Raising the Goddess of Spring

"About 50 percent of all first trimester miscarriages are because of chromosomal abnormalities."   The above link will take you to an article that talks about this little-discussed topic.  Women experience miscarriages.  Some of us, like myself - have a lot of them.  This is a picture of my husband and me on a trip to Hawaii around 1993 during the time we were trying to have a child. Don't we look young and healthy? Full of promise? No glaring health issues or anything physically wrong that would prevent me from having a healthy baby, right? I remember this trip because I had thought that it would be the last trip we had as a couple before we started our family. We had been together for about 8 years. It was time, and it was going to be perfect and easy. Right? Shame comes from misconceptions about why miscarriages happen. The belief that we may have done something to cause it...society's expectations of women...so many emotions go through our minds when we experienc...

It has been just over a year since the pandemic began. COVID has stolen a lot – from all of us. For my family, it has stolen time. Time away from Maia. When the first lockdown began, we were not able to visit Maia in her home nor bring her home to visit. For six months. All we were allowed were visits at the end of the driveway, wearing a mask, without so much as a touch of her to let her know we loved her and wanted to hug her so badly. She couldn’t possibly understand. Maia has recently turned 26 years old. We were with her this year, unlike last year when her epic 25 th birthday party was cancelled. Maia at home, Spring 2021 It still haunts me, that period of time. What could have possibly gone through her mind? Would she live through this? If not, would we ever get to hug her again? The guilt. The guilt was compounded by the fact that we had chosen to have Maia live in a group home for other adults like her, because we struggled to raise her any longer at home, for a lot of reas...