Real Life

When the air starts to warm, and the daylight stretches past bedtime, my thoughts start to shift toward s'mores! Don't you think they are the quintessential summertime treat?  I love the smell of the bonfire you roast the s'mores...

I met my husband Derek on a college ministry Spring break trip. We dated for five months, got engaged and then got married on our 14 month anniversary. After being married for just under a year, we decided that...

"You think that true love is the only thing that can crush your heart. The thing that will take your life and light it up. Or destroy it. Then, you become a mother."   --Meredith Grey, Grey's Anatomy                                                                          I always...

I had a fairly uneventful pregnancy the first time. I loved having my one ultrasound and visiting the doctor to know exactly where the baby was positioned inside me so I could soothe it in utero. I worked up...

I was never nervous about becoming a mother. I think our friends and family were nervous for me, and I can't say that I blame them. When I was pregnant with my first child, my (now) husband and I were...

I never imagined that my first birth story would have landed me in a surgical room when I had my daughter, Anora Lynne. She had been breech for much of the 2nd half of the pregnancy, and for whatever...

When my husband and I found out we were pregnant with kiddo number 1, I was still a mere child myself at only 18 years old. We had a U-Haul packed and were planning to move to a new...

In my birth class, induction and epidural were not popular words. My husband and I attended Saturday afternoon sessions dutifully; practicing breathing techniques, learning about tearing vs episiotomies, and preparing for birth's possibilities. A natural birth experience was definitely...

Unless you have been living under the proverbial "rock" over the past 72 hours, you have no doubt heard about Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and his lifetime ban from the NBA for making racist remarks in his...

When my youngest child was born, many people didn't know I was pregnant until after he arrived. We did our best to keep news of the pregnancy under wraps, even concealing the news from our children until 28 weeks. I...