Dear Paramedic, Clearly On Your Break,

Little did you know, your act of kindness this weekend made a world of difference to a relatively new mother who decided to bring her 20-month-old along to a bang trim.

I felt extra proud of myself for choosing to bring C on this outing. I had little room for error—the salon is one of those intimate single stylist studios in a Salon Republic, so there was nowhere for C to wander, a bang trim takes 15 minutes max, and my purse looked like the snack aisle at Sprouts. About 10 minutes from the salon, you noticed me turn into the fire station, a bit aggressively. You sat in the driver’s seat of the ambulance with the door hung open, and you scrolled on your phone as any of us would do on our break.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, “my daughter threw up all over herself. I’ll just be a minute to clean it up if it’s ok I park here.” This wasn’t my first rodeo with car throw-up. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make my appointment and that my stylist would thankfully understand this particular plight of motherhood.

Instead of nodding or simply saying, “ok,” you asked to help. You proceeded to walk into the fire station and bring back a roll of paper towels, disinfectant wipes (not to be used on the face, you reminded me), trash bags, and latex gloves. You handed me paper towels as I carefully reached into the pool of vomit that layered the car seat buckle. You asked me where I was off to and I noticed that you, also, had bangs (and, might I say, beautiful voluminous dark brown hair).

“Thank you so much,” I offered. “You probably have to deal with throw up more than you’d like to.”

“Yes, but I don’t mind when it’s from a kid.” You told me about how you wore your vomited-on clothes for the rest of the day after helping a boy who was having a seizure. Saint.

I’m not sure if you intended it, but you helped me feel grateful for a healthy kid (minus the car sickness) in an otherwise tough moment.

You continued to hand me supplies, alternating between paper towels and disinfectant wipes, as I pulled C out of the car and stripped her down to her diaper. You held one trash bag open for vomit-soaked paper towels and another trash bag open for C’s vomit-soaked Gap t-shirt with a lemon on it. I knew the clothes would need to be hosed down before machine washing, risking a fishy smell that would linger in the machine for weeks (yes, I know this from experience). These trash bags were paper, the material of a medical gown worn at the gynecologist. I thought about how often they were filled with clothes soiled with bodily fluids and again felt lucky it was only vomit.

You offered to stand with C as I grabbed an extra set of clothes from the trunk (which I still need to replace). You tried for a high five, but C felt too shy. Exposed. I understood. But you didn’t take it personally. You said, “that’s ok, sweet girl.” I replaced C’s shirt with another that was far too small and used disinfectant wipes to clean the car seat straps as much as possible. I layered paper towels on the seat to protect C from more wet discomfort. I felt your empathy as I struggled to put a still-crying C back into the smelly car seat. You told me my teary-eyed, smelly toddler with vomit crusted on her mouth was adorable.

You told me I could keep the rest of the roll of paper towels in my car. They’re still there and I will think of you whenever I use them. You helped us feel safe in an unsafe moment on the side of the road.

Thank you for the kindness, for the support. Thank you for helping me mother, for making the derailment feel tolerable. Thank you for curbing the negative thoughts I otherwise would’ve battled about how I should have chosen the slightly longer, less windy route. Thank you for reminding me that good humans fill the world, especially after a week of war-related nightmares.

My only regret is that I didn’t take you up on the latex gloves.

With gratitude,

The woman in the white Mazda

Everyone Is Lying To You by Jo Piazza

First up: a page-turning murder mystery about momfluencers. Everyone Is Lying To You by Jo Piazza was an entertaining whodunit that kept me hooked. Piazza explores female friendship, the challenges of building a career amid motherhood, and the gap between online performance identity and reality. As someone who recently signed up for Instagram after deleting my account five years ago, this book also helped me sift through the bait of perfectly curated, mom-focused homesteading #tradwife content that would otherwise leave me feeling weirdly envious and grossed out.

The Mother Artist by Catherine Ricketts

Next, for the artist in you: The Mother Artist by Catherine Ricketts. In this evocative (and relatively short yay) book, Ricketts blends her story of early motherhood with the history of mother artists. Little did I realize that most of the female painters you could list (Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe [my heart i love you Georgia], Mary Cassatt) did not have children of their own. Ricketts delves into why this is the case—surprise, the same reasons mothers leave the workforce at a higher rate than fathers—and tells the stories of lesser-known artists who are also mothers. I found this book inspiring for my own creative identity.

Unfit Parent by Jessica Slice

Another non-fiction on the list, Jessica Slice’s Unfit Parent, dives deep into the injustices (and beauty) of parenting as a person with a disability. I graduated with a degree in Sociology and have taken classes on disability, but never in those classes did I learn about the challenges facing parents with disabilities. The SYSTEM, the fucking system. Slice weaves in her own story of her disability and becoming a mother while challenging the assumptions about disability and parenting. The title refers to the classification by social services agencies and courts as “unfit” if the parent has a disability. The analysis of ableism within our healthcare, legal, and family systems was thought-provoking, to say the least. Although I wanted to rage against these systems while reading, Slice left me with a sense of hope and belief in community.

Open Wide by Jessica Gross

Another fiction book! And with an awesome cover design. Jessica Gross’s Open Wide is a novel about a young Jew(ish) woman living in New York City who falls in love with a surgeon. Although the protagonist is not a mother herself, the protagonist’s relationship with her own mother is a central theme of the story. But that’s not why this book is on this list. Gross explores obsession in relationships, pushing past the line. She weaves surrealism with desire, as Gross’s vivid prose depicts the physical act of entering another person's body to become “one” with a partner. No spoilers, but this provocative read was easily relatable as a mother who feels she sometimes cannot get close enough to her child.

Sidenote: I learned about this book as a member of ’s Other Ppl podcast book club, which I highly recommend.

Second Life by Amanda Hess

Lastly! A third non-fiction: Second Life by Amanda Hess. Like the other non-fiction books on this list, Hess integrates her own story of motherhood among a cultural critique, this time focused on digital culture. Hess explores period and pregnancy-tracking apps, online parenting communities (who’s been deep down a Reddit hole at 2 am?), and the surveillance of children with daycare cameras and baby monitors (hello, Nanit, which I admittedly have contemplated buying many times because my baby monitor is subpar). I thought Hess’s tone was witty and relatable in how technology has shaped my experience of anxiety, parental judgment, and community. This book was hard to put down.

Each of these books explores the both/and of motherhood, which I acutely feel right now. I hope you have some reprieve this week, while C hopefully learns how to speak with a British accent after too much Peppa Pig. I’d love to hear what you’ve been reading.

Happy 2026! (only 2 more years until it’s 3 more years from now!)

If you are feeling like you want to do some good ole New Year’s reflection, I’m planning to (slowly) work through prompts in her latest post. Or, you can use my Google Sheet template.

I continued to use this word “explore” in my therapy session following our return home. According to my therapist, after ending an engagement at the start of 2020 (right before the pandemic, can you imagine?), I set an intention to explore life. Explore myself, my body, and my personhood. After living so closed for years during that relationship, I wanted to open up my pores, become a sponge. To do this, I needed to become more embodied. I lived inside my brain, my construction of self, and exploring both my inner and outer world required me to step inside my body. I had to return to the childlike state where my body felt novel, where the constructs that framed how I thought about my body disappeared, where I noticed the automatic nature of my body like breathing and digestion and sneezing versus the intentional aspects of my body like stretching, sitting, and carrying.

Had that desire for exploration disappeared over the past five years or had it been submerged beneath the heaviness of to-dos, shoulds, and a lack of attention to myself?

C arrived on the island walking but not quite running. She left only running. She now can spin. On command. And I watch as she topples a bit from dizziness, but doesn’t fall over. She’s lighter on her feet, stumbles less frequently, and can climb. She spoke dozens of words before the island, but now that we’re home, she’s starting to put two words together. Did the magic of the island creep into her bones or did the timing of this trip coincidentally fall within a developmental leap?

This island “magic,” I call it. It not only allowed C to explore her inner and outer worlds, but allowed me to embrace the novelty of her having a body. A similar magic that overcame me after ending my past relationship. It granted me a greater sense of freedom. In the case of motherhood, freedom to set boundaries that were needed to keep her safe alongside the freedom to let go of boundaries I would otherwise set out of convenience or societal norms.

The island “magic” made this easy. Not only were there limited sets of danger on the island so long as C stayed within my line of sight, but the island’s vibe embodied the definition of community. The adults watched out for all children, not just their own. At one point, during a meal, a friend’s daughter climbed on top of a coffee table and four adults ran over to grab her because there was a rock hard sculpture begging for her head. We spoke about how it felt easier to parent when multiple adults were present even if the ratio of kid to parent remained the same. We had just met most of the other families visiting the island, yet they all—and the staff—were watching out for the children. I felt like we were part of a community, of a village.

The island was thousands of miles away from the individualistic, nuclear-family-centric culture at home.

Jonathan Haidt wrote about two types of childhood in The Anxious Generation: the “play-based” childhood that existed before the 1980s and the “phone-based” childhood that emerged in the early 2010s. He argues that overprotection in the real world and undeprotection in the virtual world and major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation. Now, C is not quite digital, but I think one of Haidt’s key reforms can impact those as young as C. Haidt advocates for more independence in the real world. To resore the kind of childhood that was full of exploration, adventure, thrills, and experiences away from parents and the secure home base.

To C, her secure home base is near mama and dada (specifically near dada since we’re in that phase right now). Given that she’s hardly a toddler, we can’t take our eyes off her since she more likely than not will put herself in a gravely dangerous situation involving water or electricity or both. But at home, or at places near home, there are few spaces in which she can explore newness without mama or dada on top of her. But was that about those places or did it have something to do with me?

Each day, I noticed that I followed her less and less. I’d still have eyes on her, but she might be across the restaurant or a ways down a pathway.

C became my little shoeless wild child and I loved it. I witnessed the benefits of truly exploring. How she’d walk ahead of me, stop to smell a flower or pick up a dried leaf from the ground. I witnessed myself let go much more than I was used to. How I wouldn’t jump in, even as she ate a fistful of sand or sat fully clothed in the stone footbath where we’d rinse our sandy feet. My body still remembers what it felt like to stand still, not jump in right away. I feel less on edge, a bit more mellow.

I want to allow the island magic to work its way into my daily life. Good things came after I spent that year exploring post-ending an engagement. I grew into my wholeness.

How can I sustain this energy? Well, yesterday morning, we forgot C’s shoes and she ran around the sidewalks of Encinitas anyway. Two days ago, she put a cracker in her mouth, then put it in Tabor’s mouth, and then she ate it. When she threw up earlier in the week, I comforted her and allowed the vomit to spread all over my top. At the park, she went down the slide alone for the first time.

It’s about recognizing when it’s worth it to hold the boundary, or when the boundary is arbitrary or superficial. It’s about recognizing when the benefits of messiness and exploration outweigh the risk of minor injury. It is our job to protect our children, but it is also our job to give them the tools to be able to learn about the world—their world—themselves, without intervention from us (someone please remind me of this when C is a teenager). It is our job to help create an environment where our children can feel at home in their own bodies. We need to trust them to learn from their mistakes and develop attunement to their inner voice.

So, this week, I invite you to choose to stand aside at least once. Not in a situation involving serious danger, but in a low stakes situation. Observe what happens in your body.

Share The Undefined Mother

I also recommend downloading the Substack app. It’s been a way for me to scroll while interacting with amazing other writers and professionals with such valuable resources. (and it feels more “real” than Instagram)

Thank you for reading!!

My acupuncturist ensured she was welcome and I caveated that this may be a complete disaster. I would be laying on a raised bed with needles sticking in various body parts. But I decided to see how it would go.

I feel the need to justify any screen time (if you don’t feel that need, good for you, not sure how that’s possible with constant warnings that any screen time whatsoever will make a baby’s language development “delayed”). This screen time was under 1 hour — approximately 45 minutes — and 1) I had no idea whether it would work to keep C occupied; 2) it was educational and Ms. Rachel pronounces words, with close-ups on her mouth; 3) I had survived the entire workday with C at home without screens; 4) I genuinely think Ms. Rachel in small doses when she’s home sick from school and I’m at my wits end helped advance C’s language development; and 5) I figured a relaxed mom is more beneficial than the detriment 45 minutes of screen time will have on my babbling toddler. Leave it to the lawyer to assess risk.

I set C up with her little headphones, Ms. Rachel (“wutchl”) on the iPad, and a Tupperware full of snacks, on a cozy chair inside the treatment room. I removed my socks, climbed on the heated table, allowed the warmth to soak in, and listened as my acupuncturist explained how to take the needles out myself if I needed to get up (to tend to C). What could go wrong?

C sat. Watching Ms. Rachel. For. The. Entire. 45 minutes.

Sometimes I would hear a giggle, or “bus, beep beep, mama” in reaction to her favorite scene, and I’d smile and nod with my eyes wide. “Yes, baby, bus!”

My acupuncturist checked in on me and said C’s hand was just resting inside her snack cup. Apparently she is a “tactile” little girl — hand in the snack cup playing with melties, hand folding a piece of paper, hand turning the pages of a board book in her lap, hand shifting around a tiny paper cup from the waiting room.

When it was time to leave, I asked C to say goodbye to Ms. Rachel and she blew her a kiss. Then I took the iPad and there was no screaming.

