“I believe women and men who are blessed with mental illness are going to be advocates who are going the change the world.” Sheli Massie has battled an eating disorder, postpartum psychosis and PTSD. But what defines her are not her mental illnesses, but her journey of mental healing. “Healing is not set in a […]
The Hope for Which We Now Labor
by on December 12, 2018 1 Comment
It’s true what mothers say about forgetting the pain of childbirth. My births are now seven and nine-and-a-half years ago and I have to strain to remember the details. Giving birth is a moment we spend countless hours preparing for. It is the culmination of reading and birthing classes, showers, reordering our lives and homes, […]
How Many Times Can a Woman Split Open?
by on October 25, 2018 7 Comments
Did she catch a glimpse of what was coming as she split open and pushed him with the strength of horses into this world? In that moment, when life and death and blood and air weave themselves together so inextricably, did she have any sense, then, that he was being pulled into the dark? Or […]
Motherhood Un-Wisdom
by on June 7, 2018 12 Comments
My stomach precedes me as I navigate between cramped tables and chairs. I wave to aunts I haven’t seen since the last family wedding and cousins who look impossibly grown up. It couldn’t have been that long ago we were skating in woolen slippers around Oma’s kitchen floor, devouring pans of her impossibly good Rice […]
The Sacrament of Childbirth
by on March 1, 2018 11 Comments
I was shocked by how similar childbirth was to watching my father-in-law die. There is the pacing, the patience, the impatience, the watching for signs of death—or life. The living room transforms into a tunnel where the outside world is fuzzy and out of focus and inside, all senses are heightened. As the time for […]
