u/fleebinmaman

I'm hoping this is okay to post. I do not want to start any fights. I'm just curious, and I have a new account I'm mostly using for throwaway purposes, so I figured it'd be the perfect time to ask.

I'm not a terribly crunchy mom but I do things here and there. I enjoy following moms on Instagram who follow the lifestyle, at least in part. I guess I'm more holistic than anything.

The main issue I have is that I'll find a new influencer to follow, all will be great, and then suddenly they're preaching politics that go against my family personally (immigrants, my daughter is trans, my son is bisexual, etc) and I can't support that in my right mind.

Is there anyone? Every time I find someone who seems even neutral they pop up with something and I have to block and move on. I know it comes with the territory to be conservative, but there's gotta be at least a few right? Lol.

Pls I miss my crunchy insta feed.

My 16yo acquired a shepherd mix about six months ago. We've taken him to the groomer twice but my son wants to start grooming him at home more frequently, especially as he's shedding a lot more now.

We've only ever had single coated dogs so I have no idea what to get him. I did a quick google, and I understand we need a slicker brush and undercoat rake? We use those on our cats already so we have no issue with that. Idk if there are any other brushes that would work. We use rubber brushes on the other two but they tend to tug on the shepherds hair.

Google also mentioned deshedding shampoo, which would be ideal, because I've never had so much dog hair in my house before. Any brand recs I would really appreciate.

Thank you!

For some very quick context, my husband and I have adopted my siblings & siblings kids. We may be adopting another and are thinking of potential names.

This is mostly for fun. My sister may have a name in mind by the time she gives birth. We just like doing the fun things.

We like shorter names, or names that have short nicknames. We don't know babies sex and likely won't until birth. More traditional sounding although we ventured out a little bit with our youngest.

Names on our list from when we had our youngest are as follows;

Alice, Daphne, Delilah, Rose/Rosie/Rosemary, Lola, Madi, Julia

Henri, Cassidy, Lance, James/Jameson, Buck, Jack, Ezra, Jude, Mac, Jesse

We don't love any of them, but that's where our taste lies!

Older kids are Dean, Layla, Lily, Annie, Theo, Ford & Shep. Some have longforms but this is what we actually call them.

Thank you!

Hello. I hope the throwaway ish account is okay. I used to be a poster on here a few years ago but ended up deleting reddit during the blackout thing we had & family connecting my story and figuringout it was me posting. Anyway.

I adopted my younger brother when we aged out of foster care together. My other siblings were not able to come with me. I also had a bio daughter at the time.

A couple years after that my sister (17 at the time, still in foster care) gave birth to a little girl. When she was 7mo she had relapsed 3x and her daughter was removed from her care. With some work she ended up coming to me and my husband. I gave birth to another little girl.

A year or so after her birth I was informed that my parents had had a baby. We debated adoption but I couldn't stand the idea of someone else looking after him. And now he's ours.

The sister who had a baby at 17 fell pregnant again. She'd aborted 2x at this point but found out too late to terminate (it was 2020, everything was a mess). We didn't want to seperate our daughter from her bio sibling, so we prepared for the baby to come to us. I funded her tubal ligation. No more babies.

A couple years after that I fell pregnant again. Whoospies, husbands vasectomy had reversed itself. Debated termination, but decided against it. Had the baby then my own tubal.

He's our youngest. Currently, we have 16yo, 13yo, 10yo, 8yo, 7yo, 5yo & 2yo.

Sorry for all the word vomit. I tried to condense the info as much as possible.

Now, my siblings are all complicated creatures. I try to support them from afar.

My younger sister had her son removed from her care three years ago. They were living out of state at the time and we had no idea. He was young and her rights were terminated, so he was adopted almost immediately. At the time I felt a lot of anger that no one had asked us to take him.

My sister is now pregnant again. She came back to us and asked if we wanted the baby.

I'm in two minds. On one hand, we have seven children. Every room in our house that isn't a necessity has been converted into a bedroom. My day is ruled by children with varying needs. He's going to be a newborn, the most sought after age. He'll find a home in no time.

On the other hand, he's my family. My oldest is aware of the situation and wants us to take him. He can be very emotional when it comes to siblings. He is in therapy and his therapist thinks it's leftover from separation trauma in foster care.

My husband is happy to have another baby. He's autistic as all hell and crunched the numbers (financials, how much time the baby will take up) to make it easier on me, but him making it seem so simple has made it harder for me lol.

I feel like we should say yes. He's our family and we all want him. The girls are excited at the prospect of another baby, although we haven't told them much.

But at what point are we going to stop? How many babies will we say yes to?

I would love to take him. I think we probably will? I just wanted some outside opinions. This might be more applicable to a general parenting sub rather than this one, but they all have posting limits. So I'm here.

Anything anyone can help me with would be great. Thank you.