the Mother Runner

I bought a pair of heels for the first time in my life on Tuesday. My mom turned 62 Sweet 16 for the 46th year in a row today. My sister and her husband found a house to move into. I made a reversible dress for my girl to wear at the wedding festivities on Saturday. [...]

Three runs in three weeks. None of them more than three miles or thirty minutes. It is easy for me to look at those numbers and feel a tiny bit discouraged. Perhaps I expected to jump right back in where I left off (my last run before the baby was born was a 4-miler). Perhaps [...]

It’s true. They do. Midwives have helped two of my people out, and I’m ever so grateful that they did. I don’t really know if it is possible to repay someone for helping you deliver a child (obviously, they get paid, but there is still an emotional debt), but I do try to support midwives [...]

I may have spent an inordinate amount of time learning about labor when I was pregnant with Manchild. I consumed birth stories as if they were candy. I checked out half a dozen books about labor and birthing and how to prepare for it. I practiced breathing techniques and relaxation exercises. Amazingly enough, when labor [...]

We’ll start the story on Sunday night. That is when I started having contractions that I thought, but was not sure, were getting stronger. After weeks of Braxton-Hicks contractions, this was very exciting for me. Pain! Intensity! Relaxation techniques! I was so happy! But the contractions were not really getting stronger, or longer, or closer [...]

Our little bundle of joy arrived this morning at 5:39am. She’s an adorable little girl who, so far, has slept a lot, cried a little, and made us all so happy with her funny faces and tiny little self. I’ll post more about the birth later this week, but until then I’ll leave you with [...]

They don’t tell you when the start is. Not exactly. They give you a range, of course. About nine months. You have nine months to get yourself ready. And then . . . well, it’s up to you to figure out when the race actually begins. You start to see the signs that it might [...]

Five and 1/4 years ago, I was right where I am now. Not sitting on my couch in Brooklyn typing on my laptop, but 38 weeks pregnant and reading news coverage of a senseless shooting that was both so distant (on the other side of the country from my Hawaii home) and so near – [...]

Did you know that it’s hot out there? I heard that NYC is currently experiencing its fourth heat wave of the summer. Fourth. And the summer is young, my friends. Young. Not even a month into it, technically. Do you know what is not young? This fetus I am carrying. She’s old. Thirty-eight weeks for [...]

Emperor penguin dads sit on an egg and eat nothing but snow for 4 months. Emu dads also sit on a nest and don’t eat anything for 2 months. Poison frog dads gives dozens of little tadpoles a ride to a pond and then watches over them for 3 months to keep them from harm [...]