I'm now seven weeks into my pregnancy and things are not nearly as bad as I'd feared. Many women have the fears of morning sickness or miscarriage, I had the added fear of people disagreeing with the way I'd chosen to raise my children long before I'd gotten pregnant. I'd chosen vegetarianism for myself, and long ago I decided it was also the best choice I could make for my children--a healty and humane start to life. I know that someday they may choose to eat meat, they may do it once or twice out of curiousity, or they may one day decide to do so for the rest of their lives, it would not make me love them any less. Perhaps it is this standing that has made people that disagree with my diet accept my choice to start my children out with the same.

It may also be my vast aresenal of knowledge, much of which makes people go green before I get into the real gory details of the treatments of animals, and what exactly is in that thing that they're eating. It may be that I can name off doctors who support vegetarian and vegan diets for children over a traditional omnivorious diet. Obviously when you can point to a few experts that agree with you it makes people go quiet. It may be that I rarely get angry when people disagree with this choice, but instead present them with the same evidence that has led me to believe it is the best one for all involved. If you're in my situation, keeping your peace is a huge help--so is the ability to walk away from those that are still insisting that your child will starve, or suffer from some form of malnutrition from your choice. In this case it is often best to drive home the point that you would never let your child suffer in any way even if it went against your beliefs (because we all know this is true), then they usually calm down.

So from my own experiences my advice is simple: be informed, be calm, and make sure everyone knows that your child will still come first. The advice may change as I get further into my pregnancy and people see I cannot be swayed on this front, or perhaps when my toddler isn't eating cold hot dogs with the rest of them, but those three steps are the ones I'm going to use to continue to make it through this.