Tiny Prints of a Social Media Baby
Q is our New Orleans Baby.  Goose is our Hurricane Baby.  Olive is our Blog Baby. I suppose you could say that I got knocked up by my love affair with social media.  Maguire and I had finally decided that we were done having children.  Two was plenty.  We were done.  Then I went to the BlissDom October 2008 conference in Nashville and slept in a room with Alli Worthington’s baby boy. 

Last Call at the Epidural Bar
During labor, there is a small window of time in which a woman can receive an epidural to alleviate her pain.  Once you have progressed beyond that window, however, an epidural is no longer an option.  Regardless of how much pain you are in or how sure you are that you won't be able to push that baby out without some kind of supernatural medical help, the last call at the Epidural Bar occurs somewhere around 6 cm or so... I contend that the window should reopen sho

These Small Hours
Little Wonders - Rob Thomas

A Lamaze Birth Plan for the Rest of Us
My hands smell like Dreft.  I am surrounded, on my bed, by a foreign sea of pink.  My belly periodically morphs into the shape of an almond, pointy end suggestively aiming toward the door…  Every ten minutes. All signs suggest that I am in latent labor, though these contractions may be uneventful Braxton Hicks.  No reason to split hairs, as I have an OB appointment this m

Icons and Inventory: I Can't Be Their Dooce to My Postpartum Depression
Did you notice that?  A flash.  A glimpse?  An unexpected swell. Olive is due within weeks, if not days.  All of my emotions have settled directly into my chest and occasionally push the breath right out of me.  When I least expect it, they flood upward, into my face.  They cloud my vision and fill my ears with a buzzing that drowns out everything else.  They aren’t always the offspring of hope and desire. Those moments make me afraid that I will present with postpartum depression after Olive is born.  That I will land myself the big fat PPD diagnosis.  Again. I have never writt