Why buying a baby snow suit is harder than hospital triage
My mother told me to wrap my son in three heavy wool blankets before taking him to the grocery store or he'd catch a chill and end up in the ICU, beta. My neighbor with the pristine neutral aesthetic told...
The Murky Truth About Fetal Digestion and Prenatal Poop
I was halfway through a slightly stale samosa in the L&D breakroom at Northwestern Memorial when I heard a first-time mom down the hall completely lose her mind. Her water had just broken, and instead of looking like a clear...
The 3 AM Whistling Butt Tube (A Letter To My Exhausted Past Self)
Dear Sarah from exactly four years ago (though my sleep-deprived, coffee-soaked brain still genuinely feels like this was maybe 6 months ago), You're currently standing in the kitchen. It's 3:14 AM. You're wearing those gray maternity sweatpants with the mysterious...
Get Set Baby: Why Over-the-Top Newborn Prep Meets 3 AM Reality
We were standing in the narrow hallway of our second-floor London flat, holding two incredibly heavy car seats containing two very small, very loud humans. It was raining, obviously. The boot of the Uber had just been emptied of a...
The brutal before and after of your get-set baby preparation
I was twenty-eight weeks pregnant, standing in the middle of our cramped Chicago second bedroom holding a perfectly folded stack of organic burp cloths. I had color-coordinated the drawer dividers. I actually ironed the crib sheets. I thought I had...
Why The Go Baby Justin Bieber Song Is Exactly What Moms Need
My mother-in-law told me to "sleep when the baby sleeps" while giving my messy, laundry-covered living room this highly specific, terrifying side-eye. The hospital lactation consultant, a woman whose hands smelled violently of industrial sanitizer, instructed me to feed on...
The Real Baby Series of Milestones Nobody Warns You About
It's 6:42 AM and I just deeply punctured my left heel on a plastic high chair the size of a thimble. My oldest daughter, bless her heart, left it right outside the bathroom door where I'd blindly step on it....
"Baby Please" Go To Sleep: My Messy Fourth Trimester Survival Guide
My mother-in-law told me to put a scoop of rice cereal in the nighttime bottle at two weeks old so the baby would sleep. The hospital lactation consultant told me if I even looked at a silicone pacifier I'd ruin...
The hospital whiteboard standoff over popular baby names
Squeak, squeak, squeak. That was the sound of my former coworker, a night charge nurse named Sarah, tapping a dry erase marker against the whiteboard in Room 4 at Northwestern Memorial. I was twenty-eight hours postpartum. I was leaking from...