The Complete Nightmare of Choosing a Baby Girl Name
I was thirty-four hours post-C-section, wearing those horrific mesh hospital underwear and a nursing bra that smelled entirely like sour milk and desperation, just staring at this blank government form. The birth certificate lady was hovering by the door holding...
Why We Blasted Baby Pluto To Survive The Fourth Trimester
It’s 3:17 AM on a Tuesday in November. I’m sitting in the driver’s seat of my husband Dave’s Honda Civic, parked securely in our own driveway with the engine idling. I’m wearing a gray fleece bathrobe that smells aggressively like...
The Only Newborn Outfits You Actually Need (And What to Burn)
It was 3:14 AM on a Tuesday, and the window AC unit in our bedroom was fighting a losing battle against the Texas humidity. I was dripping in postpartum night sweats, sitting cross-legged on the rug in my mesh hospital...
The Truth About New Baby Gifts (And Why I Burned a Cardigan)
It’s late October 2017. I'm sitting on the edge of a remarkably uncomfortable IKEA glider in my dimly lit nursery, wearing a nursing bra that smells intensely like sour milk and sheer desperation. I'm holding my three-day-old daughter, Maya, who's...
Dear Past Priya: The Truth About Infant Car Seats
You're currently sitting on the garage floor in your maternity leggings. There's a half-eaten granola bar on the bumper of the Honda, the manual for the convertible seat is open to page forty-two, and you're quietly crying because the little...
The Hatch Baby Delusion: Why Smart Sound Machines Won't Save You
It's exactly 3:14 AM, and I'm standing motionless in the hallway outside my daughters' bedroom, holding my breath so tightly my vision is starting to blur. Page 47 of the best-selling parenting manual we panic-bought during the third trimester suggested...
Why My Newborn Looked Like the Eraserhead Baby (And How We Survived)
It was 3:17 in the morning, a steady London drizzle was blurring the streetlights outside our flat, and I was staring into the hallway mirror holding what appeared to be a hostile alien organism. My hair, unwashed for four days,...
Do Babies Cry In The Womb? What Those Ultrasound Scans Really Mean
When my wife was twenty weeks pregnant with our twin girls, we received exactly three pieces of deeply conflicting, entirely unsolicited advice within a forty-eight-hour window. My mother-in-law insisted we needed to play Mozart pressed directly against the bump to...
How Do You Make A Baby Thrive When You're Running On Fumes
Dear Jess from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the floor of the laundry room, eating a stale granola bar you found in your maternity jeans, while the breast pump makes that horrific wheezing sound and your four-month-old screams...