Gemma Hartley

Getting pregnant after postpartum depression may have stolen a lot from me, but it gave me a lot more.

When I made the decision to become a stay-at-home mother, the choice was an easy one.

At Santa Rosa Christian School, dancing was a gateway drug. The gyrating, the slow romantic swaying...

Back when I had my first child, back when he was still a baby, I imagined us moving to the mountains. I was thinking about having three more kids, living off the grid, and soaking up every last bit of their wild childhood. It was a fantasy, through and through.

My mother called me the morning after the

I want and need to save some room for myself, to know that I am worthy of a place in the world without the label of mother.

I want to live my best life and, honestly, it's exhausting. Sometimes I wish I could just take a break and say I'm content with where I'm at.

But I was yet to face the cold, hard fact that my lack of acceptance for my own body, was really a lack of acceptance for all the bodies I had falsely embraced for so long. Could I really love someone else’s ample stomach, when I could not love my own?

Anti-choice folks love to say that these laws aren’t about controlling and punishing a large portion of the population, they are about the sanctity of life. And life, according to those who are anti-choice, begins when sperm meets egg.

My first child’s milestones were elaborately marked, photographed, and celebrated with much fanfare... My third child however? Not so much. His first birthday was a much quieter affair — if it could be called an affair at all.