If my mother is not here, who will show up to bring me flowers when I am vacuumed out,
cells gone, clean, neat, dark, unseeded? By Emily Franklin
pregnancy
My eyes focus on my abdomen, the bulge pregnancy has left behind. My inner critic opens her mouth…but then I take in the whole picture. By Chrissie Dunham
Hearing “nonviable” is heartbreaking. Having to ignore that in front of 32 smiling second graders is even harder. By Caitlin Cherry
Next to Orion’s Belt are two dimmer stars. These are the babies I lost, one before each of my sons. By Julia Pelly
Our daughter asked good questions—what about the other baby? Were we sad? Why did it happen? By Cynthia Nuara
Our married life was no longer comfortable. There was no indulgence, no whispered promises of sweet dessert. By Hannah Grieco
If my belly was round and full of baby, would I hate my body less? This body that betrayed me. By Brittany Wren
When he was two, I spent mornings stuffing tubes of penne with scrambled eggs to trick him into eating something other than pasta. By Marianna Marlowe
Whether to have a baby before tenure is still one of the most pressing questions for female academics. By Sarah Rivett
The decision not to find out my unborn child’s sex is perhaps the most intimate and important one I have ever made. By Laine Munir
Serena has arguably done as much for working moms in the past year as she’s done for tennis in the past decade. By Mary Pflum Peterson
He can’t reconcile where we’d find the time, money and energy. I feel like we’d figure it out, the way we did with the first. By Abigail Rasminsky
Are we to blame for our children’s frailties? The easy response is of course not. The honest answer is yes and no. By Nan Mooney
Having a kid before establishing a career was part luck and part madness. By Lauren Apfel
I want him out in the world. But this process—the leaving process—is excruciating.
By Emily Franklin
So why is it you want a baby, my therapist asks. Love, I answer.
By Bethany Marcel
More than my body and my schedule, IVF took over my mind.
By Belle Boggs
I waited to feel that my first child was not enough. I waited for a hunger that can be satisfied in only one way.
By Leslie Kendall Dye
Nobody told me while my house was falling apart that eventually I would start to see clearly again.
By Lauren Apfel
I can’t imagine spreading my legs and letting doctors make quick work of this loss.
By Nicole Piasecki
By the time we left China, it felt like he was ours, wholly and completely. And he is. But he is not.
By Kelly Westhoff
Any guilt or reservation about a “failed” birth plan was replaced by an unwavering commitment to my son.
By Stephanie Noll
I was ashamed of my pregnancy losses. I felt I had been kicked out of some elite club of women with impeccably functioning wombs.
By Stephanie Sprenger
After infertility, she’s not the parent she thought she’d be.
By Amy Klein
One of the hardest parts of parenting is deciding when to let your children come to their own conclusions and when to steer them down a certain path, in the name of transmitting values.
By Lauren Apfel