I realized that the narratives I was creating in advance of this appointment — how it could be ruined, money wasted, cut short, etc. — almost limited me to the point of canceling. I realized I didn’t enter the situation trusting that C would be able to wait and occupy herself. Yes, taking her with me was an incredibly risky choice and it could’ve ended terribly, but I had never done anything like that before so in reality, I had no idea how it would go. Sure, having childcare would’ve been ideal and I probably would’ve been able to fall asleep on the table, but that wasn’t my situation.

We so often don’t take the risk when the result could be a meltdown, or an experience not going how it was supposed to go. But sometimes — and yes, only sometimes — it is important to recognize the times when the judgment of whether to take the risk is coming from a place of fear. In my situation, the truth was that I had no idea how C would respond. I had never tried anything like this — it was literally the first time she wore these kids headphones.

So, what facts did I know? She loves Ms. Rachel, she loves snacks, she loves holding onto things, and she usually thrives if I support her independence. I also knew that she is a 16-month old who struggles to sit still for extended periods of time, especially when she gets bored. I tried to solve for the boredom by bringing one of her favorite books, this Lovevery bug velcro toy thing (apparently there is an expansion pack on Etsy), an iPad with Ms. Rachel pre-downloaded, blueberries, and a melty-puff snack combo.

But there were a lot that I didn’t know, including whether C is capable of sitting in one spot if she has toys and sees that mama is unavailable to hold her or play with her. It turns out, I was pleasantly surprised. And if I hadn’t given her a shot, if I hadn’t taken the risk, I would never have known.

[And profuse thank you to Ms. Rachel and her team, who seem to have a magical spell on my daughter that allows me 45 minutes of deep(ish) relaxation.]

On another note, I’ve been trying to bring more joy into my life through my skincare routine. Meet the trusted ice roller gua sha combo to energize you in the morning.

The mother sat. Her legs spread open over the toilet seat. Her back rounded and her eyes stared down into the red, swirling with liquidy, mucousy, gelatinous tissue. She normally peed with the door open, chatting away to her husband in the next room or with a friend on the phone. Or waiting for her almost-toddler to peek her head around the door frame. “Mama,” her daughter would say with her eyes batting flirtatiously as she scanned the mother’s head and body. While patting her own tummy, “bah-yee,” she’d acknowledge. Body. But not today. Today, the bathroom door was closed, locked, unreachable. Today, she let her weight press into the toilet seat until it left thin indented lines on the sides of her thighs that she sometimes wished were just a bit less thick.

The mother’s insides buckled again. Her stomach taught, bulging toward the bottom, not unlike labor contractions–or “surges” as her hypnobirthing instructor corrected. Like a fist inside her, wringing out her uterus in slow motion, starting at the top, working its way down, until the liquid drained for now. When it ended, the mother peered down. Reddish, purplish, darkness, falling out of her in a thick string of fleshy goop. The toilet bowl splattered red, the aftermath of a Jackson Pollack or shark attack. The mother sat to feel it all.

The bathroom window had a view of the yard. She could hear voices, laughter, the screech of a toddler who accidentally doused herself with cold water from the water table. She wondered how long she’d been hiding away from the noise and the smiles. Her daughter’s birthday party carried on with her behind a locked door. Her brain was torn in two places and her body was only right here.

She tried to rise and visualize her daughter bouncing from person to person showing them her favorite flower or pointing to her “dah-yee” (doggy). She desperately wanted to watch the joy on her daughter’s face as she tasted cake for the first time. Instead, her body remained glued to the toilet seat. Her guests must’ve been wandering around the yard wondering where she went. The absent mother.

All day, when she rose to stand, she could feel the gelatinous wet leak out of her onto her maxi-pad. The doctor (after Google) told her not to use tampons. Her body needed to expel, not absorb, from the inside. But she wanted to absorb it. She wanted her body to retain, to hold, not to expel. Expel. As if her body were a machine in a factory. Was it supposed to be that mechanical? Sudden and quick? Like they portray birth in the movies, the entire event boiled down to a few minutes of laborious pushing and then, “POP!” A baby! This was slow and would last for days, possibly weeks. The stringy tissue oozing out of her like a fleshy wound. Her pad soaked with the extra-thick resting on top like a cherry, the pad unable to absorb anymore.

The father knocked on the door.

“You ok?”

“Yeah, I’ll be out soon.”

A pause.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s just so lonely.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“There’s a part of me that wants you to come in and be with me, to see the toilet, but I don’t want to put you through that.”

“Oh but I will if you want me to. I want to be there for you.”

The mother thought about having him bear witness. But it was hers alone to bear.

“Thanks, babe, that’s really sweet, but it’s ok. It’s my body.”

“Ok, well, just let me know if you change your mind.”

It was hers alone. And also the billions of other women in human history who have experienced this, so called, expelling. A normal event. Something that approximately 20% of women who become pregnant have been through. Something that now three out of five of her closest friends have been through multiple times. So normal that the doctor didn’t even need to see her unless she soaked through more than one pad per hour. A hemorrhage. And then, to the emergency room. This was a real possibility, although unlikely. And nobody would know but her. She could watch herself hemorrhaging if she wanted to. She could bleed out and say nothing and nobody would know.

The mother sat for long enough for yet another wringing of her insides to come barreling toward her. With her elbows resting on her thighs and her face resting on her palms, she held her breath and then remembered to let it go with a hardly audible sigh. She pressed her hands to her thighs and neatly folded five squares of toilet paper. She wiped her vagina, slick with a layer of bloody tissue sticking to her pubic hair. She pulled it all away with the wipe and stared at it. She could make out the layers of built up uterine lining compared to the blood and fluid surrounding it. She knew she had to get back to the party. She ripped open a new maxipad. Her fourth of the day and it was about noon. Not quite one per hour.

Her weight shifted away from her seat, to her feet. She stood, feeling the familiar lightheadedness, her blood flowing a bit too slowly. She pulled up her panties and allowed the dry cotton to cradle her. She opened the door to the bathroom and slowly walked downstairs. Her legs dragged like bricks. She pulled her hands away from her abdomen. As she descended, the giggles, screeching, and voices felt like a crescendo of echoes. She could not focus on one voice in particular; she could not make out her daughter’s babbling. She felt her body breathe deeply after she had unknowingly held her breath. Exhale and she emptied.

As both feet hit the landing, the mother’s aunt caught her arm, cozied up next to her, “Sooooo,” drawn out speech with an upward inflection, “when are you going to have another?”

If you made it here, thank you for reading. If you have suffered from pregnancy loss and would like to talk, I am always here to connect. I also am a huge proponent of therapy, meditation, journaling, and movement as forms of healing. And, as a volunteer with Postpartum Support International, I can tout their excellent resources:

• Support group for pregnancy loss

• PSI’s help line and other resources

This all occurred during a very holy week for Jews — Yom Kippur — which meant C’s school was closed and Jonathan was left to manage our house, our child, and our dog, all while starting the week with a flight back home with C. More than capable, he took this in stride, didn’t complain, didn’t call with questions, and sounded genuinely happy I was having a good time (and genuinely happy C slept through the night and was in a great mood).1

He sent me a video one morning (his time) of C toddling toward him with a framed photo in her little hand. “Mama.” “Mama.” “Mama,” she called as she handed him the photo. A photo of Jonathan and me at a friend’s wedding. His text beneath the video read: In case you don’t think she misses you.

Damn. My heart broke open as I watched. I think I audibly exhaled, groaned, with the beautiful pain in my heart representing the love I feel. And also the guilt I feel for being away for days, which to C, probably feels like months. She said blueberries (boo-beys) and she’s now walking far more than she’s crawling. I know she’ll remember me, but our physical attachment is temporarily broken. As I showed a couple co-workers this video, I said, “but the separation is good for us.” It is. I’m convincing myself.

I tell her my heart is connected to her heart with a string. Even when I’m away. And I think this visualization is more for me than for her. I need an anchor to my connection with her. A visual representation — a physical string — of our connectedness. Her separation from my body has been the biggest adjustment of motherhood; perhaps the most obvious and the most encompassing, too. She’s transitioned from my womb to my breast to my arms and now to her still-tiny shoes walking in our yard without holding my hand. And it will continue to transition, to separate, to grow. That’s the point, isn’t it?

I felt mostly focused and present during my work trip, but still, despite not pumping/breastfeeding and despite her more predictable sleeping, I could feel the division in my brain. A hemisphere focused on my work; a hemisphere focused on my mothering. Did she have a good day today? Did she cry? Did she say any new words? Is Jonathan doing ok? Has Tabor been walked? Did she eat any vegetables? Is she walking more? How were her poops? Did she like bath time? Did she sleep through the night or are her teeth bothering her? The list goes on.

When I felt my mind trailing off, I’d bring it back to the string connecting my heart with hers. This tangible (in my mind) connection, reminding me all is ok.

I likely won’t arrive until past bedtime tonight, but I will sneak into her room, silently twist the doorknob, and peer into her crib, watching her breathing from several feet away so I don’t wake her. Even the smell of her room will start to repair the attachment that has cracked by my absence. And tomorrow I will be able to hold her tightly.

I watch a mother of two at the gate. She carries her youngest on her chest as he stares into her eyes, lovingly with a paci in his mouth. And the mother of four, holding her youngest in her arms, the little bald head watching her siblings as she tightly grips her mother’s shirt.

Other things that helped:

• FaceTiming, but not more than 1x per day

• Allowing myself to sleep in (still woke up by 7:45am)

• Looking at photos and videos on my phone before I fell asleep

• Jonathan checking in (and not seeming stressed)

• Talking about our kids with my fellow-parent-colleagues

• Supportive company culture

• Sitting on the dock at the hotel overlooking the lake and feeling the mist as the wind blew

• Horseback riding

• Fall leaves and colors

• Yoga and meditation class

• Enjoying solo quiet time at the airport/on the plane

Things that didn’t help and instead, increased my anxiety:

• Too often refreshing the page where C’s school posts photos of the day

• Looking at my calendar for the following week

• Dealing with scheduling a doctor’s appointment

• Probably drinking but it was fun anyway so I don’t regret it

• Telling myself I was a bad mom for leaving

• Wondering if C would remember me

• Feeling guilty for missing “boo-beys”

So. One year ago…

Early Labor — approximately 13 hours

I woke up on Friday, July 5, feeling like it was the first day of my period. It was a new moon and my due date was the following day. My google search results suggested my period-like cramps meant I was in labor, but I doubted it given I had recently crawled out of the deep rabbit hole understanding prodromal labor – labor that can start and stop, and vary in intensity, for days. I mentioned to Jonathan and our doula: “I’m having period-like cramps, it could be early labor, but let’s see if they increase in intensity throughout the day.” 

The cramping didn’t stop. It became more regular as the day went on. Coming every 10 minutes, then 8, then 7. They weren’t particularly painful. They felt familiar. Period day 1. 

Jonathan and I spent the day together. We read and I drank an iced Hojicha latte at Rare Bird Coffee in Falls Church, Virginia (our favorite coffee shop). We spontaneously painted pottery next door to Rare Bird — Jonathan painted an owl and I painted a fox for C’s room. Creativity took my mind off the “what ifs” and drove me straight into the present. As I painted, I thought about the brushstrokes on the clay and the variety of colors and textures, my mind preparing for the deep embodiment that was about to occur over the next day and a half.

On the drive home from the pottery studio, my cramps came every six to seven minutes. Still not particularly painful; still the same familiar feeling experienced by all women who have menstruated.

The familiar cramping continued with regularity. Around 5pm, I went to the bathroom and noticed a gelatinous, slightly bloody, goop in the toilet (obviously I have a photo but will spare you all). I thought I lost my mucus plug a few weeks before and I could have lost part of it or all of it—and it could’ve regenerated (our bodies are wild) — but this time, tinged with blood, indicated that my cervix was opening. I walked outside while Jonathan grilled dinner: “I think I lost my mucus plug. I think this is happening.” 

We ate one of the heartiest meals I had in a while. Veg burgers on brioche buns, caesar salad, and potato salad from a local BBQ spot (yes, two vegetarians walked in and only ordered a side of potato salad). This meal allowed me to power through the next 24 hours.

After dinner, at the recommendation of our doula, I began to work through the Miles Circuit to help C move into position and keep early labor progressing. Stepping sideways up each stair was no small feat with a 40-week belly. And the “open knee chest” exercise felt nearly impossible. During the exaggerated side-lying position, I listened to a meditation to encourage relaxation.

Intense Labor — approximately 17 hours

About an hour after getting in bed, the contractions felt more intense. I tossed and turned, breathing relaxation during the breaks and breathing into the waves themselves. My bed felt too soft; I felt like I was sinking. I walked downstairs and let Jonathan sleep. I knew we’d be in for a long day, maybe two. Once I got downstairs, I bounced on my exercise ball, which relieved some of the pain in my lower back during a contraction. With each contraction, I visualized my uterus pushing C down. Productive. I downloaded an app called Freya, which was the best $5.99 I’d ever spent on an app. My type A personality thrives with structure. And this app both timed my contractions and guided my breath in their rise and fall. 

