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...
Transporting a Three-Tier Boho Frosting Tower on I-5 at 15 MPH
The suspension on a 2016 Subaru Outback is surprisingly unforgiving when you've forty pounds of Swiss meringue buttercream buckled into the passenger seat. I was driving fifteen miles per hour down the shoulder of I-5 with my hazard lights flashing,...
In Which Week Baby Gender is Developed: My Ultrasound Data Log
I was literally holding my phone up to the ultrasound monitor at week twelve, trying to overlay a digital protractor app onto the blurry gray static on the screen. "If the angle of the genital tubercle is greater than 30...
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...
When Do You Have A Baby Shower? A Dad's Guide to Timing
Dear Marcus from six months ago, You're currently sitting at your desk while the Portland rain hammers against the window, staring at a flashing cursor on a shared Google Calendar. You're trying to calculate the exact deployment window for a...
Exactly When Can You Tell The Sex Of A Baby? The Real Timeline
Dear Sarah from exactly six months ago, You're currently sitting on the cold hexagonal tiles of the downstairs half-bath at 11:42 PM. You're wearing Dave's oversized college sweatpants with the bleach stain on the knee, and you're hyperventilating into a...
Dear past me: surviving the botanical shower and the infant year
Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the floor of the living room in Wicker Park, staring at a stack of expensive cardstock. You decided to throw a baby in bloom baby shower because it looked nice...
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...
What Actually Decides If You're Having a Boy or a Girl
I was six weeks pregnant with my oldest, aggressively dry-heaving into a paper cup in the passenger seat of my husband's truck, when my grandma leaned forward from the backseat and said, "If you want a girl, you need to...