In case you're interested.......

For those who missed the news I snuck into the comments on this post a few days ago, I am pregnant. Oh so pregnant and craving Cornflakes and cupcakes like a crazy woman. I'm doing a weekly blog about pregnancy and all things parenting over at Essential Baby.

Some of you have asked why I'm not doing that kind of post here and I guess my answer is that I'm aware that not everyone who likes to hang here on Mamamia is a parent or is even interested in that kind of personal stuff.....

But don't be jealous - I'll only be posting one long-ish piece there once a week and here daily as usual. And if you want me to, I can link to my EB post from here like I have today.

Here's a slice of this week's.......

The Great Gender Balance Debate

Mia Freedman is a journalist, author, media personality and mother of two kids aged 10 and two. She’s currently pregnant with her third child. While trying to juggle the demands of work, a toddler, a tween and a pregnancy, she drops the balls often. Sometimes, she even feeds her children cereal for dinner. Here, she’ll be blogging about pregnancy, motherhood and asking all the important questions. Like “Why is Nicole Kidman not showing when I really am and she’s due before me?”

I don’t know if I’m having a boy or a girl. Really, I don’t. And you know what? I honestly don’t care. But that’s probably because I already have one of each.

Look, I don’t mean to sound smug when I say that. I’m not bragging. It’s not like I DID anything to engineer a son and then a daughter. It’s not a skill I can put on my CV (‘Mia can gestate a penis AND a vagina!’) or a trick I can wheel out at parties. It was just luck or fate or chance or whatever you want to call it.....

You can read the rest here.....

Comments

[Eve]

I think it would be great if you posted a link to them all here, or gave an update like this, or just posted them here too...
I find it interesting that you didn't seem to want to share these blogs with the MamaMia readers... Maybe you see your MamaMia audience as different to the Essential Baby audience? I dunno. But I, for one, am interested to read whatever you write and find your blogs on parenting and pregnancy to be honest and helpful. I wish you would feel comfortable sharing more! As it is such a big part of your life and you write so well about it.
Are you going to share approx. when you're due? Is it true that some women show quicker during their second or third etc pregnancys? Cause I thought Nicole Kidman wasn't showing much 'cause it was her first...
Anyway, congrats! Hope you're feeling well and that your little one is healthy.

[kelly]

love, love, love todays colour. Stop now, this is it!

[Anna]

Mia! Congrats!!

I love your Sunday Column.

[Jiji]

Congrats Mia! May you have an easy breezy pregnancy and a healthy glowing child at the end of it :)

You look gorgeous in the picture on the Essential Baby website by the way.

Wish you all the best.

PS: I really liked yesterday's colour ;)

[Dusk]

Congratulations Mia! Wishing for you a healthy, happy and Cornflakes full pregnancy!

I understand why you've kept topics separate but I'm a parent too (albeit of hell monsters...er, sorry...teenagers) so I'm interested in that side of your life. I'll be following the links to your parent hood.

Love the colour of the banner...it highlights your pic, which is already gorgeous.

Dusk

[Cerry]

Congrats Mia! I hope everything goes okay, and baby ends up happy, healthy and cute.
But why did you have to mention cupcakes? Now I want some, and I'm SOOO tempted to skip the English essay I should be writing to bake some (clearly, I'm putting a lot of effort into said essay atm).

[Heidi]

Mia, you are a very lucky girl.

I read your EB blog, and you mentioned you have a 10 year old, which means that, just speculating, you were probably in your mid-20's when you had him? And whilst there is something really bloody nice about being a young mum, I fantasise about having a child in my mid-30's, because I reckon I'd be the coolest, most laidback mum ever.

When I had my first child, I was 24 and SO ridiculously lacking in confidence. If the early childhood nurse said, "Time to start on solids now, start with pear", I'd be in the organic fruit shop in double quick time, choosing unblemished fruit for my precious bubba. I played Mozart constantly and got rid of the television, because I read somewhere that they have harmful rays. (I am deadly serious by the way). I got some silk and dyed it pink to drape over my baby's bassinet, to give him that still-in-the-womb feeling.

Basically I was a total looney and then when my second son arrived 12 months later, I was half demented with exhaustion and lethargy, brought on by trying too hard to do everything perfectly (living in Bondi will do that to you).

(Just an aside, there was a mum in our mother's group who used to make homemade hommous and serve it with organic carrots sticks, which she'd cut up using a ruler in order to make sure they were all of exact same length).

But if I had a child now? I'd be drinking champagne every night, taking the baby to bed with me, breastfeeding for as long as I felt like, watching bad daytime telly, and really just enjoying my baby.

And lucky you, Mia! You are going to experience that blissful joy once more. Congratulations.

[Dataceptionist]

Love todays colour, loved yesterdays too.

Its your blog Mia, if you want to post baby news go for it, but I would be a teensy bit disappointed if the entire blog became baby related, even though I'm sure it will be tempting!

Ilove whatever you write though :)

[danielle]

Oh Mia, please don't feel you can't share you journey here. I can't wait to follow your pregnancy and read all of your articles. If their over on essential baby I might miss them.

[Eliza]

I'm with Danielle!
I don't think all the post would be baby related, but if they are, so what Dataceptionist?! I don't think Mia would do that, if she were so inclined she probably would by now. (plus it is called Mama-Mia, surely not a coincidence that she is a mother?)
Looking forward to hearing about your pregnancy, Mia, hope you share the journey with us :-)

[susan c]

awww mia congratulations! that's brilliant news. hope you're feeling well and glowy and all that. please give us regualr baby updates here! it doesn't mean thsi entire blog has to become one big fat baby shower, but regular postings, i'm sure, would be well received; most people who read this blog would do so becuase they like YOU and your take on things, and i'm sure you'll have interesting things to say along the way.

congrats again! i know you must be a brilliant mother and your baby is very lucky to have chosen your womb ;)

(errr...hope that doesn't sound weird or gross. it's just meant to be a compliment! although, giving anyone a compliment invovling the word 'womb' was always going to be problematic, now that i think about it)

[Paula]

Congrats Mia and as a reader who is also pregnant, please post your EB blogs here, I'd be pleased to see them and by the comments above so would others.