Tabor followed me downstairs. He wouldn’t leave my side. As I bounced on the birth ball, he pawed my leg. He sensed the transition and the energy inside of me. 

Jonathan came downstairs around 1:30am. He brought me a bowl of cut watermelon, cold, right out of the fridge. Each bite perfectly crispy, bursting in my mouth. The ideal combination of hydration and sugar. He stayed with me, rubbed my back, and did the weird thigh muscle jiggle that unexpectedly relieved pain. I encouraged him to try to go back to sleep. I knew the day would be long. I doubt he slept.

I went back upstairs, lay down on the upstairs couch, and followed the guide’s voice on the Freya app for the next couple of hours. Breathing in, 1, 2, 3, 4, breathing out, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Between contractions, I visualized each part of my body relaxing, starting with my head, moving down to my toes.

Time ceased to exist, but the markers of time helped. Each marker gave me a goal. We agreed with my doula to check back in around 5am. Rather than attach myself to the unknown of how long labor would last, I knew I could reach 5am.

4:30am. Jonathan sat with me on the couch. The contractions were more intense, requiring my entire focus. I could no longer speak through them. At 5am, our doula listened to me go through a contraction over the phone. She coached me through it; told me I was doing great. I continued to focus on my breath.

We went back downstairs, I lay on the couch in the living room, Jonathan rubbed my back, and we tried the TENS unit, which I didn’t like. Breathing was my best pain management tool, innately inside me. The next best was Jonathan rubbing my back, applying counter-pressure.

Jonathan arranged to drop Tabor off at our dog sitter around 7:30am. I would be alone for about an hour, but I felt confident I would get through it. Again, having a time marker felt helpful. 

At some point that morning, I bled more when I went to the bathroom. It looked more like a clot, more than just a heavy period, which worried me. We called the midwife on call, who advised us to monitor, and if I wanted to, I could come to the hospital. But she did not seem worried. Our doula reminded us that if the midwife was worried, she would tell us to come in right away. This felt reassuring, and I decided to delay going to the hospital for a bit longer. I continued to switch positions. I hung around Jonathan’s neck, and leaned into him. He was my tree trunk. 

Our doula came over at 11am to provide additional support. She guided me into different positions, all to move C down and to encourage the best position possible. The three of us—plus C—were a team. Katya applied counter-pressure on my back while I hung around Jonathan’s neck.

I felt exhausted, contractions continued, and I hardly rested in between. At this point, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go on. Even though I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. I thought, “if I go to the hospital now, and I’m only 4 or 5 cm dilated, I want an epidural so I can nap.” I had intended to be unmedicated during this birth, but remained open to an epidural if I felt like I was suffering. My intention was to be in my body and not to suffer. I was almost at the point of suffering. But not yet. With my goals in mind, tactically delaying going to the hospital, our doula suggested I move through two contractions in this position, two more in that position. I leaned on my radiator cover with my forearms and placed one leg on top of two yoga blocks. I switched legs. I knelt on the floor and rested my forearms on the couch. Counter-pressure on my back, and some hip squeezes. 

The Hospital & Birth — approximately 4 hours

I mentally geared up for a 25-minute drive. Jonathan loaded the car, and I walked slowly to the garage and leaned on the hood of the car during a contraction. I slowly shifted my body into the front seat. Our doula placed a heating pad behind my back, which felt so good. I played my Rainbow Relaxation track (conveniently 24 minutes long) and settled in. I calculated 25 minutes meant about 8 contractions. I closed my eyes and focused on my breath. After each contraction, I looked at google maps on the screen. 20 minutes. 17 minutes. 14 minutes. 11 minutes. 3 contractions, maybe 4, more.

2pm. Finally, we pulled up to Inova Fair Oaks, parked the car in a temporary loading zone. Jonathan helped me out of the car, walked me into the lobby. I had another contraction. My moaning echoed through the building. I briefly wondered whether anyone could hear me, but this instantaneous moment of modesty quickly vanished as my body took over. I was in labor land and my conscious mind could hardly pierce the barrier, able to focus only on my breathing. I was wheeled up to labor and delivery. At the check-in desk, my eyes remained closed and my breathing steady. I was silent. I heard someone say, “she’s in the zone.”

On the way to triage, I had another contraction. This one I don’t remember and Jonathan told me later. I must’ve been entirely in labor land, unaware of where I was being taken. This is how women have babies in elevators. On the side of the road. In hospital lobbies. There is no stopping this process; it runs on its own clock, entirely disconnected from the clocks on our walls. Apparently, after hearing this contraction run through me, hospital staff decided to admit me immediately rather than take me to triage. They helped me settle into a room. 

My midwife and nurses came in, took my vitals, and listened to C’s heartbeat. She was doing great. Strong girl. My midwife asked me if I wanted to be checked — my cervix, she meant. Yes, yes I did. I needed to know how much progress I had made. Or how much I hadn’t made. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could continue without pain medication — I wanted a break. I wanted a nap. Desperately. 

Always asking for consent before touching me, the midwife placed her fingers inside me to feel my cervix. I hardly felt this check, just some pressure. Taking her hand out, she said, “I have the best news to share. You are 9 cm.” I felt a wave of relief and a burst of confidence. I was almost there. So close. I could do this.

We moved through more positions. I sat backwards on the toilet, with Jonathan behind me, pulling up on my belly as I moved through a contraction to supposedly help with positioning. I got in the bathtub and allowed the warm water to envelop my body, but the tub was small and the water didn’t cover me. The pressure below increased and I felt an intense urge to push. I wanted to get out of the tub and back onto the bed.

3:30pm. Pushing was unlike any feeling I had ever experienced. With my first or second push, I felt the pop of my water bag. It broke in part while I was laboring, right before the pushing phase. But it had stayed intact the entire time I was laboring at home, likely adding some cushion.

With each push, I consciously bore down, using my breath during a contraction, but then I’d feel my body take over. Each conscious push transitioned into something uncontrollable. Hard to describe in words. As if my entire abdomen, down to my rectum, turned into an automatic high pressure french press system, with my conscious bearing down switching on the system. Once the system switched on, any semblance of control I had disappeared and my body completely took over. This is when I most felt how our conscious minds live separately from our physical bodies.

Physically, I felt like I was ripping open from the inside out. I did tear (a 2nd degree internal perineal tear), but the ripping felt broader than in just that one spot. This being that grew inside me for nearly ten months, a part of me, not yet independent, was in the process of separating from me. She stayed in this liminal space, a physical transition, literally inside a portal for hours during my labor, but the separation felt most present during the pushing phase itself. 

And my exhaustion peaked. Grasping for any marker of time, I asked multiple times how many more pushes. The midwife and nurse team could tell I was fading. Jonathan fed me an orange popsicle as I was on all fours, leaning over the back of the hospital bed. He looked at me right in the eyes, his eyes teary, mine probably strained: “You’ve got this. You’re doing so great.” He was right there, so present with me. Guiding me as I guided her.

I flipped to my back and tried to recover as much as I could during each seconds-long rest period. After asking me, the nurse wheeled a mirror over so I could see the productivity of my pushes. I saw myself completely open. With a push, I saw her head peeking out of me. I watched as the top of her head made an appearance and then hid behind the curtain again. Again and again, each time a centimeter further. The midwife spread birth oil around the circumference of C’s head. She held warm compresses to my perineum throughout this phase to reduce tearing. With one final push, C’s full head popped out. It was like that; after all that, her head popped out. The midwife worked her way around C’s shoulders, and the rest of her body slid out. Covered in vernix and meconium, she was placed on my chest. The nurse suctioned her nose and mouth until she took her first breath. Her first breath earthside. The transition almost complete. 

5:30pm. An immediate wave of relief rushed over me as soon as she was born. I was completely exhausted and the intensity of emotion overwhelmed me (in the best way). I felt relief, joy, love, pride, awe, disbelief, and shock all at the same time. I held C against my chest and the experience didn’t feel real. I couldn’t believe I birthed her. She had been inside me just a second earlier. My eyes kept toggling between Jonathan and our daughter. Disbelief that we made this tiny human; disbelief that she grew inside my body, that she grew all of her parts, that she was breathing, and was now earthside. She was still connected to me. The cord pulsed for about 20 minutes. The rich blood flowed back into her, building her immune system. After the cord stopped pulsing, Jonathan positioned himself to cut it. The separation between her and I complete. She was now her own independent being, physically disconnected from my body.

Birthing The Placenta

The final step — birthing my placenta. The temporary organ my body created, seemingly out of thin air, needed to be expelled. Its time was done. Purpose served. Pushing once more, a boneless, bloody blob squeezed out of me. I began to bleed more heavily at this point and my midwife needed to administer pitocin to slow the bleeding. My hep lock was already inserted and the nurse screwed on the vile of pitocin. The midwife then told me she needed to perform a uterine sweep, which I had heard about on a podcast of birth stories. I dreaded this, but I still held C. I felt the midwife’s hand, up to her forearm, inside of me and manually removed any clots that could be causing the bleeding. (Reminder that I was unmedicated.) I was holding C and my determination to keep her safe and warm stopped my body from writhing in pain. I knew the pain was temporary — and necessary. Again, I came back to my breath. Deep breaths in and out until she removed her arm. (I feel a wave of nausea editing this part of the story.) 

I believe the uterine “massage” happened next, to help stimulate my uterus to shrink to its pre-pregnancy size. I am unclear on why the word “massage” is used to describe this uncomfortable technique.  

And then it was over. C in my arms.

My body left feeling completely stripped of all protective layering. Emotionally raw. I made it through the most intense experience of my life. Still in complete awe. I trusted my body. I allowed the experience to move through me.

The pain of childbirth and labor, at least my experience, is unlike any other pain. Each contraction came in a wave. It rose, peaked, and then fell. I knew it would be temporary. I knew I’d get a break — albeit a short one — in between. I also knew it was productive. Served to push C down. And in this situation, my drive for productivity served me well. This mindset helped me overcome any fear.  

[This is where the postpartum version of my story ended.]

With one year’s distance from this experience, it still gives me chills. Still leaves me in awe. And still only the beginning.

Thank you for reading until the end.

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The middle of the night feels like some sort of vortex, a liminal space in which time both ceases to exist and in which each five minutes feels like a whole hour. The first hour went like this: whine, ba ba ba, wa wa wa, whine, sit up, continue whining, five minutes pass, whining escalates to crying, which then stops after a couple minutes, but only for 30 seconds, then the crying continues, this repeats ten times, and then it escalates further.

Me: What should we do?

Jonathan: I can go in there.

Me: But what if she calms down?

Jonathan: I don’t think that’s happening.

Jonathan leaves our bed and walks the 10 steps to C’s room. I hear through the monitor, “hiiiii squish, what’s wronggggggg?” as he picks her up and lets her head fall on his shoulder. “Shhhh shh shh shh shh shhhh shhh shhhhh [repeat too many times to type].”

10 minutes pass. 15. Jonathan reenters our bedroom.

Jonathan: Ok, I think she’s down. She’s definitely tired and fell asleep instantly.

Two minutes later. We hear crying on the monitor. It escalates. We let it go for as long as our hearts can take. 10 minutes maybe. Time isn’t real. We even turn the monitor off because, with the monitor, we hear double crying — the actual cry coming from her room, followed by the delayed cry through the monitor. I can feel my desire to control creep in, reaching into the depths of my brain to uncover what the sleep trainer told us to do months ago, all while knowing no amount of training will help an uncomfortable teething baby sleep soundly.

Me: Should we try to feed her?

Jonathan: I guess. I can go in there and you can make the bottle?

Feeding her was a disaster. It caused more screaming. She fell asleep again on Jonathan’s shoulder. We put her down again and she woke up instantly. This happened four or five more times. We’re in hour two now.

I stopped breastfeeding a few weeks ago, so I decide to see if I can fake her out. I sit with her on her rocker, stick my boob in her mouth, she sucks for a second, but before she realizes nothing but tiny drops come out, I do the switcharoo between my nipple and the bottle. It works. I’m praising God. There is hope.

She falls asleep for a few more minutes, but wakes up instantly when I try to put her down. She screams. I call for Jonathan, yet again. His shoulder is the only way. He rocks her and soothes her, and she falls asleep again on his shoulder. But then wakes up — yet again — when he tries to put her down. This repeats. We decide to see if she’ll settle on her own and we leave her room. I start to feel my own tooth pain. A dull ache in my gums on the left side of my mouth. Phantom teething pain because we are just that connected?

The crying doesn’t stop. I’m looking at the monitor, see her thrashing about in her crib. Butt in the air pose, waving her arms as she lifts her body, only to fall back down dramatically. She’s just so uncomfortable. Visibly in pain despite the Motrin. Her little body. I start crying. It’s too painful for me to watch. I suggest to Jonathan, “why don’t we just switch off every hour so we can each get a little sleep?” This suggestion sounds absurd as it comes out of my mouth, but I’m desperate. I go into her room, pick her up, and she stops crying while lying on my shoulder. But she’s 20+ pounds and my back starts to hurt after a while. I think, “Maybe if she’s in our bed, she won’t cry. Maybe she just wants to be around us. Maybe our presence alone would soothe her and we can all sleep.” I wish.

