Is that, like, an officially sanctioned thing?

Thank you. The first feeling I felt was relief. Then, nothing. And then panic that I felt nothing. I loved her, I cared for her and was protective. But I got no rush. In fact, I don’t think I got those feelings until she was about 2 months old. I also can describe it as, they could have handed me any infant. The fact…

A friend of mine was dying of cancer. Slowly. She used to be an accountant and decided that what she’d do with her time waiting for chemo treatments was go over her itemized hospital/medical bills to catch any mistakes.

It has to be a real blow to lose a child before birth and then get saddled with an expensive hospital bill :( Happened to my friend in February, but fortunately some kind soul organized a GoFundMe for her and her hospital/funeral bills were covered.

That breaks my heart.

Pro-tip for the uninsured/underinsured mamas-to-be: After you open that first envelope with a bill for eleventy kabillion dollars, like I did after my pre-eclampsia stay, my c-section, and our NICU stay, call the hospital’s billing office and request an itemized bill. Then, contest everything on that itemized bill…

And even if you do feel that gooey love, expect to have a moment of utter panic. I didn’t have postpartum depression, but I do remember thinking to myself on the second night home “have I made a horrible mistake?”. It passed, all was fine, and I never felt that again. But I’ll never forget how completely panicked and…

The idea that we could control the process beyond the most basic level seems adorably quaint and naive in retrospect.

That said what this article also doesn’t mention is that most births are just your standard text book cases where nothing overly dramatic happens.

baby came so quickly my water broke as I was pushing. I was already at the hospital for monitoring and hadn’t had any labor pains or anything like that. The doctors were like, we want to keep you over night but you’ll be home in the morning so just rest up because you still have a few weeks to go. Cool. I got up the…

Here’s a little secret not all parents share because it feels wrong: You might not feel anything for your new baby when you meet him or her at first.

This.

I wouldn’t call her dull. She was thin because she was incredibly malnourished during WWII, and suffered a lot of health problems due to it. She did many tremendous things to assist the Dutch Resistence against the Nazis. She put herself in danger to distribute anti-Nazi pamphlets and she delivered messages for the…

As an actress, I don’t really have an opinion of her. I honestly haven’t seen much of her work. She was an amazing philanthropist, though. During WW2 she worked as courier for the Dutch resistance and danced for secret fundraising events. After she retired from acting she was the Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and…

No, she was a bad-ass, incredibly enlightened humanitarian. Audrey forever.

The law may only have been used 40 times in Texas over 7 years, but given that in the 10 months before it was passed, 13 babies were found dead in Houston trash bins I’d say it may have been worth it.

Drop off five on time and get $5.00 off any Pepsi products at participating Pizza Huts!

I mean, it’s the least we can do if we’re going to outlaw abortions and provide little to no support for pregnant women and mothers of small children. Seriously. This is actually the LEAST we can do. But it’s a mile better than babies being left in dumpsters.

The "every mother feels this" "no mother would do that" shit always gets me so enraged. It's like, no, really, trust me, I know at least one who will defy your 1-d expectations. I am so sorry you had to deal with the disbelief as a child. That is so stressful! I never dealt with that with my own because I never tried…

Shit, I’m sorry. I know that “company face” all too well. I hope the many, many cats make up for a bit of it, I know mine do.