Tag Archives: birth

An invader in the womb, and other extraordinary journeys into motherhood

For many, the path to motherhood is unusual, often marked by difficulty and fueled by hope. As someone who experienced a traumatic birth with my second child, I understand how these experiences shape how we parent and who we are as moms.

In celebration of Mother’s Day, I asked my Facebook community to share the extraordinary ways they came into motherhood. These women embody the beauty, grace, love and faith that is being a mom.

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An invader in the womb

Like many couples, Mikenzie, who runs the Facebook page, Me and all my boys, and her husband struggled with infertility. When an IVF cycle helped her become pregnant with twins, the couple was excited their dreams of having a family were realized.

The dream turned into a nightmare, when, during her four-month checkup, a mass was found on one of the sonograms.

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FORGIVING MYSELF FOR MY SON’S BIRTH

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“Wow, you are so lucky!”

That’s usually the response I get when I talk about how fast my second child took to come out of my body. Thirty minutes. It took thirty minutes. Second labors are generally faster, but there’s fast and then there’s, “Wait, did that just happen?” fast. My oldest son’s three-hour-entry now seems so slow in comparison.

So, other moms think I am lucky because I never labored in the way most women do. I didn’t have the marathon of contractions and hours waiting for my baby to be born. The pain and discomfort of childbirth I felt, while very real, was short-lived. I admit, it is hard to talk about the way I give birth because I know it’s so much faster than everyone else. Continue reading

What’s in a number?

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Judaism is a religion of numbers. Every aspect of life is marked by an important numerical value. We wait eight days to celebrate the birth of a baby boy. We find our moral code in the ten commandments. We read from the five books of the Torah. At Passover, we even sing a song, “Echad Mi Yodaya (Who Knows One?),” detailing many of the important numbers of Judaism. From one to 101, every number has a deep, spiritual meaning.

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