Sandy Jorgenson

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.

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.

This article is the second in a two-part series.

Sitting now on the cusp of my 35th birthday, I find myself taking stock of my life thus far, shoving my youth under a microscope while I ask myself this one thing: Am I careening full-tilt toward my final days on this earth, or am I only just getting started here?

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

You’d have a hell of a time if you ever dared to crawl through the recesses of a first-time mother’s brain.

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

I didn’t start out as a particularly easygoing person.

Death, we know because it’s drilled into us from an early age, is a natural part of life.