More than 4 years ago I wrote about what it was like trying to rebuild my life after a devastating miscarriage knocked me off my feet. I’ve revisited that idea here to give an update on what feels like a continual rebuilding and readjusting to a new life. You can listen to me read the essay here. […]
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The Sisterhood of Mom Guilt Goes Back Forever
by Lizzie Heiselt It turns out that mom-guilt has been a thing at least since the mid-nineteenth century. I didn’t know that. But Anne Bronte introduces the title character of her book “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” during a conversation in which many of her parenting choices are called into question by virtual strangers. I’m […]
#20: Before, After, & Then After
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Natalie was 19 when she got pregnant. Plans to marry her boyfriend quickly fell through and she was left with a choice to keep the baby or place the baby in a closed adoption. With her parents’ help, she chose adoption. And then she found out it was actually twins. And that there might be […]
What Tolstoy Taught Me About Motherhood
by Allison Crockett Anna Karenina. Words synonymous with Russian winters, trains, adultery, lavish dresses and furs, princes and princesses. Or perhaps the mind jumps quickly to Tolstoy and his ability to take a few simple themes and turn them into 800+ page novels. Whatever your initial thoughts are, they probably did not involve the shaping […]
“Please Let It Be Multiples.”
by Shelley Sadler In July 2010, I had a miscarriage. To say it was hard is an understatement, as anyone who has gone through one can attest. At this particular moment, we were having some personal struggles in our family, so that made the loss of something so special even harder. My youngest child at […]
Twenty-Three Years
by Ana Nelson I married at 19, and because I was a young Mormon woman at BYU with a very high level of buy-in to the culture, I felt a lot of pressure to start adding children to our family fairly quickly. I believed using birth control was fine … but everybody around me was […]
Imperfectly Perfect
by JoAnna Donkin, as told to Lizzie Heiselt (listen to JoAnna read the essay here) A healthy baby has 10 little fingers and 10 little toes, 2 little eyes and one little nose. But I was not going to get a healthy baby. An ultrasound at 11 weeks hinted that something could be wrong. And after weeks […]
To Do/To Become
by Sarah Israelsen When I became a mom I knew how to take care of a human. I knew how to change diapers, feed a baby, hold him, comfort him, and put him to sleep. I knew how to smile, coo, give attention, stimulate, and love a child. And I thought I could be what […]
Of Sisters and Shoes
by Bonnie Overly I’ve had a brand new pair of pink baby shoes sitting on my bathroom counter for a week now. I had decided it was time to go through my girl baby clothes and separate items for saving, donating, or passing on to friends when I came across these shoes. My daughter never […]
Love the One You’re With
It was early November, I think. Starting to get chilly and gray. I was tired. It was mid-morning, and I was lying on the couch. I lay there, half asleep, half aware of my daughter playing with her stuffed animals a few feet away. She beckoned me to get up. I moaned something about being […]