Becoming Mother

Here you will find sporadic commentary on motherhood, written in stolen moments.

2017 Postpartum Series

• The First Week: In Pictures (Part 1: The First Days)
• The First Week: In Pictures (Part 2: How We Eat and Sleep)
• What Bleeding Taught me About Trump’s America
• Week 2: Crying
• Week 3: Growing and Shrinking
• Week 4: Gentle Sleep Training
• Week 5: The Hospital Bill Arrives (A.K.A. Why You Can’t Shop for Health Care)
• Week 6: A Great Time to Return to Work
• Week 7: And Now My Watch Is Ended
• Week 8: Is There Room for Motherhood in Feminism?
• Week 9: Maternity Leave, In Pictures
• Week 10: The Baby Weight
• Week 12: Destiny or Chaos?, The Deep Questions
• Week 20: What if I Told You…

Pregnancy

• First Trimester
• Dear Pregnant Self
• Pregnancy Confession
• Things I Don’t Miss About Being Pregnant
• Baby Registries: What to Add, What to Skip
• Global Billing: Wait, You Want Me to Pay Before the Baby is Born?
• I Wore a FitBit During Pregnancy and Childbirth: Here’s What I Learned
• I Wore a FitBit During the First Year Postpartum: Here’s How Much Sleep I Lost

Travel Through My Second Pregnancy

• First Trimester
• Week 13: Welcome, Muffin Top.
• Week 14: Why Am I Eating so Much Apple Crisp?
• Week 18: Already?
• Week 19: The End of Child # 1’s Naptime
• Week 20: The Answer is No.
• Week 21: Streeetch
• Week 22: Practicing Gratitude
• Week 23: Practicing Generosity
• Week 25: The Edge of Viability (on the pro-life/pro-choice debate)
• Week 27: Here Comes the Weight Again
• Week 28: I Understand TV as a Babysitter Now
• Week 32: On the Feeling of Splitting Open
• Week 34: When My Post Went Viral
• Week 36: Sort of Ready for Another Baby
• Week 36 1/2: Last Trimester Funk
• Week 37: Endings
• Week 38: Paradoxes
• Week 39: What We Learn from Pain
• Week 40: Ticking Time Bomb
• 40 Weeks and 4 Days: Mountain Climbing
• Week 41: The Answer is No. And Yes.
• 41 Weeks and 3 Days: Ranting and Raving
• Finally, We’ve Had the Baby
• Birth Announcement Pictures

Miscarriage

• Waiting to Miscarry
• Underneath Miscarriage
• Through Miscarriage

Labor and Birth

• What Labor and Death Have in Common
• On Natural Childbirth: An honest confession to first-time moms
• Birth in (almost) Two Words
• “You Complete Me?”: The problem when birth becomes romance
• A Birth Story in Songs

New Motherhood

• These Holy Hours
• Postpartum Levels of Sleep Deprivation
• On Using the Snotsucker: A Letter to My Colleague
• The Picture I Don’t Like to Remember
• My Gift to You, First-Time Mothers
• Initiation
• We Don’t Care for Them Because We Love Them
• The First First-Birthday Party
• On Turning Two
• To Be Three
• Thanks, Motherhood: I can handle rejection now.

Marriage

• When I Became Real to my Husband

Parenting

• I Go to Work to “Relax”: a.k.a Why Staying Home with My Kids Would Destroy Me
• Why My Kids Will be Getting Jitterbugs Instead of Smartphones
• The Tough Nights: a.k.a Don’t Ask if the Baby is Sleeping Through the Night
• I Heart Daycare (and some ramblings about feminism)
• Terrifying Moments in Parenting: In Random Order
• Breaking Up is Hard to Do
• The World is Good Because it is Bad: A Letter to My Unborn Child

Book Club Discussions

• Book Club Discussion # 1: Breastfeeding… or not
• Book Club Discussion # 2: Who should intervene when women have trouble breastfeeding?
• Book Club Discussions # 3: My Body, My Choice?

Grief

• Without a Name: When a Parent has Bipolar Depression
• Giving Grief a Voice
• Words for a Grieving Friend

The Writing Life

• Self-publishing: Costs and benefits
• Writing the Formulaic Novel: Yes, please
• Walking Through the Fear
• Thanks, Motherhood. I can handle rejection now.
• Walk the Line: Writing for an unseen audience
• Why I Don’t Want to be Great: An artist’s reflection

Getting Perspective

• America: Your Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough
• One Thing That Google Memo Got Right: Ladies, This One May Hurt
• Why Are American Women Dying in Childbirth?
• Why Women Have 20-Week Abortions
• A Response to the Heartbeat Bill: A Letter to Governor Kasich
• What I Know About Muslims
• When Pro-Life is Anti-Health
• Love: It’s What Makes This Election Different
• What I Will Tell My Kids about Race
• For What Can We Blame Parents?
• Brock Turner: It’s Time to Call it Rape
• Gorillas and Refugees
• A Response to “Meternity” author, Meghann Foye
• To the Syrian Mother of Triplets, Fleeing from Isis
• The Stories Without the Happy Endings
• Talking about the Hard Stuff: Teacher as Agent of Social Change

Religion

• What I Know About Muslims
• What I Used to Believe
• God, the Mother

Election 2016 Series

• My Heart is Broken
• My Baby’s Due Date is Inauguration Day
• Sitting in the Discomfort
• What Bleeding Taught Me About Trump’s America

Book Reviews

• Book of Life and Death: Book Review of “Signs of Life“
• Book Review of “Mothering Through the Darkness”
• Book Review of “The Natural Baby Sleep Solution”
• “On Shaming Other Mothers: Book Review of ‘I’m Just Happy to Be Here.'”

Identity

• Roots
• 20 Years in Songs
• The Things You Can’t Leave Behind (essay about identity and social class)
• The Bad Boy
• Beautiful, the Bitch
• The Thanksgiving Ride Home

Check out “Becoming Mother: A Journey of Identity.”