Cocoon

Tysha was basically born wanting to have a family of her own, with as many children as she could handle. But she got a late start, and it seemed as though she might never reach the destination she'd had in her heart when she started.

For 17 years Jamie had hoped to have a baby but only experienced loss after loss after loss. Meanwhile, her cousin Bonnie was watching and waiting—knowing and hoping that she could offer a solution that would bring healing to both of them.

After a bit of difficulty trying to get pregnant with their third baby together, Kristin and David decided to pursue IVF. It was an experience that would stretch them and help Kristin find her own boundaries around her body.

David and Kristin got married in 2008 and after taking some time to adjust and blend their lives with their 3 children, they decided it was time to try to have a baby together. Before too long, they were parents of two daughters. And then . . . things started to drift.

When David was 30, he was a kindergarten teacher in a rough part of LA. He decided that, despite being a single man, there must be something he could do to relieve the suffering of a child in foster care and chose to pursue adoption for a child in need. It was the first step in creating a home that is a refuge for many different people with many different needs.

Amanda was at a crossroads in her life—a tricky transitional place between bearing children and moving beyond that—when a friend asked for some help finding someone who might be willing to be a surrogate for her. Amanda took some time to think about it and found that she could be that person. Over the course of the next year, Amanda took on a physical and emotional challenge that would not only result in a beautiful baby girl, but in strengthened friendships, greater peace as she closed her childbearing chapter, and (no surprise) the best sleep of her life.

Rebecca decided to pursue a career in medicine about the same time that she had her first baby. And it has always been an open question whether she could have both the family she dreamed of and the career she felt called to. Recently that question has been pressing on her with a little more urgency and she reached out to Lizzie, who happens to be a friend of hers, to talk about it. Lizzie thinks about these kinds of things a lot. The two of them talked about some of the hopes and hesitations that fuel our decisions regarding our families, about the difficulties of being a mother in the workplace, and about how things have changed for working mothers—at least since we've been paying attention. Questions that remain unanswered: can you have it all? Professional fulfillment and a house full of babies? Should you even try? Can you live with yourself if you don't? We don't really know the answers to anything, but sometimes it can help to talk it out with a friend.

Four and a half years ago, Jill stood on the sidewalk and watched as another family drove away with the little boy she had given birth to days before. While pregnant, she had been unemployed, depressed, and certain she could not care for a child the way he deserved to be cared for. But the experience did not quiet the yearning she had always felt to be a mom. If anything, it strengthened it. At first Jill set aside the feelings, but time passed and while her circumstances changed, her feelings didn't. She soon had a job, a relationship, and a medication that stabilized her mental health—and she wanted to try again to be a mom. And now, just a few years from that curbside goodbye, Jill's life has taken so many turns that you might think you had wandered into someone else's story. Click here for the first part of Jill's story: I Could Bring Him to His Family.

Robin’s first pregnancy was one of the happiest times of her life—and something she had been looking forward to since childhood. But when she was 41 weeks and 6 days pregnant, she found out that a lot of things can happen when babies are born. In the aftermath of Robin’s pregnancy, she had a lot of work to do. Healing for herself, sensitivity to her husband and his trauma—and looking ahead to her future family. And that meant preparing to face another pregnancy, another childbirth where anything could happen. When we meet someone like Robin, or hear of them, we often say, “I could never handle that. I could never survive something like she did.” But we all experience fear, anxiety, disappointment and when we hear these stories of people who have faced a huge loss, we generally come away with hope, and with love. Not only do we feel compassion for someone else’s struggle, but we can find strength and a starting point and someone to emulate in facing our own struggles.   Now I La

Valerie and I often talk about how, no matter when we talk to someone, we are always in the middle of their story. We continue to change and evolve and process and grow. Our priorities change, our circumstances change, our lives change. We adjust, we readjust, we find balance—and then we fall again. And begin again. More than 4 years ago I wrote about what it was like trying to rebuild my life after a devastating miscarriage knocked me off my feet. I’ve revisited that essay and updated it to give an update on what feelslike a continual rebuilding and readjusting to a new life. It was inspired by Omid Safi’s poem “Other Worlds Await You.” We’d love to hear about where you are in your story—where you came from, where you are going, what you’ve become on the way. Reach out on our website or social media. Hope to hear from you soon!

Andrea Weaver’s family We all know that in family planning there is no “one size fits all,” there is no, “take this quiz and find out how many kids you should have!” There is not necessarily a magic number or a magic feeling. We knew that for many women the decision is just as much of an emotional decision as it is a rational one, that often spirituality and religion enter the picture, and that to even be having this conversation is a serious privilege—and at times a very weighty privilege. Stephanie Robertson’s crew So we talked to three women—one who is done have kids, one who undecided, and one who is open to having all the babies—about their experiences in childbearing. We talk about finances, spirituality, the culture of large families (and the culture as a whole), and all the things (silly and serious) that may weigh on our minds when thinking about babies. Alanna Smith and her family. We share these conversations with the hope that others (maybe even you!) can hear and discern what aspects

