If only I knew then what I feel now. In my clinical practice as a psychologist, I specialized in women’s reproductive and maternal mental health long before being pregnant for over a year. Getting pregnant with my son was easy. The subsequent months of his development were filled with surprising enjoyment, international travel, and wild […]
Despite how counterintuitive it seems, leaning into trauma might be the very antidote to drowning in it. There is no one “right” way to feel after experiencing pregnancy loss. The trauma continuum is vast and varied. Every woman comes to this loss with different maternal hopes, reproductive histories, pregnancy fantasies, relationships with their bodies, interpersonal […]
I was sure I didn’t want children, then an unexpected pregnancy changed everything. It’s a Saturday morning, and I think I’m pregnant. I go to the bathroom and unwrap a pregnancy test—pH paper inside a plastic stick. I sit on the toilet and awkwardly place the plastic stick under my urine stream. I set the […]
When a woman conceals the first trimester of pregnancy, who is she trying to protect? These days when I leave the house, I take the refrigerator with me. For a three-hour-long journey, I pack two peanut butter sandwiches, two yogurts, an apple, two oranges, crackers, water, and ginger ale. For a shorter trip — to the bank, […]
Every parent of an only child has a serious reason why that child won’t have siblings, whether that reason is biological, economical, or philosophical. Here is the story I want to tell you: I found a new primary care physician and went to her for symptoms—heart palpitations, anxiety, diminished sex drive, fatigue—and I asked if […]
Do we really shroud something so joyous (and potentially heartbreaking) in secrecy because…it might be awkward? You’re idly scanning your Facebook feed, past photos of organic seedlings and Andalusian beer, when suddenly a black-and-white splotch claims top spot. Your first thought: Christ on a stick! My friend is pregnant with an out of focus baby! Your second:How […]
Many women feel ashamed of their bodies, their sexuality, their parenting skills, and even their pain. Is shame so ingrained in us that it’s become our default response to practically everything? Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day was earlier this month. I wouldn’t have known, if not for the fact that my Facebook newsfeed included […]
There is no way to compromise on an issue like this. As much as the census may claim that American families have one point something children per household, you can’t have half a baby. I’m 44, and I bled again this month at exactly 27 days—the calendar of my body, clockwork of my reproductive system, […]
Mother’s Day can be difficult for women struggling with infertility. Here’s how to best support them. Spring is a hard time to be feeling infertile. Mother’s Day, rebirth, babies out in their strollers—you know what I’m saying. One spring, I was the woman who secretly wanted to be a mother. The next year, I not […]
Your infertile friend doesn’t want your sympathy. She just wants your friendship. One afternoon when my son was a colicky, refusing-to-sleep newborn and I was stuck home with him, out of my mind from sleep deprivation and round-the-clock nursing, a good friend played for me a voicemail she’d saved for a year, in which I […]
