Intro

tesskerr

Hi, my name is Tess and I'm about 6 weeks with my first. I have my first check up tomorrow. This was a unexpected surprise! My FI and I are about to buy our first home in post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand, which is proving to be difficult and stressful, with house prices rising $100,000 in the last 12 months, and the positive pregnancy test has meant to have to adjust some of our life expectations for the next couple of years.

We are both very hard workers, and very passionate about our jobs, so will both juggle our full-time jobs with raising our baby, with minimal child care, hopefully just 10-15 hours per week, and hopefully by family, but I will be returning to work very quickly! Unfortunately it is an absolute necessity as I am self employed.

I have been a vegetarian for 15 years, I do eat free range eggs, and hope to have some chickens, if our house has some land. I also love vege gardening, so that will be fun. My FI eats vegetarian at home, and occasional meat out, and he is a little concerned about raising a vegetarian child. So I will be asking a lot of advice about that!

I also plan to try CD, and I do use mainly natural cleaners and home, and do not use anything tested on animals at home, or at work (I am a beauty therapist). Unfortunately there is not a whole lot of choice in New Zealand. I think one thing I am going to find very hard is balancing my love of beautiful, expensive, extravagant things (like a bugaboo donkey pram!) and trying to be a clean, green eco friendly family on a budget! Does anyone else struggle with this? I look forward to getting to know you all! 

sandyapples

Welcome!  This board is pretty slow but I've noticed it picking up lately.

tjkdlhb

Hang out on the Cloth Diapering board too... there are lots of posts there about green living too.