Eighteen years ago, when Kelli was 24 weeks pregnant, she left work wondering if she had pushed herself too hard. She was feeling sick—something was wrong. By the end of the evening she would be rushed to the hospital and her baby would be delivered. At 24 weeks and 1 day, he was a micro-premie just barely on the living side of viability. For the next 4 months, Kelli’s life revolved around the isolated and tenuous world of the NICU, where parents whose hopes and dreams had been brought up short watched and waited to see how their tiny babies would fare. It was a lonely, scary time for Kelli. So much uncertainty, so few opportunities for connection. After Kelli and her baby emerged from the NICU, Kelli continued to grapple with the effects of that stressful time. As the years passed she built a program to help other parents of premies get the help and the support—mental, physical, emotional, social—that they need to get through the harrowing experience of preterm birth. From the depth of her experience,

When Kristy went into labor at 33 weeks gestation and had her baby via emergency c-section, it seemed like a series of small miracles took place. She and the baby would have the healthiest outcome in a scary, unpredictable situation. End of story. But week after week, as Kristy and her family learned more about what had possibly caused her pre-term labor, it became clear how truly dire the situation was. Over the course of the next year and a half, Kristy endured a physically and emotionally painful roller coaster ride that left her with scars and bruises—but also with some of the most beautiful perspectives and relationships that life has to offer. Click here for Kristy’s GoFundMe account. 

It wasn’t too long after her mother died that Meg began to feel . . . tired. Maybe a little under the weather. Possibly depressed. But it was winter—cold and gray. She was grieving. And her life was hectic with house renovations. And then a more familiar nausea set in . . . . For months Meg struggled to process this unexpected development in her life. But eventually, through moments big and small, the light started to shine through the fog she had been stuck in. The “shining light” was Helen.

The relationship we have with our moms can be fraught and complicated. We must differentiate ourselves from our moms, but no matter what we do or who we become, they are always guides or shadows on our paths. We can never fully disentangle ourselves from their influence—and in the best case scenario, we probably would not want to. Meg is her mother’s only daughter, her only child. She says she feels privileged to hold that position. But she also wondered if she did her duty as her only child, especially after Meg’s mom was diagnosed with cancer just a few months after Meg and her young family moved to a different state. Meg and her mom have a strong and deep relationship that they maintained and even strengthened throughout the years that Meg’s mom was battling cancer and Meg was growing her family. And while there were many places along their path where their relationship could have diverged, they managed to stay close to each other—separate, but together.

Jill is, and was, a productive, contributing member of society. She has a master’s degree, she’s worked for several companies, and as a teacher she’s seen her students flourish. In 2012, she had friends, a community, a great apartment, and a pretty solid social circle of support—and she also had a mental illness. Jill suffers from fairly serious depression at times, but had always managed it well enough. That year, however, the bottom fell out. In a few short months, she lost just about everything she’d worked so hard for and just as she was getting back on her feet she found herself pregnant—but in no position to be a mother. Jill tells us how she went from lonely, depressed, and somewhat bitter, to having experienced the greatest love she’d ever felt in her life—and how she brought a little boy to a family that couldn’t get him on their own.   *In the episode we said that the legal agreement between Jill and the adoptive family is for her to see him twice a year. The agreement actu

It’s often the long view of life that is the clearest. We know where we want to go, where we want to end up, but it’s the getting there that is difficult. If we are serious about what we want, we do whatever we can to stay on track. When Grace Poulsen was 28, she had just finished breastfeeding her 2nd daughter. Her husband, Dave, was working through his residency as an ophthalmologist. And their life in the Bronx, New York, was busy and mentally and physically taxing. And then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The next year of their life became a mess of doctor appointments and cancer treatments—as well as a last minute attempt to preserve the Poulsen’s hope of having any more children. We talked with Grace and Dave about the cancer—which derailed their already very busy and stressful lives—about Grace’s art, her changed body, and about how they plan to get back on the path to where they always hoped to be.   You can see more of Grace’s art at gracepoulsen.com, and read ab

When you are pregnant and on your way to becoming a mother there can be so many worries and wonders you have about what is going to happen to you—what is happening to you—and your family. Some of those worries are physical, but they can be mental, emotional, and spiritual as well. And who can you turn to to help you explore all those things you are facing as you enter this new chapter in your life?  It often seems like in our society, we are all anticipation of the baby and its health that we forget the impact the experience is having on the mother, the father, and even siblings and grandparents. In my experience, midwives can step into the breech. We talked to Barri Malek and Kristen Leonard, the home birth midwives who helped Lizzie through her pregnancies with her 3rd and 4th babies about why maternity care matters for everyone—in hospitals, at home, for mothers and fathers, and for our society as a whole.

In this week’s mini episode JoAnna reads her essay about her baby Levi, who, after being diagnosed with trisomy-13 at 18 weeks, beat the odds and was born alive at 35 weeks gestation. Levi may have lead a tiny and quiet life, but his existence was like a firework that bursts onto the scene leaving wonder and beauty in its wake. You can read the full text of the episode here.  

Bente kept a journal when she was growing up in which she wrote that she would have 12 kids: 2 boys, then 2 girls, then 2 boys, and on and on. A couple of decades later we meet up with her and find that things went surprisingly well for her. Not only did she surpass her childhood expectations as far as number of children, she nailed her calling in life. Motherhood is where she feels most real, most fulfilled, and most whole. We talk with Bente about how she came to this decision, what the hardest parts have been, and what she expects from her children.