Sandy Jorgenson

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

Life is hard work, and I think we all know this with varying degrees of certainty. It’s grueling, it’s relentless, it’s at times unforgiving, and it is always a damn hustle. So if you want a piece of coffee cake, get that cake, girl.

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.

Why are people so mean?

Whoever is responsible for coining the term “terrible twos” and leaving the entirety of the threes out of the equation is sitting at the very top of my sh*t list. Because a little warning would’ve been nice.

But what can be said for the day upon which I am no longer enough? I dread that day.

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.

The night I discovered that tumor on her back was essentially just like any other.

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

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.