Still, I brought her into our bed and wished with my whole body and soul that she’d fall asleep while cuddled against me. I wouldn’t sleep due to fear of rolling over and smushing her, but that would be ok if her warm body is against mine and my nose has a constant stream of the smell of her head.

Predictably, this isn’t what happens. Instead, she screams, now in our ears, when I try to put her on our bed. I crawl into bed next to her and do the itsy bitsy spider movements with my hands to get her attention. It works for about a minute and then the crying begins again. I sing You Are My Sunshine, Old MacDonald, and Wheels on the Bus. I ask whether something else is wrong. Should we take her to the emergency room? My intrusive thoughts run wild and I will spare you, readers.

Jonathan suggests music. Oh, my sweet, sweet husband. I don’t think I’ve ever loved you more than in the moment when you pressed play on Imogen Heap’s The Happy Song and the crying suddenly stopped.

Heap’s absolutely brilliant (and catchy) song was based on the sounds parents use to make their babies happy. At the time C&G Baby Club commissioned the song, Heap’s daughter Scout was nearly two and could serve as her lead collaborator. Just like Scout, C instantly calms when she hears the Happy Song. She stopped crying and lay silently on my bed, her head next to mine, and her feet popping up and down in her sleep sack.

Next up: Charlie Hope. I ask Jonathan, “Does Charlie Hope have a lullaby album?” Of course she does.

And, if you have young kids or babies, I highly encourage you to explore Charlie Hope’s other bangers. Truly bangers.

As Charlie Hope plays, I turn my head to my left to stare at my sweet girl’s face, a simple silhouette in our dark room. I lightly trace her profile with my finger, knowing she is not asleep. With the music soothing her, I hear her breathe, the air traveling loudly between her constant daycare congestion, which bothers me more than it does her. I am overwhelmed with love as I try to make out the shape of her eyes, whether they’re open or closed, in the darkness. I feel my unrealistic desire to make sure nothing bad ever happens to her, and at the same time as the overwhelming love, I feel the overwhelming fear of what ifs, knowing I can’t protect her forever.

At some point, C discovers that if she reaches behind her head and runs her nails along our bed frame, she can make a scratching sound. She does this continuously, without any intention to stop. I grab her hand and tell her, “Ok, no more.” She laughs. And then does it again. I grab her hand, “no more.” She laughs. Then does it again. The pattern repeats and with each “no more” she giggles harder. Now I’m laughing. And Jonathan is laughing. “She thinks this is a game,” he tells me. But I continue to make her laugh. The three of us, laughing in bed, after midnight. Time ceases to exist.

Now close to 1:30 am, we’ve accepted the fact that C is not falling asleep in our bed. She wants to play, but as cute as that may be, I have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a 7 am zoom call to discuss SEC and CFTC regulations. Cool cool cool. We decided to try milk again (since it had been hours since we last fed her) so she could hopefully drift off into a milk-induced dreamland. Finally, (and I had to ask Jonathan about this part since, apparently, I blacked out) calm after an hour or more of the Happy Song and Charlie Hope songs, close to 2 am, C drank her milk with ease, and rested her head on Jonathan’s shoulder for five minutes before a (thankfully) successful transfer to her crib. With one sound, she flipped to her tummy and slept until 7:30 am.

My precious four hours of sleep were cut short by my faux-sunlight alarm and the birds chirping. I hum Charlie Hope’s Over in the Meadow to myself on my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

Over in the meadow, in the sand, in the sun, lived an old mother turtle and her turtle little one. Dig said the mother, dig, dig!, said the one. And they dug all day in the sand, in the sun…

I walk into my closet and see a foam “9” on the floor (or is it a “6”?), leftover from the night’s bath. It’s been two days, and the foam “9” is still in the same spot, a reminder of the curiosity that keeps her interested in the foam “9” for the sacred fifteen minutes it took me to get myself ready after my own shower.1

We made it through the night of teething pain, through the five hours from 9 pm to 2 am stuck in the liminal space, out of the MOTN (an acronym that every mom certainly knows) vortex where time both stops and slows and goes by too quickly. In the vortex, I desperately want to escape, want it to end, and want time to continue moving. Yet, in the same vortex, I desperately want to continue tracing my finger down her profile forever, and settle into the moment of sweet quiet when she stops crying. The vortex. It leaves me exhausted, depleated both emotionally and physically, but still craving the closeness, the reliance, the giggle, and the sweet smell of her head.

Note: I welcome any tips (witchcraft preferred) for soothing MOTN teething pain (please don’t suggest Tylenol/Motrin, we tried that already). Please and thank you.

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Turns out, she was fine. Happy the entire weekend without us. Certainly, this was tougher for me.

This trip coincided with the week I decided to stop pumping during the day. I had been pumping only twice during the workday for the past several weeks, and still pump or nurse in the morning depending on my work schedule, and before C goes down for the night, sometimes needing to supplement with a bottle of formula to ensure her belly is full for the night. My milk supply went down after my period returned a couple of months ago, and I don’t have the energy to increase my supply with additional pump sessions, which would likely require waking up in the middle of the night. I feel incredibly grateful I am able to breastfeed, let alone exclusively provided C breastmilk up until she was about six months. When we first started supplementing with formula, she hated it, making me think she’d be attached to my boob forever. We tried a different brand, which she loves. And it forced Jonathan and I to get over our slightly disordered relationship with seed oils because there is literally not one formula on the market that does not contain seed oil. We reminded ourselves that millions of babies — including Jonathan himself — were formula-fed and are perfectly healthy humans. A healthy human and my own mental health were top priorities.

Now, in Joshua Tree, I sat on the couch in our perfectly desert aesthetic decorated Airbnb. Looking down at my breasts, my nipples stretched into the cylinder funnels attached to the oblong plastic-encased motor by yet more plastic tubes. Stretching back and forth, in and out. My nipples still pink at the ends, but became paler in the middle as they pressed against the flanges. The timer on the little motor screen read 9 minutes 35 seconds. Almost 10 minutes and no let-down. The pins and needles feeling I had grown so accustomed to was absent. The feeling that, when occurring spontaneously in public when I realize I forgot nipple pads, causes panic. But causes soothing relief when C latches after hungrily searching for me, or when it comes within 30 seconds of starting a pump session, having only 8 minutes before I’d be late to an appointment. Sitting on the couch with my trusted frenemy, I craved that feeling. Turning to my mind to create it for myself, I began to visualize the milk flow through my ducts, imagining the slightly painful feeling starting high in my chest and creeping its way down like the tendrils of a pea plant.

Nothing. Even as I switched the mode from stimulation to expression, wondering whether the modes mirrored those on industrial dairy pumps. And wondering whether the let-down felt the same for my fellow female mammals. I heard no dripping. It had been nearly 20 minutes. I cut myself off at 22 for the health of my nipples. Defeated.

Jonathan sat next to me and I looked at him with tears in my pleading eyes, and pointed at the empty bottles attached to my breasts. Nothing.

“Where is the milk?” I cried. “I haven’t pumped all day, since 7:30 am, there should be more. Am I done?”

I wasn’t ready.

“I’m just really sad,” I said, inching closer to him as he wrapped me in his arms and let me curl up against him to cry.

“I know. I’m so sorry, babe,” he said, reading my cues that I needed his empathy rather than problem-solving. “It is sad,” he affirmed.

I allowed myself to cry but did not yet accept that the road might be at its end. Was there still hope? I texted my friend even though I knew she’d be asleep in the Eastern time zone:

Ugh, I tried no pumping during the day after the morning nurse/pump, and I’m hardly getting any yield. Maybe I’m just done.

The next morning, she asked: What do you think you would want to happen ideally?

Ideally, I would be able to not pump during the day and either nurse or pump in the morning and night. I wanted the independence of not planning my day around my pumps, to forgo thinking about whether I would have access to a private space, whether I’d be able to step away at the time my pump was due, whether I’d have a fridge nearby or would need to carry a cooler, whether I needed to bring my pump and all of its many parts because if I forgot just one piece—even the piece the size of my thumbnail—the entire contraption would not function and I’d be left either milking myself over the sink in a public bathroom, risk leaking through my shirt, and wake up the next morning with painful clogs or feverish mastitis. I wanted to free my mind during the day. Just last week I removed my pumps in the bathroom of Los Angeles’s Union Station and dumped the milk in the sink for sanitary reasons. Especially this weekend in Joshua Tree, I wanted freedom. I wanted to hike without worrying about how long we’d be out. I wanted to leave my pump at home when we went to dinner, the one night we decided to go out.

As I sat on the couch, disassembling myself from my pump, I resolved to try again in the morning, hoping I hadn’t quite hit the end of my road.

Sure enough, the next morning, I pumped close to six ounces. Enough for a whole bottle plus an ounce or two more. I felt relieved. And weirdly proud of myself, as if I had control over my yield. My sense of pride and relief reminded me of the sick connection between breastfeeding and our self-worth as women and as mothers. This is conditioned, and takes major work to unwind. I’ve been stopped on the street while wearing C — these passersby ask how old she is, whether she’s a boy or a girl, and whether I am breastfeeding. What would they think if I said no? There is a disclaimer on the first brand of formula I tried stating, “breastmilk is best for babies” in capital letters. What is this disclaimer trying to tell me? That I am doing my baby a disservice by supplementing with formula?

Noticing my six ounces, I felt capable, like a “good mother,” even though rationally I knew that I was a good mother regardless of my ability to produce breastmilk. Yet just the night before, I cried to Jonathan, while thanking God for formula, “but if formula didn’t exist, she’d starve to death because of me.” Because. Of. Me.

How could I think this way? Anger boiled inside me. We don’t live in a world where I can exclusively nurse, as would be the case in the pre-formula age when a new mother would have to stop working (if she did work outside the home) to nourish her baby. And I am grateful for that because I get to have a career that, on the outside, seems uninterrupted by motherhood. And during the time I wasn’t working, during my maternity leave, my sole focus was to nourish C. But, I couldn’t help but crave independence from her, all while knowing a day would come, like this weekend, when I would feel nostalgic for the singular focus and what felt like constant attachment to my breast. Such conflicting emotions.

As I sat writing this essay in Joshua Tree, I stared at the desert landscape covered with the trees of its namesake, found only here on the entire planet. No tree is the same. I notice their hairy trunks and spiky tops, the tallest of them hundreds of years old. The competing feelings seem to flow through me more easily in the desert. Through the open spaces, between the Joshua Trees, hopping over the Cholla cactus plants that look gentle and cuddly, but require a special needle removal tool if touched. Though these feelings occasionally get stuck, or pricked, or sliced, or blocked. But here in the desert, I saw them more clearly.

I saw how this period marks a transition in my motherhood journey. The transition to become a mother independent of my daughter, who is becoming more and more independent by the day. Created out of my own matter, birthed from my own body, she depended on me completely during pregnancy and after birth. Now, she depends on me less. And the goal is for her not to depend on me at all. It is this that both devastates me and excites me and scares me and brings me an overwhelming amount of joy and awe.

I crave the independence, crave having my body back, crave being able to travel without my pump. But I also don’t want to stop. I crave the connection, the lack of independence my body has from C’s. And right in line with the pressure I feel to “bounce back,” I don’t want to give up how easy it is to justify abnormal hunger, or to justify my body retaining weight. Right now, I feel like I can’t live without the satisfaction of a high yield, but at the same time, I can’t live with the dissatisfaction of no yield. I both want to rid myself of the frustration that I feel with every period-induced supply dip, and also hold onto it because I know it is all fleeting. The sadness reverberates in my bones when I stare down at the bottles, listening to the drip drop as milk hardly reaches an ounce. It is these empty bottles that remind me that I am losing the last remaining physical connection to my daughter, no matter how many times I whisper in her ear that my heart is always connected to her heart. The annoyance that causes me to shove my flanges into a Ziploc after spending 20 minutes of my life attached to plastic tubes like a dairy cow, yet yielding nothing. The wave of worry that I’m not doing the best I can to nourish my daughter. Quickly replaced with shame and frustration for feeling anything but gratitude. Can’t I just let it go?

When the frustration and anxiety are replaced by the relief for the morning’s yield, the pride of doing things “right,” and the gratitude for being able to do this at all, it changes all over again a day later as I suffer from yet another dip. Let the mindfuck ensue. Let the competing emotions stay present all at once. The nostalgia for the earliest days and the reminders of how trapped I felt. I’m not quite ready to let it go and I’m also not willing to do what I’d need to do to keep it up. I both enjoy my pump-free workday and tap on my breasts multiple times throughout the day to feel if I’m filling, because knowing that makes me either confident and motivated to keep going or depressed and full of despair. I feel both annoyed at my yieldless bedtime pumps and anxious about giving them up entirely. I know these feelings are my first true manifestation of the competing feelings motherhood evokes throughout a lifetime. The ability to hold both love and fear at the same time.

This weekend, in Joshua Tree, I felt more myself than I have in a long time. I was not tied to my pump during the day, and J and I were able to connect with each other for an extended period of time without the interruption of logistics and baby care. I sat writing in an Adirondack chair with my pen in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other, in front of an expansive landscape, allowing myself to feel whatever appeared. I allowed the desert to carry my competing emotions through it, and allowed them to exist rather than make rational sense of them appearing simultaneously. Through this all, I felt more myself, but the version transformed forever by motherhood, the tendrils like those in my breasts light up, with a constant stream of worried thoughts, and with thoughts of love and fear like I have never experienced before.

