Sandy Jorgenson

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?

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...[O]ur very responsibility is to equip them with everything they need before we shove them out of the nest and watch their wings spread far and wide... But what, then, is left for us?

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.

I know motherhood is hard. Especially new motherhood — those early days are a fog of tears, confusion, and helplessness. But I also know that yearning for something you can’t have, particularly with regard to children, is a feeling far worse. I’ve lived through the pain of childbirth, of a 3rd-degree tear, two related surgeries and a year of recovery, of postpartum depression, of miscarriage and of infertility and my god; I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if it meant a chance to… Well, to do it all over again.

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.

Why are people so mean?

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

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