kieferpix/Getty Trigger Warning: Severe Depression/Postpartum Depression I did not like my children when this photo was taken. Tiffany Jenkins/Facebook I actually resented them for existing. Kaiden was 17 months old and Chloe 1 month, and I didn’t want to be their mother. I didn’t want to change their diapers, feed them, and most of the…
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Scary Mommy and AleksandarNakic/Getty “I had an easy newborn.” I’ve heard women say this many times. Mystified, I’m almost six years into motherhood and I’m not really sure what it means to have an easy day. When my second son was about a month old, I went to a coffee shop to sit and cry.…
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Sutthiwat Srikhrueadam/Getty One of the moms is crying again. I keep my daughter cradled against my breast with one arm, and—while trying not to flash everyone too much in the process—hand the baby nearest us the rattle he is straining to reach, listening to her explanation between the sniffles and sobs. Next to us, a…
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@qui_danielle/Twitter As a person who has been pregnant three times, I know how serious shit can get. Bending over, sneezing, or moving one inch to the left makes you piss your pants. Sleeping doesn’t happen when you are carrying around a squiggly, kicking human, and I once had heartburn so vile I woke up out…
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Scary Mommy and Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Emily Ratajkowski penned an essay for Vogue to accompany her digital pregnancy announcement with husband Sebastian Bear-McClard—though she is quick to point out that it is her pregnancy and not theirs. It’s her body, her symptoms, and her experience. It was a surprisingly refreshing and much needed deviation from the…
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Courtesy of Jaclyn Greenberg “As long as he’s healthy,” is a phrase I heard often each time I was pregnant. And over the years, it’s a statement I have grown to hate. Usually, it came from a stranger, or someone I didn’t see very often. Our conversation went something like this: Them: “Oh! (when they…
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Courtesy of Zia Robinson Stretch marks, loose skin, fat, saggy breasts. That may be all you see. But I see so much more. My body has grown and birthed my three precious children, my body has cared for them every single day of their lives, my body has endured the devastating grief of child loss,…
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Scary Mommy and Nenov/Getty “Your baby’s too sick to stay here. We’re going to transfer him to the PICU where he can get more care.” As I processed the nurse’s words, a tsunami of panic engulfed me. I gasped for air. Moments earlier, my newborn son had been urgently admitted to the hospital’s pediatric unit.…
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Scary Mommy and Sharon Mccutcheon/EyeEm/Getty As an anesthesiologist, I recently took care of a patient who needed an emergent C-Section, and she requested that the umbilical cord not be cut “until it was white.” I’ll be honest, I had no idea what she was talking about. A bit of googling later in the day, lead…
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Scary Mommy and Kangah/Getty As being in labor goes, this time wasn’t so bad. It was the culmination of a smooth and uneventful pregnancy. My baby boy was full term, measuring big, blessedly healthy by all indications. And there was a marathon of The Golden Girls on the hospital TV — so along with my husband,…
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