All at the same time. All a mindfuck.

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For weeks I’ve been wondering whether there was more that drew me to our sterile basement given that I typically need to work with tons of light, a spacious table, and art warming the walls. Something had changed about this space since I returned to work from parental leave. Perhaps I had changed. Maybe my preferences for a sunlight filled room shifted like a pregnant women’s food preferences, allergies, foot size, or eyeglasses prescription. I underwent a transformation over the past year. My former independent self transformed into a host for an alien-like creature, and then transformed again into slightly less of a host, with my body still not entirely my own. I then realized—my body not only became full and then vacant of another being, but also an entire organ that I built from scratch.

My placenta. Now sitting frozen in the basement freezer, eyeing me when I head down those stairs, whispering to me, “remember the days we were together?” I do. I remember those days extremely well. I continue to seek connection with this part of myself. This part that grew from nothing, just a single cell dividing into many to form the dinner plate sized purpleish beauty that kept C alive and growing for 40 whole weeks. This is why I settle in the basement.

The placenta is the body’s only temporary organ. She is magical. Acting as baby’s lungs, kidneys, and liver, she filters toxins, disposes of waste, maintains the careful uterine environment to grow a baby, and manages resource sharing between mother and fetus. She acts as a transporter of oxygen and nutrients, somehow a medium of exchange between mom and baby’s bloodstreams without mixing them. So much has to happen for a baby to be born healthy, and a well-functioning placenta is key to this process. A pregnant woman’s body grows not only a baby, but a large organ, and somehow her body knows exactly how to do this. And then, once the baby is born, the placenta detaches herself from the uterus and is birthed in the third stage of labor. This process takes place beyond consciousness, on a molecular level. Yet another transport. From the womb’s safety to the world’s chaos, suddenly disconnected from her purpose with a couple of contractions and a uterine massage.

It likely comes as no surprise that the placenta is rich with nutrients (and potentially other magical powers). In some cultures, the mother consumes the placenta (the practice is called placentophagy), believing in her health benefits and her power to increase energy. This practice has more recently become popular among celebrities, wealthy individuals, and social media influencers. Drying and encapsulating the placenta is the most popular form of placentophagy. But others freeze her to use in smoothies and soups.

Most placental mammals[1] regularly engage in placentophagy, theoretically an instinctual response to protect their young from predators. Humans, seals, whales, dolphins, and camels, however, do not typically engage in placentophagy. Despite the post-1970s semi-boom of placentophagy among those practicing alternative or “natural” medicine – and celebrities – historically, humans have not regularly consumed their own placentas. The placenta has been used in traditional Chinese medicine, but the mother would not necessarily be the recipient of the treatments. And, there are other instances of cultures historically consuming placentas, but not by the mother. Jamaican history records bits of placental membranes put into an infant’s tea to prevent convulsions caused by ghosts. The Chaga of Tanganyika dry and grind the placenta into a flour, and feed her to the elderly to preserve the child’s life.

Many other cultures celebrate and honor the placenta with a number of burial traditions. Several cultures believe the placenta is the child’s living relative—a guardian angel—and honor her as such with full burial rights. How beautiful.

But what is the default in the U.S.? Disposing of her as medical waste unless the hospital receives some other instruction from the family.

While pregnant, I considered placentophagy in the form of encapsulation. Anecdotally, it can help a birthing woman lessen the intensity of postpartum hormonal swings and provide energy. Given my history of anxiety, this intrigued me. But the corroborating scientific evidence is thin. I researched, listened to podcasts, and talked to my doula about the process. Ultimately, I decided that the potential benefits did not outweigh my desire to not have yet another supplement to take, albeit one that tastes like iron (when I am sensitive to vitamins with a weird taste). I trusted my gut feeling that the taste of the supplement would end up nauseating me and my dried encapsulated placenta would sit for months unconsumed in my cupboard.

But it still felt wrong to me to throw away my placenta as medical waste. I visualized her sad and droopy at the bottom of a garbage along with other medical waste thrown on top. Once connected to me, and to C, now alone, her purpose served. Jonathan and I talked – he felt strange about throwing her away too (one of the many reasons why I love him) so we decided to keep her and design a burial ritual, to eventually plant a fruit tree with her nourishing the soil underneath. It felt right for my placenta to return to her origin: the earth. Where all beings come from; and where they return. It will be her last stop.

This is how it worked: after I birthed my placenta and my midwife gave us a “tour” of her majesty, my doula placed her in a gallon Ziploc inside of a cooler with ice. She took my placenta home and she lived in my doula’s freezer for a couple weeks until my postpartum home visit. At that point, my placenta was mine again and I carefully placed her inside her new frozen home. She has already been on quite the journey. From no existence to my womb to my hospital bed to a cooler to my doula’s freezer to my basement freezer. And, finally, soon enough, to the earth where she can rest peacefully.

Transportation is her mission. She transports nutrients and oxygen, and is then transported herself. She originated in DC, moved to Virginia, and will soon cross the nation to Southern California, my birthplace and where Jonathan and I plan to settle for this phase of our lives.

We can ask my placenta for her wisdom in transport—how can we move her from Virginia to California to eventually bury her? Can we bring her on the plane in a cooler? Ship her with dry ice? Are there regulations preventing the shipping of human organs? What about placing her in our Yeti in dry ice in the trunk of one of our cars to be shipped across the country? Will she spoil? Will a bear break into the car and eat her?

In the meantime, she rests nestled against frozen breastmilk and a giant bag of frozen berries from Costco. Cozy inside the icebox. Available for me to say hello at any time.

[1] Of course I had to look up which mammals are not placental – marsupials like the kangaroo and monotremes like the platypus (which lays eggs).

College in the northeast was the first time I understood the cyclical nature of summer thunderstorms. Humid, growing more oppressive each day, until finally the humidity breaks with a thunderstorm. And the cycle repeats itself - humid, humid, humid, storm, dry and sunny, humid, humid, humid, storm. Typically in the afternoon and rarely lasting more than a few hours, it is possible to visibly watch the storm come through. First, the wind. The trees begin to shiver, leaves circling through the air as if fall arrived early. Then, the dark cloud. I watch as it approaches from a distance, slowly sucking up the light in its path. As the cloud closes in, I see the sheet of rain underneath. The rain doesn’t start as a drizzle. It pours instantly. My first summer in Boston, being from California, I learned to always pack an umbrella, even on a sunny morning. Watching the cloud close in served as a futile warning. 

I learned lightning comes first, the flash before the boom, with the speed of light exceeding the speed of sound. I’d sit at the window watching. I still do. Living in Virginia, in a suburb of DC, the summer storms feel even more pronounced. Lightning causing falling branches, even a downed power line. So frequently checking “outage status” on Dominion Energy’s website, I leave the tab open on my phone’s browser. Our dog Tabor curled on his bed, shaking slightly. He senses the storm and wears his emotions on his sleeve. 

The cycle of these storms - wind, darkness, rain, cloud cover, sun - mirrors emotional cycles within ourselves. We are part of the same system as these storms. The storm above us, but in reality, we are inside it. We are a part of it. We live inside it. Just as our internal storms. Our own weather systems. 

It is easy for me to stare outside watching a summer thunderstorm roll through, yet I often struggle taking that same approach with my internal storms. I’ve learned the skills I need to watch from the sidelines, but sometimes, the internal storm takes over. I question whether it will ever pass. When I will feel at ease. Without a doubt, these internal storms are not all “bad” - they are not all filled with gray clouds and thunder. Sometimes the internal storms are exciting, or loving, or joyous. Always overwhelming, seeming to take over my body, feeling the wave fill every inch. 

There are times in my life when I’ve been better about allowing the storm to pass through. Newly postpartum I felt the waves of emotions and stayed present with them – overwhelming joy, love, fear, frustration. When I ended my last relationship, years ago, I consciously stayed with the emotions, allowing them to pass through, desiring to feel because I had been mostly numb for so long. My past self would bottle up the storm in an opaque container as soon as the wind began, and inevitably, the bottle would overflow, exploding into an uncontrolled crumpled mess. I like to think that I’ve since retired this container, and learned tools to allow the storm as it comes. The storm itself does not make up who we are. We can practice non-attachment and reduce the storm’s power.

But we’ve somehow built a world unfit for strong emotions. A world that hands out containers like youth soccer trophies. One for everyone. 

I so badly want our world to normalize our individual weather systems. To take away the shame of feeling. If we each can allow the storms to be on display, at least for our own children (children in the general, next generation, sense), maybe we can reduce the shame over time. If we can help show others there is no need to be embarrassed to cry, the pressure in our collective container will be released ever so slightly. Collectively speaking, violence, war, and conflict may be the build up of such pressure to the point of explosion. Maybe by creating safe spaces for others to allow their storms, simply watching them pass through without resistance, we can create more peace in our world. As summer transitions into fall, I plan to use the remaining thunderstorms as a reminder to allow my internal storms to pass through without attaching myself too strongly to the storm itself. 

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I felt empty, with a new vacancy inside me. Over the next several weeks, my organs would slowly move back to their pre-pregnancy space and my uterus would contract back to its pre-pregnancy size. 

Allowing.

On the first night after giving birth, I woke up in the middle of the night with chills, shaking uncontrollably. Apparently this is common due to the post-birth hormonal swing, which is triggered immediately upon the baby exiting the womb. I went into pregnancy knowing that my hormones shifted, causing a whole slew of symptoms while I was pregnant – almost daily nosebleeds, nausea and COVID-level fatigue during my first trimester, breasts that seemed to double in size, and a sensation called lightning crotch (google it). But rarely do other women talk about their postpartum experience. After a baby is born, the attention, for the most part, is on the baby. Most of the time, when people ask how everything is going, they want to know about baby care (i.e., how baby is sleeping, how baby is eating, whether baby likes the bath, etc.), not about my night sweats, chills, first week anxiety nightmares, hourly emotional swings, fear of sneezing due to a recovering perineal tear, or how my lochia is looking. 

We focus so much on the pregnancy and the birth. We read books, take hypnobirthing classes, celebrate at baby showers, and attend dozens of appointments. But postpartum expectations are rarely featured.

After we got home from the hospital, my middle-of-the-night shaking subsided, but I continued to have night sweats for the rest of the week. The sweating was broken up by nursing C and anxiety-related nightmares. 

During the day, especially for the first week, the emotional swings led me to cry multiple times per day. During one shower, I had a flashback to the pushing phase of C’s birth, looking in the mirror set up in front of me so I could watch her head come out more with each push. I started sobbing, allowed the water to run over me, and didn’t hold back. I knew these emotions needed releasing. 

Besides the hormonal shift, I had just gone through the most intense experience of my life. I needed to integrate. I’m not sure I fully have. How do you fully integrate the experience of watching a human enter the world, holding her as she takes her first breath without falling into an existential crisis? I tried to journal, but hardly had energy (or time) to hold a pen. I retold the birth story during therapy, of course crying, and I suspect this topic will be a focus of many future sessions. The only person who knew what I had gone through was my husband, who also characterized the birth of our daughter as the most intense experience of his life. I leaned on him for support, expressed when I felt emotional and allowed myself to cry as he held me. My eyes become blurry and wet as I write this, the experience still so recent, wondering if it will ever not trigger tears. Other than tears while I reflected on C’s birth, I cried when I thought about how she used to be inside my body, now empty. I cried when she screamed, watching her face scrunch and turn red caused true pain in my body. I cried (and still do) when I imagined what our dog Tabor felt like, afraid that this new screaming human would take his place in the family. I cried looking at C’s beautiful tiny face, wondering how this face and little body was inside me just days ago. And I cried for no reason at all.

Throughout these emotional swings, I practiced RAIN (recognize, allow, investigate, nurture). I recognized the emotion coming on and allowed it to present itself. I asked myself where I felt it in my body and I nurtured myself by asking for a hug or placing my hand on my heart. Tara Brach is famous for this practice and I had attended her week-long silent meditation retreat just a few months earlier, with C inside me.

I have been practicing allowing for years now, previously holding back for fear of emotions driving me mad, losing control. Before I began to do “the work” or meditate, I brushed my emotions aside, claimed that I was “fine,” but then an explosion would hit once my body reached its limit. 

Pregnancy, birth, postpartum recovery, and generally caring for a newborn has been the ultimate practice of allowing.

During the birth, I allowed each contraction to come, knowing they were productive, helping move my baby down. For the most part, I let go of resistance. I did not resist the pain; I allowed it. I allowed my body to take over during the pushing phase. I allowed myself to experience a mix of intense relief and emotion when C was placed on my chest, still connected to me through her pulsating cord. 

During the initial period of postpartum recovery, I allowed the emotions to come in waves. I embraced wearing mesh underwear and building, what I called, a bologna sandwich (lay out a pad four times larger than the largest maxi pad you’ve seen, place a pad-shaped ice pack on top – the bread, followed by witch hazel round pads – the bologna, and a perineal healing spray – the condiment). I gave in to the discomfort in walking and avoided going up and down stairs, strategizing what I may need for the next several hours or asking for help. 

