Why I Stopped Trusting The Chinese Baby Gender Predictor Chart
I was sitting in a terrifyingly hip Brooklyn coffee shop at 14 weeks pregnant with my first kid, wearing my husbandβs oversized flannel shirt because absolutely none of my pants fit anymore, drinking a tragic decaf oat milk latte that...
Dear Past Priya: The Brutal Truth About Your Transverse Baby
Dear Priya of six months ago. You're sitting on the crinkly paper of exam table three at Northwestern. The ultrasound gel on your stomach feels like ice. The tech has that slightly tight smile on her face as she moves...
What to Do When You Feel Less Fetal Movement in the Third Trimester
My mother-in-law told me babies just get lazy at the end. The girl in my prenatal yoga class said her doula claims fetuses enter a deep meditative state to prepare for birth. A random mom on the internet said to...
The agonizing wait for a tiny flutter: early pregnancy heartbeats
I was staring at the acoustic ceiling tiles in room four of my obstetrician's office, counting the little perforated dots while trying to remember how to breathe. The transvaginal ultrasound wand is nobody's friend. It's basically a plastic joystick wielded...
Debugging The Maternity Baby Shower Dress Meltdown In Real Time
Exactly forty-five minutes before our backyard celebration was supposed to start, I found my wife stress-crying in our Portland bathroom with a humidity sensor from my server rack sitting on the counter. She was 31 weeks pregnant, and the highly-rated,...
Finding a maternity dress for baby shower events without losing you...
I'm trapped in a zippered velvet prison. It's mid-July in Chicago, I'm thirty-three weeks pregnant, and the zipper on this supposed dream dress is stuck right over my left rib, which my daughter currently uses as a kicking bag. The...
Finding A Baby Shower Dress That Actually Fits (Without The Tears)
Dear Sarah from six months agoβwait, no. Maya is four now. So, dear Sarah from four years and six months ago. Whatever. Time is a completely meaningless construct anyway when you haven't had a full night of uninterrupted sleep since...
Searching for Baby Shower Venues Near Me Without Going Broke
I was exactly twenty-nine weeks pregnant with my oldest, sweating entirely through a polyester maternity dress in the lobby of a local country club that smelled heavily of floor wax and old money. The event coordinator, bless her heart, was...
The Honest Truth About Baby Shower Invites (And Surviving Them)
I was sitting at my kitchen island in July of 2017, my ankles swollen to the exact size and texture of grapefruits, wearing a maternity tank top that had a crusty mustard stain on the hem, crying over cardstock. Literally...