The shock of Ivy’s birth and my subsequent reactions to parenting have scarred me for life. The birth of my daughter, Ivy, was traumatic. I hoped for a more granola experience, as promised by the Business of Being Born DVD. Unfortunately, the bullet points on my birth plan contracted alongside my uterus. I still wonder […]
Diving into birth plans and decision making just seems like willingly wading into a deep sea of misdirects, social pressure, and manipulation. And in a society that too often prioritizes the fetus over the mother, it’s hard to know who to trust. I sighed as my obstetrician tried to explain my newly diagnosed gestational diabetes. […]
The last thing we need is one more thing to feel inadequate about, one more thing to feel like we’re doing “wrong” when it comes to having a baby. I looked at the sample birth plan my midwife handed to us with a furrowed brow. It was six pages long and had questions I hadn’t […]
Just before my milk let down, I felt a wave of sadness swell from the pit of my stomach. It was a feeling I described to friends as wistfulness, even homesickness, a scooped-out, hollow feeling. A short, but powerful unmooring. Because my pregnancy had been hard, I decided I would only breastfeed my baby if […]
An on-site village will always be ideal for new parents wondering who and where they are on the other side of delivery. But the Internet doesn’t have to be a poor substitution. On my first day alone with our newborn daughter, I considered begging my husband to quit his job. We had only lived in […]
