• In Darkness

    In darkness, I am seen. The most profound moments of my life happen in bed (If I could end the sentence there, it would just be too funny) … while I can’t sleep and am left alone with my thoughts. Since high school, I have struggled with insomnia and what I believe to be depression, and night time has always served as a space for wrestling with life. There were two moments in the first year of college that I…

  • Not About Me

    Eight years ago, I was lying on a bed with my head the largest square pillow I had ever seen. The windows of the bedroom were open slightly – a compromise of mosquitoes and stagnant heat of the non-air conditioned communist block housing in the middle of the summer. I was alone in the room, and my host Romanian family was just outside the door, but my thoughts were alone, my emotions were alone, the only interruptions were the sounds…

  • Still Fighting It

    It’s been two months since my discovery of miscarriage at the 12th week of pregnancy. Despite the initial sadness and the recurring fits of envy, I feel like I have been moving on with my life fairly well. Or I thought I had. This month, I was about 80% sure I was pregnant again. I was having headaches and nausea and even felt a little rounder. It’s amazing the power the mind has over the body, because my favorite aunt…

  • Changing Seasons

    Scooby and I have really enjoyed our local public pool this summer. It took him a week or so to warm up to playing, but this afternoon he was taking a running (think toddling) jump into my arms in the adult pool. He’s really kicking his legs, blowing bubbles and is just a little too brave for my liking. I think if the summer were a couple months longer, I’d have that kid doggy paddling laps, maybe even doing the…

  • Identity Crisis of Faith

    In the past 28 months, I’ve been pregnant for just under 50% of the time, with one healthy boy to show for it. Of the time I was not pregnant, I was sleep deprived for about 25-30% of the time. Part of that time was coupled with feeling nearly driven over the edge by insomnia. So to ask me, “are things getting back to normal?”, I’d have to ask you, “normal as in sleep deprived adjusting to being a new…

  • The Little Things (Another miscarriage post)

    When you think you have moved on from the loss of an unborn child, you can let your guard down and be blindsided by the little things. The jealousy that creeps up has been hardest for me to deal with – you know the kind – a friend finding out the gender of her baby, overhearing a stranger’s pregnancy announcement at the table next to you in a restaurant, seeing a family with four kids all close in age (even…