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The Accidental Exclusive Breastfeeder
“Accidentally” becoming an exclusive breastfeeder. Let me start by saying, I’m no lactivist. I think breastfeeding is great, if that’s what you’re into. I think formula is great, too. I’m...
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Daunted Yet Determined
By Rachel Pieh Jones Can climbing twenty-two flights of stairs lead to quick deliveries? The day I gave birth to twins I walked down twenty-two flights of stairs. I was twenty-two years old. We lived...
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Birth Control’s Invisible Mommy Majority
I went to the doctor—a new doctor, actually, since we’d changed insurance and had to switch physicians. As checkups go, it was a bit uncomfortable. Unlike my old practice, where they take action only...
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Midstream
By Lynn Shattuck They move north and west. The low weight of eggs in their belly propels them. Their bodies move through the saltwater, past the glittering lures of fishermen. They turn and twist until...
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When Breastfeeding Was Gross
By Rachel Pieh Jones Whatever the reason, I thought breastfeeding was disgusting. When I gave birth the first time I was barely twenty-two years old and my braces had been removed just a few months...
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Just Between Friends
By L. Bo Roth The noisy school gymnasium held dozens of women in their underwear, kicking boxes around with their feet. “Welcome to the Endless Knot Warehouse Sale” read a sign over the door. In the...
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Our Birth Stories
By Katy Rank Lev Sharing our birth stories with our children. “Will Mommy be the next person in our family to die?” my five-year-old asked my husband as I lay on the sofa, drugged up on Vicodin. My...
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Dadima’s Basement
By Mary Anne Williams At thirty weeks pregnant, my daughter’s rhythm against my drumtight belly is strong enough to wake me now. Usually, I drift back to sleep. Tonight, however, I hear the heavy...
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Notes to My Self of Ten Years Ago, When I Was a New, New Mom
You are doing okay. You are doing great. You are not actually losing your mind. Okay, you are, but you will get it back. For the most part. He will sleep, I promise. He will one day be an amazing...
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Cyber Kidnapped
By Becki Melchione “Someone is using photos of your babies and claiming that they’re hers. I thought that you should know,” the comment on my blog stated, “she did the same thing to me.” I clicked on...
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Milk Machine: One Donor Mom’s Journey
By Krystal A. Sital We meet at the side of the road, in parking lots, and on rare occasions, in our homes. Our clandestine encounters are often laced with surreptitious glances thrown over our...
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The Bird Family
By Liz Blocker In the thick heat of a June afternoon I walked out my front door and down the stairs and nearly stepped on a dead baby bird. I saw it just in time, and stopped, my foot hovering over the...
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Having Kids Strengthened My Marriage/Having a Kid Strained My Marriage: Two...
Having children together is a big step in any couple’s relationship and one that will invariably affect the dynamic between them. For some people, like Zsofia McMullin, the arrival of a baby can put a...
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Awake
Something about that quiet companionship in the dark was a comfort to us as children, and again as mothers, too. When you stop sleeping, really stop sleeping except for forty-five minutes or an hour...
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Why I Don’t Regret Taking All Those Baby Photos
By Christine Organ I have a list of parenting regrets about a mile long. Wasting money on an expensive rocking chair and signing my three-year-old up for soccer, for instance. But one thing I don’t...
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Apocalypse Now
Amy Penne I worry that my son might not understand what I’ve tried to be. And if I were to be killed, Willard, I would want someone to go to my home and tell my son everything—everything I did,...
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Letters From My Father
By Amy Monticello We like to have a destination when we walk. A place to arrive. Life with a baby is easier with small goals, the day divided into manageable hours. An hour of tummy time. An hour of...
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Explorers
By Alicia Rebecca Myers I could tell you how a stranded Robert Bartlett walked 700 across an iced-over Chukchi Sea, how Robert Burke traversed the latitude of Australia but died from exhaustion after...
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Flash Fiction: Motherhood is Natural
By Erika Murdey Jill sits on a park bench at the fountain to rest her feet—she finds it harder to move in her fifth month of pregnancy. She had needed to get out of the house, to enjoy the sunshine...
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The Best Parenting Advice I’ve Heard
By Julie Vick When my first son was a few months old, I was bouncing him on an exercise ball at 3:00 a.m. to try and get him back to sleep. It was the third time I had been up with him that night, and...
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