Written by contributor Nish Weiseth of Nish Happens.

I am sitting further and further away from my desk these days. My growing belly just won’t let me scoot the chair any closer. I’m nine months pregnant now, with my due date a short two weeks away, or so my doctor tells me. At this point, I’m pretty convinced that I’ll be pregnant for eternity… at least that’s what it feels like to me right now.

Being pregnant is hard work. Many women really enjoy the process, many women don’t, but regardless of where you sit on the Enjoyment Continuum, you could agree that growing a human is not for the faint of heart.

The swelling, stretch marks, sleepless nights, back pain, exhaustion, sickness and everything in between… it can all be so difficult to manage on a good day, let alone during a busy season like the holidays. Family, shopping, parties, decorating and travel can all add an enormous amount of stress on your already stressed-out body. What’s a woman to do?

Since I’m in the thick of it, I thought I would offer some tips and tricks to surviving pregnancy when life gets busy. Truth be told, I need to be taking my own advice – I tend to take on far too much when I should be resting and taking care of myself. I also enlisted the help of some battle-tested moms, and they offer their advice here, too.
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Today I’m over at (in)courage, talking about a game-changer for me when it comes to relationships: a little thing called partial solutions. Heard of them? Maybe not, but you’ve probably experienced them. From the post:

“I found medication that helped and we talked with a therapist for EIGHT solid weeks, and throughout all those hours on the couch that summer in tropical Asia, one word of wisdom resonates in my mind five years later more than any other:

It’s worth it to meet a girlfriend over coffee, even if it’s hard. And it’s worth it to have people over for dinner, even if I don’t feel like it.

Our therapist—let’s call him “Roger,” shall we, because that was his name—called all this a “partial solution.” See, he listened to me bemoan how hard life was in the Middle East, and that I didn’t really have any friends because in a city of four million people and no car, it took too long to get out of the house just to meet a girlfriend for two hours.

He countered with this: yes, life is hard. Yes, we’ve signed up for a strange lifestyle where we’ve said no to most of our creature comforts. But to say “no” because things aren’t exactly how I want them is prideful and unrealistic, and that writing off almost-not-quite was to wave the white flag instead of embracing God’s gifts as surprising.”

Head here to read the rest of the post and to share your experiences in the comments.

Written by contributor Lisa Byrne of WellGrounded Life.

A mother, Anne, who was taking one of my courses on stress and our hormonal health emailed me this question,

“I start my day with steamy hot coffee and half & half.

The morning ritual is so comforting to me. Sitting, cozy on the couch with hot coffee, a blanket, and my Bible. Love it!

But, I need to ask the question, is this caffeine contributing to the [stress] problem? What are your thoughts on coffee and caffeine?”

Coffee, and whether it is friend or foe, is a hugely popular question I get from many women, and I can understand the confusion.

So let’s take caffeine – and in particular the question, “Should I give up my morning cup of joe?” – and work through the three-step strategy I use when women are confused about health information.
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I am constantly filling up our plastic water jug—I’d say about twice daily, the kids will shout from the kitchen: “Mom! We’re out of water again!” I’ll drag the emptied container out of the fridge, refill it from the kitchen sink, and slug it back on the reachable fridge shelf.

We’re are an 80/20 family. Kyle and I feel that if we feed our kids (and ourselves) 80 percent healthy, whole, quality foods, every now and then, we can treat ourselves with a 20 percent dessert or snack. In other words—we advocate healthy eating to our kids, but we don’t demonize the occasional sweet.

However, there’s one area where we’ve pretty much exclusively stuck to the ultimate health food: water. From day one, our kids have drunk almost nothing but water, so it’s just not weird to them.

Here’s how we make sure our kids stay hydrated throughout the day with good old H2O.

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