Within a couple weeks, my waddling turned to walking, I cried fewer times per day, the bologna sandwich was no longer necessary, and I transitioned to a normal sized maxi pad. I allowed myself to rest even when I felt the societal pressure to start moving my body (the harmful “bounce back” messaging is a topic for another post). 

The second week and fourth week ended with a bout of inflammatory mastitis. I allowed the frustration and defeat as I overcame a fever, body aches, chills, and an extremely sore boob, all while caring for a newborn. I allowed the anxiety and fear as I questioned whether something was wrong with my breasts, whether I was doing something wrong despite C nursing well, having a good latch, and gaining weight.

I allowed the challenges of cluster feeding. I felt like a milk factory, my time completely dependent on when C needed to eat – every 45 minutes to one hour. Feeling defeated when I thought she wasn’t getting enough to eat; that I was not making enough milk. 

I allowed it all and also knew these feelings were fleeting. They came in waves and if I allowed it, the wave would retreat. 

Patience.

During each cluster feeding session, I sat down interrupted. Thinking I had at least another hour to shower or refuel or answer a text or empty the dishwasher or perhaps nap, I unhooked my bra, shhh’d C as she approached my breast, told her “it’s coming,” and watched as she gaped at me, shifting her head side to side, her nose leading her toward my nipple. Instant calm as soon as she latched, my shoulders released down, and I exhaled. This routine happens multiple times per day, typically in the evening, but in week 3, this happened from noon until 8pm. Every. Single. Day. Hardly getting more than thirty minutes in between feeds, this cycle required utmost patience. I reminded myself she was going through a growth spurt and stayed kind to myself even when I doubted my milk supply and wondered if I was leaving my baby hungry. Patience. Knowing this phase will pass.

Right now, C is too young to put herself to sleep. Meaning, we cannot just place her in her crib and expect her to fall asleep on her own. We must rock her, soothe her, play white noise for her, bounce her, sing to her, change her rocking position dozens of times, walk in circles with her, shift from sitting in her glider to standing, back and forth, back and forth. Dizzying rocking. Nausea-inducing bouncing. Sometimes her eyes stay wide for over an hour, just staring at the sliver of light in between the doorframe and the door. Or the sliver of moonlight streaming in from closed shutters. I turn her face toward me, beg her to close her eyes, all the while reminding myself that the world is new. She is seeing this sliver of light for what very well may be the first time. Regulating her own nervous system is impossible and after her 12th or 16th or 21st day earthside, she remains wide-eyed just as I do when I toss and turn in bed for hours during a week with too much going on. Patience.     

Laughter.

Yesterday, I wrote a song for C as I bounced her repeatedly during her “witching hour” – a period of crying inconsolably, often in the evening, for no apparent reason. Witching hour should be plural. Typically, during these hours, C is also cluster feeding, then after unlatching, she immediately starts crying. Maybe she has gas? Maybe she wants more milk? Maybe she needs her diaper changed? Nothing works. Only bouncing. Aggressively. 

Little Miss C turns into a witch from 6 to 8pm, I whisper in a sing-songy voice, when she puts her witch hat on and does a little magic to make her a fussy girl. My eyes shift between C and Jonathan, who is sitting on the couch watching my spark of creative genius. But mama loves witches so it's ok. At this point, I’ve gone nuts. I can hardly get the words out because I’m laughing so hard. C stops crying and stares at me. Either she also thinks I’ve lost my mind or, I choose to believe, my song actually does contain a bit of magic and maybe I turn into a witch too. We’re connected after all.   

At some point during week two, I am sitting on top of my sitz bath on the toilet. A glorious 10 to 15 minutes of relaxation where I allow the herbal steam to heal my torn perineum. I hear Jonathan exclaim in the next room, “Oh, oh, oh! No! Oh man, oh man!” As Jonathan changed C, she proceeded to urinate on the changing table (this happens often, but usually we catch it with a diaper), defecate bubbling milk poop also on the changing table, and projectile spit up (maybe throw up) on the shutters. All simultaneously. The mixture of pee, spit up, and poop is all over her onesie. Jonathan needed to perform surgery and cut her onesie off to avoid bacteria spreading to C’s mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. I laughed so hard, the water began spilling out of my sitz bath and onto the bathroom floor. This is why it makes no sense to spend much money on newborn clothes. 

Laughter has kept us sane during this newborn phase. We laugh as C belches loudly after eating. We laugh as C, in the ten seconds between removing one diaper and placing another one down, projectile poops two feet beyond the changing pad. We laugh as we watch C become mesmerized by the banister on the stairs, something about the shadow or contrast totally captivating her. We laugh with pride as she lifts her head for ten seconds during tummy time. And we laugh at C’s involuntary movements and facial expressions, pretending like she is actually reacting to our funny faces.   

Awe.

Awe is the reason this is all worth it. Awe on so many levels.

I am in awe when she is in my arms and I think about how she was inside my body, and then came out of it.

I am in awe at the sounds she makes in her sleep. 

When I think about how her body knows how to sneeze, or cough, or bear down to poop, or stretch after being unswaddled, or root to find a nipple when she’s hungry. Everything instinctual.

When I look inside her mouth as she screams, mouth wide open, and I see her tiny tongue vibrating. In awe of the sound coming out of her lungs, and in awe that this tongue (really, any body part) was created out of nothing, perfectly formed and functioning, and now all fitting inside her teeny body. 

When I watch Jonathan hold her, sweetly call her squisho (squishy), musho (mushy), or nuggo (nugget), kiss her cheek and then, if he hasn’t shaved, apologize to her for “dad’s rough kisses” as she whines.

When I reflect back on her birth and the capability of my body. Awe at my body for creating the nourishment C needs. Awe when I feel the pins and needles “let down” right at the two to three hour mark, my body synced with C’s hunger. 

When I look at C’s face and see Jonathan’s. Or my own. When I notice her hair forming a slight mohawk, just like Jonathan’s baby hair.

When I think about how she’s gained over 10% of her body weight in just one month. And grown ½ an inch. 

When I know she’s healthy. Miraculously. So many things have to go right for her to be healthy.

It is this awe that carries me through the periods of frustration, exhaustion, anxiety, or negative self-talk. It carries me through the witching hours, the projectile poops, the cluster feeds, the bouts of mastitis, the emotional swings, the night sweats, the mesh underwear, the maxi pads. It is 8am as I finish writing, watching her sleep during her first nap of the day, her face turned toward me, cheeks too heavy and almost resting on her shoulders, her belly moving up and down with her breath, her tiny body shifting, grunts escaping her mouth that is shaped like her dad’s, loved unlike any other type of love. All bringing me to tears yet again.   

Of course, a few photos:

And a few photos from my labor:

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Our culture of work — at least here in the US — is hyper-capitalistic. Focused on obtaining the maximum output with maximum efficiency, with desired output never ceasing to increase. We live in a culture that celebrates how much we work. The number of hours becomes a point of pride, eventually tied with worthiness and value. We define success by how much money we make, which we believe is correlated to how hard we work. (Although apparently Gen Z canceled this “hustle culture,” prioritizing “work-life balance” and aiming to create careers out of their passions so work does not feel like work at all.) When I was in private practice, my success was literally defined by how many hours I worked. No matter whether a law firm states they take other metrics into account (participation in recruiting, diversity events, business development, etc.), if you have any desire to rise to the level of partnership, falling beneath your hours is a no go. I got caught in this trap, my self-worth tied to the number of hours I billed, and spent countless more hours unwinding the two.

Although I no longer bill hours (thankfully) and my worth is nowhere near tied to the number of hours I work, I still fall into the productivity trap — where every daily activity must be productive, must lead to some sort of product. There must exist an output. Not much play. Every work-related task, or career-related activity, is automatically placed in the “productive” category. There is a very clear output and the reward falls at the height of capitalist values. I’m paid for it, after all.

But what about time spent not working? My “free” time? Still, I pressure myself to ensure my time falls into the “productive” category. I would pressure myself to read more nonfiction because I would be “learning something.” Even now, when I read fiction, I notice myself paying attention to the writing style to improve my own writing, with my dreams of writing a book (and getting paid to do so) hovering in the back of my mind. My defining of these categories—productive vs. not productive—feels arbitrary and inauthentic. Based on some other ideal that does not truly belong to me. Why is seeking joy not enough?

During the pandemic, I created watercolor collages. These collages weren’t going to end up for sale in a gallery. Or on display at the National Gallery of Art. I was not going to become a famous watercolor collagist. But even though creating these collages was a form of creative play, providing me with an opportunity to be present and exercise my mind differently, I noticed the temptation to rush through, the lingering voice on my shoulder that I should move on to a more “productive” activity. The same voice belonging to the part of me caught up with how others perceive me. Or, really, how I perceive how others perceive me. (There really is no way for me to know how I am perceived.)

We struggle to work hard when there is no clear reward that moves us closer to meeting society’s definition of success — a definition driven by money and status, even if on an individual level, we care more about having a meaningful life. This research study explored how we define success and “what individuals personally prioritize (personal priorities) and what they believe most others in society prioritize (perceived societal priorities).” It found that individual Americans will choose character over status in how they define success for themselves, but they incorrectly believe most Americans would prioritize status. Similarly, individuals ranked being rich in the bottom third of all priorities, but believed that most other people would rank being rich as the single highest priority of all. The data demonstrates our perception of what others value in terms of success is skewed. We falsely believe that others value money and status more than things like making a positive impact, involvement in the community, and having a purpose in life. But where does that belief lead us when factoring in our desire to feel accepted by others and by the broader community? Does this belief (even if false) leave us conditioned to pursue goals that align with this belief rather than our own view of what it means to be successful?

Reading Lucy Jones’s Matrescence has sparked my own examination of the value I ascribe to motherhood. Jones very aptly discusses the impact of the patriarchy on the expectations of mothers — particularly, the belief that all women have an innate mothering capability, not needing to learn anything. This leads to women feeling guilty, inadequate, and even a failure when they may struggle with various aspects of motherhood.

[P]atriarchy—had turned motherhood into a “modern institution,” with its own rules, strictures and social expectations, all of which were designed to control women’s behavior and thought. . . . The institution fostered the idea that women are born with a “natural” maternal “instinct” rather than needing to develop knowledge and skills as caregivers. The uneven power relations between mother and child were, [Adrienne Rich in her book Of Woman Born] argued, a reflection of power dynamics in society. It was a setup, in which mothers were destined to fail.

Yet, this same social structure places higher value on traditional forms of “work” than mothering. We’ve seen this theme arise in the feminist movement that attaches more value to working moms. Mothers who defy stereotypes and break glass ceilings. All at the expense of other women. Mothers who choose to stay home or take a step back from their careers. At times, I’ve shamefully adopted that seemingly feminist ideal — but judging other women for their personal choices is, at bottom, the most un-feminist act.

The working mother is both celebrated and criticized. Celebrated because they “set an example” for their children that women can have careers in a male-dominated world. That women can achieve anything—that we can “have it all.” Ceilings shatter.

But at the same time, the stay-at-home mom is also both celebrated and criticized. Celebrated for devoting her time to her family, and criticized—particularly by other women—for not pushing back on the assumptions of a woman’s role.^[2] And so, we’re destined to lose.

It is because of my conditioning that a particular belief creeps in my mind, quickly shooed away by the shame it evokes. The belief that just mothering contains less value than focusing more intensely on career ambitions. Because, with mothering, there is no direct output or product recognized by society. With mothering, the mother and perhaps her partner are the only ones who see, close-up, the fruits of their decades-long labor: a real human being who grows into an adult. If only capitalism recognized that as the ultimate product.

As I approach the start of my maternity leave, I am still anxious. My leave is a forced break from the productivity trap. Where I am left to focus on activities that capitalism and the patriarchy do not define as productive. Where instead, I am to focus on caring for my baby and my own healing—resisting the capitalist notion that I should “bounce right back.”^[3]

I’ve noticed myself caveat my upcoming leave to colleagues by promising to be available in an emergency. By promising to review drafts of an upcoming court filing. By arranging a system by which the second lawyer at the organization can send me weekly update emails. By envisioning how I will fit reviewing messages into my leave, perhaps during 2am feeds, so I don’t come back with an overwhelming backlog of thousands.

I find myself comparing my leave to the leave of men in my industry. Pressuring myself to “do what a man can do” — the rebel part of myself that seeks to push back against society’s expectations and assumptions. Refusing to accept that this period is inherently different for me because over the past 39.5 weeks, my body has metamorphosed into an alien home, pushing the rest of my insides aside to make room for another creature. Even creating a whole other organ to support this creature’s development. Knowing all the while that the start of my leave will also mark the start of a sudden vacancy in my body, with my insides slowly reconfiguring themselves, but with my body still remaining a food source and my brain forever changed.

My leave-related anxiety touches on my fear of not being valued; my desire to feel indispensable, reliable, and to be perceived as excellent. And it all boils down to how I ascribe value and define what is productive.

As I work (pun intended) to unwind my definition of productivity, and my reliance on productivity as a marker for my self-worth, I consider what it would mean to lean into this three-month period of total devotion to my transition into motherhood—my matrescence—and to nurturing my daughter’s entrance into this world.

