Search results for: pregnancy after loss
for all the mothers
You are the hoping-to-be mother. You are dreaming of a baby, maybe for years. Every month you wait and hope. You daydream about nurseries and names. You envy other women’s round bellies and glowing smiles. You chart days on the calendar and read up on ways to increase your odds. You promise yourself you will never take…
Read Morethe yes that breaks your heart
Today is March 25th. It is nine months from Christmas: the Feast of the Annunciation. The day that celebrates the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she will bear the Son of God. Today is also Good Friday. It is the day that remembers Jesus’ suffering and death. This year they fall on the same day. This year I…
Read Morea eulogy for maggie and abby
People often lament that while there is a word for those who have lost parents (orphan) and those who have lost a spouse (widow/widower), there is no word in English for those who have lost a child. People often say this is because the death of a child violates the natural order. That parents should not have…
Read Moreon being and breaking
Two big announcements today. (No, I am not pregnant!) But another kind of gestation. A pair of twins. For my work with the Collegeville Institute Seminars, I’m at work on a book of prayers, blessings, poems, and hymns on vocation – a collection for congregations to celebrate the callings of all their members. I’m so excited…
Read Morespiritual practices with newborns: healing
Mommy, I just want to hug you around your scars! His sky blue eyes flash. His brows furrow. The cheerful animals plastered across his summer pajamas – a grinning monkey and laughing elephant atop a fire engine – smile up at me in stark contrast to the glare on his face. For weeks he’s been…
Read Morewhen did we decide that we were bad at art?
Here are watercolors, she said. Paint. Here are pastels, she said. Draw. Here is clay, she said. Create. A gathering of mothers. A time and space set apart. A whole afternoon to ourselves, to pause and pray and ponder what it means to approach pregnancy and childbirth as something spiritual. At Peg’s retreat, I thought about birth…
Read Morefrom mama to mommy
He picked it up over Thanksgiving, the inevitable result of spending the week with two older cousins he adores. All their echoes of “Mommy” must have kept ringing in his head long after the plane touched back down in snowy Minnesota, because ever since then I’ve been “Mommy,” too. And it takes some getting used…
Read Morefor all our children. tonight and always
This post was supposed to be about children. All weekend I had these wonderful thoughts running through my head. About how much I adore the age of four: how he appears in our doorway in the dark dawn hour, hair tousled from sleep, beloved seahorse cradled in his arm, ready to climb in bed with…
Read MoreThis is my body. Given up for you.
The bodiliness of parenting young children. The meaning of the words from the Eucharistic prayer—“This is my body, given up for you”—have taken on a profoundly different meaning after the experiences of bearing, birthing, and nursing a child. I remember being overwhelmed with emotion (and postpartum hormones, no doubt) at the first few Masses I went…
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