by Vivian Diller, Ph.D
According to the CDC, most babies in the United States are conceived during December and January. Is it because couples hunker down for the long winter season?
Or is it the holiday celebrations and spiked eggnog that lead to mistletoe munchkins nine months later?
Whatever the reason, the statistics remain pretty consistent. More couples begin families — and add to them — during this festive time of year. […]
by Valerie Gillies
“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.” C.S. Lewis
Last week, on a day when I paid my bills, went to the dentist, and did exactly 4 loads of laundry, I got a phone call that let me know a close relative had advanced ovarian cancer. I slept fitfully that night, woke to a beautiful day, made some strawberry rhubarb jam, met with clients, did paperwork, ran errands, and somewhere in the flurry of the day and evening a text came through on my phone. One of my daughter’s classmates, an endearing 9 year old with a huge smile–aneurism, stroke, coma. This morning, she was gone. […]
by Andrea Lynn
I had my first IVF and first daughter in the United States; my second IVF and second daughter in Canada, two years later. There is little cultural divide, fertility-wise, between the two countries. My American reproductive endocrinologist, like my Canadian, was a strange amalgam of cautious aggression and hopeful pessimism, and both men seemed to want to simultaneously scare and reassure me as they prodded and poked my aging eggs. The clinic in Canada had massage chairs and a huge fish tank; the American better magazines and logo. Needless to say, stirrups are stirrups, no matter which side of the border I was on. Obstetrically, my file was stamped “AMA” – Advanced Maternal Age – in both countries, winning me extra ultrasounds and blood tests each time. Neither obstetrician cared whether I dyed my greying hair during the first trimester (I didn’t anyway, a triumph for the alarmist-pregnancy industry). […]
by Rabbi Stephen Fuchs
The fifth of the seven traditional blessings recited at a Jewish wedding proclaims: “May the (Akarah) barren woman rejoice with happiness in the company of her children.” The blessing is an acknowledgement and an affirmation of the recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible of the woman beyond normal child bearing age who has children. While the term Akarah means “barren woman,” it is used exclusively – and in no fewer than seven cases – in the Hebrew Bible to refer to a woman who has children well beyond the normal child bearing age. […]
by Cyma Shapiro
Aaaaahhhhh. Here I am again. Blogging on my own website……………..
Welcome to my new blog. For those of you already following me on
www.Motherhood LaterThanSooner.com, I’m now here, as well. I thought it fitting to address head-on a topic near and dear to many midlife mothers: menopause. I look forward to writing for and meeting up with you………………. […]