I fear losing my independent identity, but also know that this identity will undoubtedly change. The unknown of how leaves me feeling uneasy. Perhaps leaning into this period will make it easier to approach it with curiosity, rather than fear and anxiety. Just as I pasted birth affirmations underneath my bathroom mirror, perhaps I will need reminders that I am in a period of transformation, that by too soon engaging too heavily in work-related matters, I would be pushing myself away from that transformation and ultimately straying from my most aligned desires, goals, and values. That by choosing to allow this transition to be all-consuming—perhaps at the expense of impressing a colleague by my ability to “do it all” and the subsequent validation that yields—I rebel against the system that led to this anxiety-ridden trap in the first place.

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And, as always, some recent photos.

^[1] Studies have found that the “due date” would more accurately be 40 weeks and 5 days, especially for first time moms. https://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-on-due-dates/.

^[2] This is all putting aside that some women choose to stay home because it is more economical given the cost of childcare and that the rate of pay for women still falls below that of men. And putting aside that many other women have no choice and must work outside the home to support their family because the cost of living in this country makes it unrealistic for many families to survive on a single income.

^[3] The number of google search results for articles about how to “bounce back after baby” is absolutely terrifying.

Perhaps my creativity is mirroring the growth happening inside my body. Growing inside me, expanding, creating something out of nothing, but not yet ready for birth. My ideas are never-ending and I’ve been trying to keep track. Sometimes they pop in, and then flee a moment too soon, before I have a chance to write them down. Sometimes they feel ever-present, living behind a barrier in my brain, protected from the outside world. A novel or a memoir, short stories, articles, op-eds, ideas to grow The Undefined, dreams of writing daily, really sinking into a routine, writing becoming a true habit. Nothing has come to life; the pages still blank and the chair still empty.

I’ve tried to be kind to myself while stuck—probably not the most appropriate word—in this feeling. Reframing “stuck” to “brewing.” Or “growing” or “expanding” or “getting ready to be born.” Just like the tiny human inside me. She isn’t stuck; she’s becoming whole.

Last fall I worked through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way with two friends. One of Cameron’s primary asks is for artist readers to write three pages, uninhibited stream of consciousness, every morning — the “morning pages.” I diligently woke up 30 minutes earlier, often forgoing a workout or a meditation to make time. Completing the Artist’s Way almost exactly coincided with my first trimester of pregnancy. My right hand buried in a box of crackers and my left hand holding a pen. Coffee sounded awful, so my early morning wake-ups were devoid of caffeine — maybe some tea after I managed to put something in my stomach.

As one can expect, my morning pages often turned into analysis of how my body felt newly pregnant; how it felt to pretend I was “fine” to everyone in the world; how, if my stomach was empty, I’d have to pause whatever I was doing and consciously breathe to avoid vomiting, then find a snack even though I had no appetite; how I already felt my body changing even though nobody would’ve noticed I was pregnant, compulsively online shopping for new bras because my pre-pregnancy bras no longer fit; wondering how much longer I had with a pair of pants I bought in Paris, already grieving their potential; and counterbalancing anxious spirals of the chances of miscarriage with affirmations about trusting my body.

My routines that ordinarily ensure I remain connected to myself fell by the wayside — meditating and exercising turned into napping, sitting at my desk turned into pretending to be responsive while lying down, hoping nobody noticed what I perceived to be a decrease in productivity. [For another post, pregnancy seriously disrupts our ability to comply with capitalist “hustle” culture, disparately impacting career-driven women and contributing to the glass ceiling phenomenon.] My morning pages were the only routine that helped me connect with myself, even though I had no idea where this self had gone. I wrote daily about how I felt even though I felt nothing like myself. Somehow, the morning pages became a habit. They cleared the muck sitting atop the lagoon. I told myself I would continue the morning pages even after completing the Artist’s Way and the daily habit continued for a few more weeks. Then it tapered to a few days per week. Then it became entirely inconsistent. Some weeks I journaled a few days; others, no days at all.

I still aspire to complete my morning pages daily, like I aspire to write creatively daily, to write a Substack post weekly, to begin outlining a book idea, and to write the first line of many articles. But the resistance is too strong. I’m standing in the ocean, water up to my thighs, wading toward the shore against the current. Feeling the current pull me farther and farther away from my destination. I don’t have the energy to keep pushing toward the shore — my energy right now taken up by an apparently sideways little alien who jabs me with her fist(?) right above my hip bone.

I can visualize myself sitting at my computer, or in front of a notebook, typing or scribbling away. I can feel the flow state. But it isn’t real. Not recently. Even though I need it, deeply. Writing is the intellectual exercise directed at my soul. Wordsmithing, considering language, watching how the words reveal parts of myself, leaving me more connected with who I am in that moment.

Writing, and allowing my writing to be read, is an act of vulnerability. Stripping the layers of myself away to leave me a bit more raw. I want my energy to feel open, to be less protected. Perhaps ironically, the resistance to writing exists during a time when pregnancy has left me more open and raw. I can more easily listen to my body, more easily say “no” when my energy feels deficient, more easily cry when I experience a wave of sadness, joy, or grief. I would have thought writing would feel easier given this openness, but writing is an energetic exercise in its own right — depleting and fulfilling at the same time.

Given the amount of energy my body is expending, perhaps my resistance to writing stems from how little energy is left. It has been easier to show myself grace in this process because I have the “excuse” of growing a human, not that I should need an excuse even when my body belongs to me and only me. But I know my body is working particularly hard; and I know my energy is depleting at a quicker rate even if the depletion isn’t often present in my conscious mind until it builds almost to a breaking point. Until all I want to do is rest horizontally. Until I count down the minutes left on my drive home from work because it means I can stop focusing so intensely on the road. Until I can only manage sitting upright on the couch for the first 15 minutes of a Bridgerton episode (while my husband lurks at the bottom of the stairs pretending like he isn’t into the show) because dinner is over and it is finally an acceptable time to lay in bed. 7:45pm.

Although it has been easier for me to accept the resistance I feel toward writing because of how obviously drained my body feels, there is a disconnect between how I accept needing rest for my body and needing rest for my mind. A part of me believes I should post on Substack with regular cadence, should begin to outline a book idea, or should sign up for a writing class to determine whether or not I would enjoy writing fiction. But the resistance creeps in. every. single. time.

My newfound acceptance for when my body needs rest stems from acceptance of its superpowers as I create a human. And this feels distant from the self that creates a piece of writing or piece of art. Is the I creating a human the same I who writes this post?

The I connected to creation of life is connected entirely to the lineage of all female bodies, and somewhat disconnected from myself as an individual. I (as an individual) only have so much, so little, control over the process of building a human. I can choose to move, to eat nourishing foods, to sleep more hours, to take vitamins. But that’s it. I can’t control whether her heart beats, or how quickly, whether her lungs can breathe efficiently, whether her nervous system develops fully (according to my app, that part is complete), or whether her cells divide in such a way to ensure she has eggs in her tiny ovaries. Is the I that grows this person tapped into something much much larger than the I that types away writing?

Julia Cameron talks about how creativity is an act of creation. An act of a higher power. When I find myself in the flow state while writing or creating art, the act of creation circulates through my body. I am connected to that subconscious force; the same force that helps my body create a full human; the same force that causes my own heart to beat, blood to flow, and lungs to breathe. Without interference, it runs autonomously. And I must allow it all to happen.

Through this reflection — through this writing — I realize that the I that writes and the I that creates a human stem from the same force. Even though when I write, my mind shifts between a subconscious flow state and a conscious intellectual state. At times, words appear on the page without my conscious mind placing them there. But at other times, I must consciously decide which words to use or the order of sentences. This is why writing is an intellectual exercise for my soul. The toggling between the subconscious and the conscious allow my individual self to connect with the self tapped into that act of creation. Just as my intentional daily choices allow my individual self to connect with the subconscious growing of a human.

And the key to this connection? Allowance. Allow the words to flow when they are ready. Without wading against the current. Allow the rest my body needs. What would happen if I let go? Would the two versions of I more easily collide into one? Would I more easily be able to access the flow state that fills me up creatively? How can I allow?

As I move through the final six(ish) weeks of my pregnancy, I consider whether the resistance to writing will naturally lessen. As my body prepares to birth a human, whether it will also prepare to birth my creative ideas. My friend told me that once she gave birth, she felt her writing unleash. I can’t help but hope this happens to me. In the meantime, I will do my best to allow.

Reflection Questions:

• When do you experience being in a flow state?

• When has your conscious and subconscious mind felt connected?

• Where in your life do you feel a sense of resistance?

• How would it feel to let go?

• Where in your life do you wish to let go and allow?

• How can you allow?

If you connected to this post, I’d be grateful if you shared with a friend or left a comment!

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And some images of a spring, early summer Virginia:

This move in particular felt destined, although it required much thought and reflection before we took action. It fulfills our need to be close to nature and to feel more openness. We moved from Columbia Heights in DC (very much so the middle of the city) to Great Falls, Virginia (very much so not the middle of the city). Great Falls is a suburb about 20ish miles from DC, but to me, it feels more like the country. The homes aren’t so close together, only some streets have sidewalks, and most fences are the wood fences you tend to see surrounding farmland. Our lease in DC was up and we knew we wanted to live somewhere quieter and surrounded by trees. Living in the suburbs is a total experiment — we are renting, so it feels low risk.

I’m loving my walks, underneath the trees and beside the horses who live at the neighboring equestrian center. But I miss being able to walk to a “hip” coffee shop serving coffee from locally roasted beans and pastries arriving fresh each morning from the neighborhood bakery. Although we are less than one mile away from the “village,” the diversity of options is limited and there is little bustle. We are also farther from our friends — a 30 minute drive and fewer places to meet in between. As I noted, this is an experiment. I am gathering information as I know this is not permanent.

The challenge though, for both of us, is that we crave this permanence. We are still in a form a limbo, knowing that we will eventually move again, to another house, perhaps another city. Moving is destabilizing. As humans, housing is one of our basic needs and even when you are fortunate enough to have a roof over your head, changing the roof feels scary. It challenges us to find home wherever we are. For me, so long as certain people (and a dog) are present.

As we settle into our new home, which I love, I notice myself still visiting Zillow, still contemplating what it would look like to live closer to our family (and I don’t mean to spread false hope by saying this), still thinking about the next move. When I know that I need to just be. Be still for a while, in the present. It feels so unnatural for me to not daydream, to not consider future options in an effort to find permanence. Even though I know that permanence is a fallacy. Nothing is, or ever will be, permanent. Change is the constant.

Of course, in typical Universal fashion, the reminder that change is constant comes at a time of seasonal rebirth. Spring. Competing for the #1 spot of best season. Each day, I walk through our backyard and notice how the buds on the trees have grown. Some trees still entirely bare skeletons, while others sprouting tiny green leaves. None ever wondering about the future or contemplating their next move, but rather, just being with the change. Accepting that change will come without force.

So how can I be more like these budding trees? [I’m sure nobody is surprised to hear me ask how I can be more like a tree.] How can I accept that change is constant, while also fulfilling my natural curiosity and planning instincts about the future? I intuitively know that, despite my temptations, I need to focus on being for the rest of this year as we embark on the biggest change of our lives yet. To prepare, we can create constance in our immediate world.

This means taking things day-by-day and refraining from making any major life decisions that have not already been made. I can ground myself in my routines. I can develop my creative practice. I can create daily goals, find comfort in my to-do lists, and nourish myself with structure because that feels nourishing to me. I can do all of these things while noticing how my surrounding environment changes with the season. As the buds on the trees sprout into full leaves, I know I am not immune to this ever-present change. It will come without force.

As our move to Great Falls is an experiment, so can be the rest of my life. I can let myself be in an information gathering period without succumbing to the temptation of decision.

And in the meantime, I can allow the cherry blossoms to bring me to tears.

Reflection Questions:

• How do you accept change as a constant while staying present?

• When do you feel settled? How can you feel settled even when you know something will shift?

• What is budding in your life right now?

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So why joy? At the end of 2023, I finished my first “5 year journal” — a journal with one page for each day of the year, with five spaces on each page. I used this journal to write what I felt grateful for each day. On January 1 of this year, I began a new 5 year journal. I decided to change it up and focus on writing a joyful moment of the day. In 5 years, I will have a journal full of joyful moments.

This practice has led me to ask myself, “how do I define joy?” My women’s group (through At The Well) addressed this question last month as we discussed the theme of Adar, the current Hebrew month. A key theme of Adar is joy — How can we cultivate joy in our lives? How can we find joy in a world full of pain? Even in the most painful times, joy can be within reach. It all depends on how you define it.

My working definition of joy (and this is subject to change over time):

The feeling of being fully present and engaged in a moment of aliveness. It isn’t just about feeling happy — happiness exists independently. Joy is about feeling alive, and in awe of being alive. On this planet. In this body.

