As Yet Untitled

*** This contains mildly graphic (but mostly just frank) descriptions of miscarriage. You have been warned. *** I am going to say something that might make a lot of you uncomfortable. I recently miscarried. My second miscarriage in the last year. And I am talking about it because it seems like people generally feel very uncomfortable discussing this topic, and women often feel kind of ashamed to mention it, probably because it so obviously makes people uncomfortable. But I am going to repeat what the doctors told me: there is nothing that can be done to prevent it. It has nothing to do with anything you did or didn’t do. These things just happen—it’s part of the biological process. You wouldn’t want to keep an unviable fetus in your belly anyway. The point being, miscarriage is something that is natural. It happens when for whatever reason, the cells that make up the beginning of what could be a baby are genetically imperfect, or mismatched, deformed, whatever. And it just...

Well, I am now nearing the end of my pregnancy, and there are several thoughts that I would like to share with the public at large. 1.  Although I said I never would, I broke down and took some maternity photos. And I am so glad I did. I am fortunate enough to have a professional photographer as one of my besties, and she agreed to come over for the day and snap all kinds of pictures of me and my bump. In between waiting for the light to be right, we watched Poltergeist II and ate brownies. This is the added benefit of being besties with your maternity photographer. So throughout this post I will be interspersing my favorites from the shoot. There are some really gorgeous shots here. 2. I would like to register my frustration with the attitude toward pregnancy in the world of academia. As some of you may know, I am currently seeking my master's degree in English. This semester, whenever I walk down the hallways I get odd looks, like, "What are you doing here? How can yo...

The Beginning I may not have mentioned it here yet, but in case you didn't know, I am pregnant. Let's get the preliminaries out of the way: I am about six months along, I am having a girl, and her name will be Evie. I plan on having a vaginal birth with as many pain-reducing drugs as they can possibly pump into my body. I have yet to do anything to the nursery. So, with that out of the way, let's get to the real point of this post. I wasn't sure that I ever wanted to have kids. I mean, I always thought I would someday, kind of the way you always assume you will die. It was just an inevitability. But I had no intention of having children a year after getting married. That is, until I was looking into my husband's grayish-blue eyes one day and imagined them nestled under a mop of curly, dark brown hair and complimenting little pink cheeks. Then I immediately thought, I should have a baby right now . Then I quickly told myself I was crazy. I have a full time job....