by Cyma Shapiro
I just celebrated my 15th anniversary. This milestone year is supposed to be immortalized with crystal. For several weeks, I endeavored to buy my husband something made out of the real thing. However, not finding anything that resonated with me, I settled on a very tiny interesting translucent crystal (the stone), and vowed to emphasize the reflection this occasion and gift might provide me. […]
I’m a big believer in spreading the wealth and joy. I’m also a big believer in community and collaboration. So, it is in this spirit that I decided to print the above-named list, recently compiled by www.NursingSchools.net. Sure, it pays to be #1 (NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers/www.midlifemothers.org) and #15 (www.MotheringintheMiddle.com)– both my creations and my newest“babies.” It also pays to share the guts and glory of midlife motherhood together. I hope I can offer the writings of some of these bloggers in the near future. For now, they are a compendium for you to sample. Enjoy! […]
by Cyma Shapiro
I’ve been blessed with great genes and a presence which often appears years younger than I really am.
I’ve also been blessed with a daughter (like so many others) whose mouth regurgitates and replays recently heard tidbits. Anywhere. Everywhere. Anytime. All-the-time.
With this in mind, I’ve chosen not to tell her my chronological age. Not yet. […]
by Linda K. Wertheimer
“Click, clack,” I read, then paused. “Moo,” Simon shouted as he cuddled in my lap in a chair at Starbucks.
A man walked up and smiled. “Your grandson is so adorable,” he said.
I resisted the urge to glower. This man after all was paying Simon a compliment. I smiled back, then corrected the error as my 3-year-old son sucked his thumb and held onto my ear. “He’s not my grandson. I’m his mother.” […]
by Valerie Gillies
“The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.” Jacqueline Schiff
Despite consuming mountains of flax and exercising daily, power surges and hormonal swings punctuate my days and nights, leaving me less kind and understanding than I’d like. Christiane Northrup, in her book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, inspires by reframing this stage of life as an opportunity, and my nasty and selfish feelings as a means of coming to terms with my inner voice and needs. Such lovely ideals—and I want them! […]
by Peg O'Neill
My mother is a retired nurse. Thus, when my siblings and I were growing up, the usual aches and pains of childhood got very little attention unless they were really serious, and episodes of playground trauma were met with abbreviated sympathy, the occasional band-aid, and instructions to go back and play. Because of my mother’s medical knowledge, we were unable to milk certain situations. Although we sometimes got to stay home from school for true illness, it was hard to fake being sick with my mom. Other than those episodes of ear infections and the occasional strep throat, we rarely went to the doctor except for check-ups and significant head trauma requiring stitches. […]
by Joely Johnson Mork
This year I will celebrate my first Mother’s Day as a mom. My son is 8 months old, which means he has been out here, breathing on his own in this big, scary world almost as long as he was growing snug, warm, and safe inside of my 43-year-old body. […]
by Andrea Lynn
On my very first Mother’s Day, I was three and a half weeks pregnant. Anyone who knows fertility (and infertility) and the bizarre world of pregnancy dating knows that a woman who is three and a half weeks pregnant doesn’t even KNOW she is pregnant yet. But I knew. It was about a week after my IVF, and I was gardening in the backyard. I dug holes to plant a new rose of Sharon and five lilies, and I became so overcome with that little exertion that I laid down on the grass, on my back, and looked up through the green of my maple tree to the blue sky above, and felt nearly faint with exhaustion. And that Sunday afternoon, Mother’s Day, I wondered if I was suddenly very tired for a very good reason. And I felt happy. By Monday I was debating baby names, though it wasn’t until Wednesday that I peed on a stick and got the two pink lines that I’d begun to think might never, never appear. […]
by Julie Donner Andersen
I don’t care who invented it. Perhaps some greedy florist or greeting card company, but it’s the only day of the year in which moms are feted, honored, gifted, and showered with appreciation for their roles as birth-givers, boo-boo kissers, vomit cleaner-uppers, laundry pile attackers, and vacuum cleaner rodeo clowns. […]
By Alice Domar, PhD
In honor of National Infertility Week April 24 – 30, 2011
Myth: If you just relax, you will get pregnant.
Truth: If only it were that easy! The fact is, the vast majority of individuals who have infertility have a medical reason, not a stress-related one. Upwards of 90% of all infertility cases are caused by physical problems. In the female partner, the major causes of infertility are absent or irregular ovulation, blocked fallopian tubes, abnormalities in the uterus, and endometriosis (a chronic painful condition where tissue from the lining of the uterus migrates into the pelvis and attaches to the reproductive organs). The male partner can have issues with sperm production which can lead to too few sperm, sperm which can’t swim correctly, and abnormally shaped sperm. […]