Sandy Jorgenson

Two years ago, I had a two-year-old daughter who’d never met her grandfather.

Whether this is news to you, seemingly irrelevant to you, or deeply personal to your experience, this truth remains that statistically speaking, one in every four pregnancies will end in miscarriage. Some of you are vaguely familiar with this, many of you have suffered this loss yourselves, and the likelihood is high that almost all of you know someone who’s lost a child in utero, whether or not they’ve ever spoken publicl about it.

You'll have to excuse me while I sit myself down for one stern-ass pep talk about the importance of trusting my gut, having the courage of my convictions, and marching bodly ahead in my resove to absorb every last minute I get with my growing girl, knowing that never again will these days be upon me.

Everybody who’s a parent can attest to the fact that the lives they once knew are far behind them.

Griping about adulting is a fun thing that we like to do, I know.

Childbirth isn’t kidding around. Here are eight special gifts that your blessed body bestows upon you to say thanks for turning it into a baby-making machine.

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So, women, I’m talking to you — give yourself permission to love every inch of you. Honor your body, and meet it where it is. To those of you who’ve given birth: you’re forever changed. Relinquish the idea that you need to get your body back to looking the way it did before your baby was born.

Anybody who has lived through those early days of parenthood (and let’s be totally forthright, here… those seasoned parents, too) knows e