Kelly Burch

Posting about my miscarriage on Facebook was the most cathartic thing I could have done for myself. It allowed me to validate my feelings.

“How many time have I asked you….” I say in frustration, and then it hits me. The real question I should be asking is how many times I’ve uttered that phrase.

As we made our way to the back of the plane, the baby apologizing the whole way, passengers were giving us a certain look, one to which I had become accustomed to receiving when with my daughter. The one that says, How cute. I, however, was shaken. Had I really taught my daughter, all of 1½ years old, that she needs to apologize for herself? That because she was noticed — rather than slipping quietly through a space — she needed to say “I'm sorry”?

Parenting a toddler is invigorating, exhausting, dirty, and intense. But since I want my daughter to have cousins (or at least pseudo-cousins) one day, I can’t always share the truth about my tiny tyrant on social media, for fear that my friends and siblings would never reproduce. And because, sometimes, you just want to project the image that you're calm, cool, and collected.

My toddler was twirling in her tutu bathing suit while I shimmied into my plus-sized polka dot bikini.

Growing up, travel was a luxury that was simply out of reach, so I know firsthand that travel is a privilege that not everyone can enjoy.

Our culture is so preoccupied with The Other, and the obsession with falling in love with a foreigner is just another manifestation of that. But I quickly found out that falling in love with someone from another country is not all fun and glory.

“Her face is beautiful. Beautiful,” Tiegs said.

Just like kids who kick the seat in front of them and middle-aged women who get drunk and chatty on long flights, crying babies are a fact of life.

Last week, I did something reckless. I went out for Mexican food, and drank a margarita. The server didn’t ask for my ID, and she didn’t even ask for proof that my ovaries were on lock down.