As a young single woman living in a punk house in LA, Sarah made an unusual choice: to become certified as a foster parent. Over the next few years Sarah welcomed young traumatized children and surly teenagers into her home and gave them all the love she had to give. Then, after days, or weeks, […]
Valerie and I often talk about how, no matter when we talk to someone, we are always in the middle of their story. We continue to change and evolve and process and grow. Our priorities change, our circumstances change, our lives change. We adjust, we readjust, we find balance—and then we fall again. And begin again.
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. […]
We all know that in family planning there is no “one size fits all,” there is no, “take this quiz and find out how many kids you should have!” there is not necessarily a magic number or a magic feeling.
It wasn’t too long after her mother died that Meg began to feel . . . tired. Maybe a little under the weather. Possibly depressed. But it was winter—cold and gray. She was grieving. And her life was hectic with house renovations. And then a more familiar nausea set in . . . . For […]
The relationship we have with our moms can be fraught and complicated. We must differentiate ourselves from our moms, but no matter what we do or who we become, they are always guides or shadows on our paths. We can never fully disentangle ourselves from their influence—and in the best case scenario, we probably would […]
I knew that it wouldn’t do me any good to say, well, I’m going to have a baby and then I’ll figure out my life because I’d already made pretty much made a solid decision that I was going to place him for adoption and I didn’t want to put my life on hold any longer.
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 […]
Liz has known since she was a child that she would be a mother. It was the fact she based many of her life decisions around and the thing that made her “a crazy person.”