[Amanda]

Congrats Mia!!!

I'm going to go against the grain here & say I'm pleased you aren't going to be blogging about your pregnancy here.... I for one am childless by choice, and currently have 9 close friends who are pregnant... I'm SICK of hearing about it!

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for them (and you!), but would like to just have a conversation that doesn't include scans, childbirth, cot talk for once.

I used to love reading Frances Whiting's articles, but after she had a baby, her articles are now just BLAH for me!

I don't mean this to offend anybody, just having my say :)

[Dreamqueen]

Hey Amanda - I so know what you mean ... although I do like hearing the funny interpretations that good writers write about pregnancy and being a mum, etc but SNORE, yes I too get a bit bored trying to pretend I understand and offer my two bits worth from my side-line experiences !!!!!!!!!! And ditto about Frances Whiting !!!
Go Mia !
xx

[lexi]

Wonderful news - here's to a healthy, happy and relaxed pregnancy!

[Eve]

Hey Amanda, maybe you just need to find some other friends that suit you better? That are 'childless by chioce' too?
And maybe just don't read Mia's blogs on her pregnancy & children?!
Clearly these are important things to her and I think she should be able to use her own blog to post about what's happening in her life!

[amanda (not the childless by choice one)]

Is "Eve" really Mia's alter-ego that gets to say things Mia is too PC to say? Didn't Eve leak the pregnancy news.....?

I'd be interested to see how many MamaMia readers are mothers? Whether to blog or not about Mia's pregnancy is certainly causing a stir.

I'd be interested to read the ocassional pregnancy story - is that because I am a mother though?

[Dataceptionist]

Eliza I was simply raising my own opinion, no need to jump down my throat, I was mostly pointing out that Mia probably had a reason she didn't immediately blog here about her pregnancy, and as Amanda and Dreamqueen pointed out, Mia's feeling is not all that out of whack in that some readers don't neccessarily want to hear only baby news.

Like I said above, I love whatever you write Mia, and this weeks EB blog I found a great read, but I would greatly miss all the other fun fluff you post about.

She's mananged to not write about her other two children every post so far, and I'm just hoping the balance will stay that way, otherwise I'd read a Mommy-Blog, which this blog doesn't purport to be (that I can see).

That's my two cents, if I'm be shot down needlessly again for my opinion, so be it.

[Eve]

I am Eve. Just Eve, no one else!
Why do I keep being mistaken for other people?!
Who would have the energy to post under more than one name?! I have a hard enough time being me, no time to pretend to be someone else!
Sometimes I wish I were someone else, but alas I am just Eve.
And, as I'm sure she'll confirm, I am not Mia!
What a riduculous idea! I think Mia has the guts to say what she thinks, she doesn't need to hide behind a pretend name!
And do you seriously think she comments on her own blog as someone else? Well I don't think she does. That seems crazy!
I don't think she has some sort of multiple personality thing going on!
I may have "outed" Mia's pregnancy but it was just a coincidence that I got an email that day from Essential Baby telling me her blog had been posted there. I didn't mean to "out" it, it just happened that way.
Mia - I am sorry people think I am you. I don't know what I have done to suggest this. I should probably take it as a compliment though :-) Maybe it is only you and I that know that we are really two people!
I am sorry that the honesty of my comments on here offends some people. But I am an honest person and will argue for what I believe in. I call a spade, a spade. This is who I am.
I am also a long time, big fan of Mia Freedman and her writing. This I will not apologise for.

[Mia]

Poor Eve. Last week she was accused of being Emma. This week she's me. I only wish I had been smart enough to think of impersonating someone else to leak stories about myself on my own blog. Oh wait, I have a headache.

[Emma]

Lol, poor Eve. Being Mia would probably be cool but being me... maybe not so much.
Lucky she's just Eve then!
Some people on here are funny! Makes me wonder how many people actually do comment on their own blogs?! I know I don't (and obviously Mia doesn't - just the thought gives her a headache!), but I'm thinking some people must, or else how did they come up with this madness?!
Oh God, I'm getting a headache too...

[Miss Sandi]

Congratulations!! Huge congratulations!

Best wishes, mwah X

[Eve]

Being you wouldn't be too bad, Em!
But I'm happy being me :-)

[Nicole S]

Wow Mia, no wonder you have a headache - the comments certainly flowed in for this one!! And the jury is out...
I've subscribed to Essential Baby to make sure I don't miss your pregnancy blog. I'm 32 years old and 24 weeks pregnant with baby no. 3 and I LOVED reading the gender balance debate topic. I'm like you - one boy (5) and one girl (3 next week), so I haven't found out the sex of this baby and will be thrilled with either.
Though if you ask my daughter Isabella she is DEFINITELY having a baby sister (who she is going to call 'Dora'), and my son Lachlan thinks he'll get a brother (who thinks 'Shark' is a great name :), somehow I don't think we'll go with either name suggestion!
What I've found most interesting this time round is the number of people who ask if this one was planned. They don't understand why I would want another one when I already have one of each(!) It's as if people think the ONLY reason you would want to go for a third is if you're trying to get that gender that you don't already have...
Anyway Mia, I love your website and will read it and EB over the coming months to catch up on how you're going.

[Jelica]

Mia I like reading about motherhood, and pregnancy even though I'm not a mother yet, nor am I pregnant. I will definitely be reading your peace on Essential Baby. Congratulations!