundry detergent, the list goes on and on.

Although we were not at that time ready to start a family we knew that we were preparing ourselves for the healthiest lifestyle possible and in doing so giving our future children a healthy start. We spent 7 wonderful years married, just the two of us when we decided that it was time to start our family. It was a wonderful 7 years of just the two of us but we were ready to know the miracle of children.

We were so blessed to get pregnant the first month we started trying in January of 2008, and we couldn't be happier. Sadly that pregnancy ended with a missed miscarriage at 14 weeks on April 11, 2008. Until this moment in my life I never knew that missed miscarriage's even existed, I assumed (naively) that the pregnancy was fine as long as there was no bleeding. I couldn't understand how this could happen to me, I was healthier than almost any pregnant woman I've ever known and yet they all went on to have healthy pregnancies. This single event in my life took the ground out from under me and my husband, we struggled with daily life and finding our path to happiness again. We spent each month after that trying again for a baby only to be disappointed month after month. 8 months to the day of my D&C, December 11, 2008 we were thrilled to find out that we were expecting again. All of the pain, loss and grief we had gone through the last 8 months was finally overshadowed by pure elation and happiness.

That brings us to the present. I am now currently 25 weeks pregnant and due August 21, 2009! I have never felt better in my life. I did not suffer from a single moment of morning sickness (for this I feel very lucky), I have had the most amazing pregnancy. I have dreamed my whole life of being a mother, of being pregnant and relishing in this miracle that is growing inside of me, but never in my life did I imagine I would LOVE being pregnant as much as I do. I knew I'd love it, but I never knew I could love it this much. From the moment I knew I was expecting this baby my husband and I felt so blessed and promised to not take a single moment of this pregnancy for granted, every single day we feel so blessed to have this miracle in our lives and we cannot wait to meet our son/daughter (we waiting until delivery to find out the sex). Until that moment we are going to enjoy every minute of every day and not take a single second for granted.