And now to my list. In mostly chronological order, below are 34 moments where I felt joy in the past year:

1. Meeting my friend Rachel’s son on my birthday last year;

2. Walking around DC and seeing the Cherry Blossoms;

3. Hiking in Great Falls Park (amazingly, we now live five minutes away);

4. Celebrating my friend Daniel’s birthday at a cidery and watching two very cute toddlers sit at a mini table together;

5. Laughing uncontrollably in the Berkshires with my aunt, uncle, and cousins;

6. Getting to know my friend Jodi’s kids since she now only lives an hour away;

7. All of the walks in Rock Creek Park;

8. Taking my friend Sarah’s son to a swim lesson and holding him while he giggled in the water;

9. Morning walks with Jonathan to Tatte and then Malcolm X/Meridian Hill park;

10. The times I wrote my morning pages and other writings at Doubles;

11. Eating a Russ & Daughters lox bagel sandwich with Jonathan while watching someone play the piano in the park (this is why NYC is amazing);

12. Celebrating my brother’s birthday with the most epic (and most French) picnic atop Montmartre in Paris;

13. Basically every single meal in France;

14. Watching Jonathan and my friend Sarah’s son truly become the best of friends;

15. Walking to Navy Yard from the Warf in DC on July 4th and coming way too close to street fireworks;

16. Hiking to Hierve el Agua in Oaxaca with Jordan and swimming in the pools;

17. The cooking class in Oaxaca;

18. Meeting my friend Katie’s daughter for the first time;

19. Tasting ice cream after tubing at Harpers Ferry in the summer;

20. Visiting our friend Jake and Lindsay’s farm near Charlottesville and cooking with all farmer’s market ingredients;

21. Reading by the pool at Keswick Hall to celebrate our anniversary;

22. Kayaking in the Potomac with Jonathan;

23. Frolicking through a field of wildflowers at the National Arboretum;

24. Portland, ME in the fall;

25. All of the times Tabor needed to wear his yellow rain jacket;

26. Hiking Shenandoah National Park in the fall;

27. Noticing bright red, orange, yellow, and purple leaves in the fall (clearly, fall brings me a lot of joy);

28. Watching that 2nd line appear on a pregnancy test;

29. Walking on the beach with my family in San Diego on Thanksgiving;

30. Eating a chocolate croissant at Patty O’s Cafe;

31. Running with Tabor on a snow covered soccer field this January;

32. Meeting four of my oldest friends in Austin for the weekend and watching all of their babies interact with each other;

33. Watching our baby wiggle around inside of me during my 20 week scan;

34. Laying on a blanket with Tabor in our new backyard.

There are so many more…

Thank you to everyone who made 33 so special. 34 will bring the biggest change of our lives.

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About seven weeks ago, I awaited the results of my “non-invasive prenatal test” (NIPT) (thankfully, the test was normal) — a blood test that many women are given the option to take at around 10 weeks of pregnancy. This test analyzes small fragments of placental DNA that are circulating in the mother’s blood. The test can not only determine the sex of a fetus, but also detect the presence of genetic abnormalities, including trisomy 13 (Patau Syndrome), trisomy 18 (Edwards Syndrome), and trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome). If the test returns positive, further testing and a course of action will be recommended. Of course this test sparks a level of anxiety while awaiting the results, especially given that Patau and Edwards Syndromes are incompatible with life.

While I awaited my results, which I felt beyond grateful were normal, I learned more about Kate Cox’s case against the state of Texas. Following an abnormal NIPT, Kate confirmed during an amniocentesis that her pregnancy had full Trisomy 18, meaning that her pregnancy either would not survive until birth, the baby would be stillborn, or die minutes after birth. But because of Texas’s abortion ban, Kate was being forced to carry the pregnancy to term and then suffer from the emotional and physical trauma of birthing a baby who would not survive, while also risking her future fertility. Kate and her doctor petitioned the court to allow her doctor to provide abortion care, since without this permission, Kate’s doctor would face a fine of at least $100,000, up to 99 years in prison, and revocation of their medical license. Last month, Kate’s case was denied at the Texas Supreme Court. Kate has now left the state. 

Zurawski v. State of Texas is currently pending before the Texas Supreme Court and the outcome of this case will add clarity to the “medical emergency” exception to the Texas abortion ban. The exception that Kate Cox was unable to take advantage of. Amanda Zurawski was denied abortion care after her water broke at 18 weeks, nearly killing her from a sepsis infection. And there are many examples like this. 

Beyond medical reasons to obtain abortion care, a recent study estimated that over 64,500 pregnancies in the 14 abortion ban states1 have been caused by rape. Although some of these women would choose to carry the pregnancy regardless of the law, some women would choose abortion. And now, states eliminate their choice.

While listening to a podcast about Kate’s case, during the week I waited for my own NIPT results, I broke down sobbing in my kitchen.

Leaning on my kitchen counter, I could hardly stand on my two feet. My sobs were guttural, coming from deep inside me. Grieving from the place that has existed within all women since the beginning of human time. The place of collective energy shared by all women.

Especially because at the time, I did not know the results of my test, I was so easily able to step into Kate’s shoes despite living in a part of the country where I can choose whether or not to obtain abortion care. Just like Kate, I deeply desire the baby growing inside me. My husband and I planned for this; trying to get pregnant for some number of months. Being in a position where abnormal NIPT results led me to face the choice of whether to terminate the pregnancy would be absolutely devastating. But what would be worse? If the ability to choose was taken away from me. I cannot fathom it. And yet, so many, too many, women in America are in this position.

America. The country where we value freedom and autonomy. Except if you have a uterus.

Seven weeks later, I write this with tears in my eyes. This grief will never go away. 

I think about every little girl in this country—the little girl I am growing—and grieve for their little bodies. Putting aside all of the other ways women are valued less than men, these little girls don’t yet realize how their bodily autonomy is valued less than a man’s by many states. I think about how to break this news to my daughter at some point in the future. I want her to feel empowered in her body, and empowered to impact change. Undoubtedly there will be periods of feeling hopeless and powerless, but there is opportunity to return to empowerment. 

We have the opportunity to reverse the current state of affairs. This is why when I vote, I must consider the women whose stories are recounted below, other pregnant women in America, women who want to become pregnant, and the millions of little girls who no longer have bodily autonomy. I ask you to do the same. The Supreme Court currently has at least two older Justices who may retire during another Trump presidency (Justice Alito and Justice Thomas), allowing for two young judges to sit on the court for decades and whittle away additional reproductive rights. The stories of the women below—Samantha, Taylor, Kristen, Kaitlyn, Amy, Rebecca, Rachel, Jennifer, and Kayla—are the result of Trump’s Supreme Court nominations. This wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

This post is in honor of the women who are serving as plaintiffs in a variety of ongoing lawsuits. In addition to Kate and Amanda, women including:  

• Samantha Casiano. At 20 weeks pregnant found out her baby would not survive, was forced to carry her pregnancy to term. After suffering through months of people congratulating her on her pregnant belly, her baby died four hours after birth. Samantha did not have the resources to travel out of state to receive an abortion.

• Taylor Edwards. At 17 weeks pregnant, she learned that her baby had a fatal condition. Since she could not receive an abortion in Texas, she attempted to travel to New Mexico, but could not get an appointment. She soon began vomiting daily and suffering both physically and emotionally. Although she was able to travel to a clinic in Colorado and obtain an abortion, she fears becoming pregnant again in Texas even though she and her husband still want a child.

• Kristen Anaya. Her water broke at 16 weeks, causing her to almost die from a sepsis infection because her doctors could not obtain permission to perform an abortion until the last moment.

• Kaitlyn Kash. After discovering at 13 weeks that her baby would not survive, her doctor recommended she seek “a second opinion, but outside Texas.” She obtained abortion care in Kansas (where protestors harassed her), but then after becoming pregnant again and suffering a miscarriage, she struggled to obtain the medication necessary to pass the pregnancy. After another miscarriage without intervention, she gave birth to her daughter. Following her birth, she needed a D&C procedure (same procedure used in some abortions) to remove remaining placental tissue, but the hospital had difficulty locating the equipment and staff needed. Her health deteriorated, she lost consciousness, and was transferred to the ICU. After recovering, she was told she was lucky she didn’t lose her uterus.

• Amy Coronado. On the same day that the Texas ban went into effect, she received her diagnosis that her baby would not survive due to multiple brain abnormalities. She traveled out of state to receive abortion care, but had to pay out of pocket because her insurance did not cover out of state care. 

• Rebecca Milner. At 20 weeks pregnant, she suffered from premature rupture of the membranes and her baby was unlikely to survive. Although she was able to travel from Tennessee to Virginia to obtain abortion care, she needed emergency treatment for a sepsis infection after returning to Tennessee due to the delay in obtaining abortion care.

• Rachel Fulton. While pregnant with her second son, she learned the pregnancy was unlikely to survive, and continuing the pregnancy put her at risk of developing a life-threatening complication. She was forced to seek abortion care outside Tennessee.

• Jennifer Adkins. At 12 weeks, she learned her baby was unlikely to survive due to multiple conditions and that if she did not miscarry, she risked developing a life-threatening condition. Only because she received the financial support of two abortion funds was she able to travel from Idaho to Oregon to receive abortion care.

• Kayla Smith. Pregnant with her second child, she learned at 19 weeks that her baby had a fatal and inoperable heart condition. She also had a heightened risk of developing preeclampsia if she carried the pregnancy to term. Kayla and her husband traveled from Idaho to Seattle to receive abortion care, but the cost of the trip required them to take out a personal loan and obtain financial assistance from friends and family.

• There are many more…

Imagine being one of these women. Or the partner, mother, father, sister, brother, or friend of one of these women. Imagine not having the resources to travel to a different state. For someone you love to be forced to face potentially life-threatening severe physical and emotional suffering because of the state. This issue matters to all of us. 

Reflection Questions:

• How do you return to empowerment after feeling powerless?

• How would you talk to your daughter (or son!) about these issues?

• How and when have you tapped into collective grief?

If you would like to contribute to the funding of these (and future) court cases, donate to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

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I cannot remember the last time in my life where I felt this hopeless and heartbroken. Although I believe in Israel’s right to exist, I recognize many people in the world don’t. This is evident based on the various demonstrations in a number of cities, and people have a right to speak out for what they believe in – both sides do. They might not understand the context, or they themselves might come from an oppressed group and question why “we” not “them” have a right to a state. They also may liberally attach themselves to a cause to feel a sense of belonging. And, of course, this could be said for either side.

Notice how I use “them.” They. They and Them. Us and We. The Other.

The attacks of October 7 felt more intense for me not only because I believe Hamas’s actions were the epitome of terror, but also because I can more easily relate to those directly impacted. Israelis are only one degree of separation from me. I am Jewish, so I naturally have Israelis close in my life. While sitting with the feelings of hopelessness and heartbreak, I also underwent somewhat of an existential crisis.

Does the fact that I am more easily able to relate to the individuals directly impacted by this conflict mean I value lives differently?

People are murdered every single day all over the world. War exists in many places other than the Middle East. But I admittedly do not feel those deaths as deeply as I felt the deaths that occurred recently in Israel. I am not left emotionally raw, crying several times per day, unable to focus at work, and questioning why anyone would bring a child into this world. This is because Israelis are me – just one degree of separation. 

Our emotional reliance on the separation between ourselves and the person directly impacted highlights our separateness as humans. Why is this?

Emotions, including fear and sadness, are individual. They are based on our egos in the sense that our egos are the exemplification of ourselves as individuals. This does not mean that our emotions are not grounded in reality. In fact, the opposite. How we conceive of “reality” is also based on ourselves as individuals. My reality is different than my neighbor’s reality. My experience as a Jewish person is different than a Palestinian person’s experience. So it is natural for the ego-based feelings to be grounded in to whom we can most easily relate.

But this is not a helpful dynamic when we seek peace. Aggression exists from both sides of this conflict. Both from Hamas and from the Israeli government. And also from the supporters of each who justify the deaths of thousands of innocent people. As an observer, it is easier to point a finger to explain why a child was murdered – whether that child is Israeli or Palestinian – than to simply sit with that horror. To sit with it feels too overwhelming. It might hurt your ability to move throughout your day, since we are still expected to be functioning members of our society, work productively, grocery shop, clean our home, walk our dog, organize our finances, and care for our family. 

I feel compassion for the desire to fight, to blame, to be the activist. But I ask us to also focus on our connectedness. None of these deaths are justified when we tap into our togetherness. Underneath our egos we have collective consciousness – our togetherness. We are all feeling the heaviness, whether or not we agree on who to blame. We all feel it. The sadness, hopelessness, anger, fear, and heartbreak has permeated through all of us.

This, in and of itself, highlights our connectedness. We cannot escape it no matter where we point our finger.

We are first connected, and then we separate. Perhaps one of the purposes of our individuality is for us to learn how to reconnect as part of the collective. We find spirituality and divinity in moments of togetherness, whether we feel part of the whole in nature, in a synagogue, in a mosque, or in a church. Whether it manifests through connecting with a tree, noticing seasons change, or through our collective experience as humans. 

If we can stay connected just a little bit longer, we have fostered a more connected world. More empathy and compassion, regardless of sides. We must believe this energy will overtake the hate. We have to muster courage to find love by tapping into our collective experience. Even for just a few minutes. 

I end with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.:

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Notice which of your actions might be without love, where can you feel more compassion and more empathy for the other side. Justice, to me, is not retribution. It is replacing hate with love, and the courage that requires. Power will manifest out of that and peace will begin to trickle in. In the meantime, I will continue to have faith in this process and remind myself that we are never not all of us.

Reflection questions:

• How can you tap into the collective?

• How can you practice self-care while feeling heartbroken?

• What is one action you can take today to add kindness in the world?

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