Welcome to the blog!

My name is McKinsey and I am the author of Growing&Raising. This blog was born shortly after the birth of my first child.

In my early 20’s I was diagnosed with PCOS. As a young woman who wanted to have children this was extremely distressing to me. Would I be able to achieve a healthy pregnancy? As a healthcare professional with a background in research I made it my mission during this time to improve my health in order to boost my odds of catching an egg.

I started eating healthier and cooking most of my meals from scratch. I started doing gentle exercise to reduce stress and improve circulation. I went through my personal care and cleaning products with a fine tooth comb to remove as many toxins from my life as possible. I began to make many things myself like deodorant and cleaning solution. These new habits I started out of desperate want for a child I began to enjoy- I liked being able to make things for me and my husband that we needed. Self sufficiency became something I valued. This time in my life also happened to coincide with the inflation of the 2020’s, and I found that cooking at home and making a lot of our personal care products saved us much needed cash.

After becoming pregnant I spent my time improving me, my husband’s, and our soon to be child’s health. I also spent tons of time learning how to mother in as natural a way as possible. I started to become the go to person for my friends and family for health and wellness related information- cloth diapering, baby-led weaning, and toy DIYs became common questions I fielded.

One night after my son was born the idea came to me to start an archive of all the information I had collected inside my head. And that is how Growing&Raising came to be- not only to share my knowledge with others but also to document it for myself.

So with that I hope you enjoy the blog! Here you will find a bit of everything! Child rearing information, recipes, gardening, DIY builds, homeschooling supplies and more. Happy reading!