Sandy Jorgenson

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

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

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.

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.

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

When I check on our daughter before heading to bed myself, I have to do a quick scan around her full-size bed just to locate her. She is almost never remotely close to where she started out. But she is almost always upside down, head jammed up against the wall or her footboard, stuffed animals scattered like confetti all around her.

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

My daughter was just reaching her first birthday before the dense fog of postpartum depression started to lift off of me. I didn’t realize it right away, though – and I certainly hadn’t even realized I was suffering from PPD at all.

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

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