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...
Why newborn babies come out covered in slippery cream cheese
The lights in the surgical theatre were violently bright, the machines were beeping in a rhythm that did absolutely nothing for my blood pressure, and I had been awake for approximately thirty-six hours. My wife was hidden behind a sterile...
Let's Talk About How Do Babies Get Thrush (And How To Fix It)
My mother-in-law told me on the phone that it was because my breast pump parts were dirty. My lactation consultant heavily implied it was because I ate a brownie the day beforeβsugar feeds yeast, apparently, which is just incredibly unfair....
Yellow Watery Diarrhea in Babies: What I Learned at 3 AM
2:14 AM. Chicago winter. The sound from the bassinet wasn't a cry, it was a wet, unmistakable explosion. I turned on the dim nursery lamp and found my previously pristine infant lying in what looked like a puddle of melted...
When Can Babies Start Drinking Water: A Nurse's Honest Guide
July in Chicago is an absolute swamp. The humidity hits four hundred percent, the air feels like soup, and everyone loses their minds. When my daughter was two months old, we had a family barbecue during one of these heat...
What is Jaundice in Babies? Surviving the Tiny Satsuma Phase
It was day three with the twins, and I was standing by our bedroom window in the bleak gray wash of a London November afternoon, holding Florence up to the light like a counterfeit twenty-pound note. She was asleep, completely...
Why Teething Doesn't Cause High Temps (And Other 2 AM Truths)
I was sitting on my living room floor at two in the morning surrounded by half-packed Etsy orders when my oldest, Wyatt, started doing that high-pitched, dolphin-screech cry that shoots straight to your spinal cord. I picked him up and...
Decoding Weird Baby Breaths: A Nurse's Guide to Not Panicking
3:14 AM. My phone flashlight was pressed flat against my palm to dim the glare, casting a weird, jaundiced shadow across the bassinet. I hadn't blinked in what felt like forty minutes. As a former pediatric nurse in Chicago, I've...
Why I Googled "Baby Boi Carti" And Panicked About My Kids' Ears
It was Tuesday, 4:12 PM, and I was standing in the kitchen wearing my "bad day" sweatpantsβthe ones with the mystery yogurt stain on the left knee that I absolutely refuse to wash out because it feels like a monument...