Why my baby due date calculator was a massive, statistical lie
The bathroom tile was unforgivingly cold against my bare feet, but I barely noticed because I was staring at a plastic stick with two faint blue lines, desperately stabbing at my phone screen. I had just Googled "baby due date...
Bringing Your Newborn Home Without Losing Your Mind
I was wedged between a breast pump box and a diaper bag in the back of my husband's F-150, clutching the plastic handle of the infant carrier like we were off-roading, even though he was driving twelve miles an hour...
What No One Tells You About Your Newborn's Literal Baby Face
It was 2016, and I was sitting on my incredibly disgusting beige couch at 3 AM. I was seven months pregnant with Maya, wearing a pair of maternity leggings that had a questionable hole in the crotch, and I was...
What no one tells you about bringing a jaundice baby home
My mother-in-law told me to put him in the living room window like a houseplant. The hospital lactation consultant told me to feed him until my nipples literally fell off. My deeply sleep-deprived husband downloaded three different tracking apps, poking...
Troubleshooting Da Baby: A Clueless Dad's System Log
I was standing over the bassinet at 3:14 AM holding a digital meat thermometer near my son's forehead, completely convinced his baseline operating temperature was running too hot. He was wearing a heavy fleece onesie in late August because I...
Raising a Baby Huey: When Your Infant Is Off the Charts
It was 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was losing a wrestling match against a seven-month-old. The left leg went into the sleep sack fine, but the right leg was suddenly entirely incompatible with the fabric, mostly because the...
The Myth of the Pretty Baby: Surviving the First Messy Months
3:14 AM. Tuesday. Or maybe Wednesday. I'm standing in the dark, heavily stained with an acidic mixture of formula and what I strongly suspect is Calpol, holding a screaming Twin A while Twin B begins to rustle ominously in the...
The Truth About Baby's Breath (And Why Pinterest Lied To You)
My hand was hovering roughly two millimeters above my son's chest, waiting for a movement that seemed to be taking centuries. The clock said 3:14 AM. The baby monitor cast a weird green glow over the room, making everything look...
What Nobody Tells You About Your Baby's Breath
When we brought Leo home from the hospital eleven months ago, I received exactly three pieces of contradictory advice about his respiratory system within a forty-eight-hour window. My mother told me to hold a tiny compact mirror under his nose...