By Deborah Pritchett | For the past few months, my two year old, Penny, has chosen to eat lunch on our dining table bench instead of in her highchair. In hindsight, I wish I’d thought to proactively protect the bench from her messy eating methods, but alas, the beige upholstered bench is now stained with strawberry and marinara splatter.

By Melissa Face | My obstetrician marked the box labeled “advanced maternal age” on my chart when I was pregnant with my daughter. Prior to that pivotal moment, everything else about the appointment had been routine: urine sample was normal, blood pressure was in an acceptable range, and my belly measurement was in line with my due date.

By Leena Lemos | I’ll never forget the moment – it was one o’clock in the morning and as the early crisp spring air danced through our open bedroom window while I fought another restless night, it happened. After months of calling out for her dad in the middle of the night, and frankly every other scenario when she needed help, love, or comfort – she finally said my name.

By Jill Yancey | from “Evidence Enough” - I do not know how to define magic, / But I know it when I see it, / When I feel it. /
When she runs to me, / Her smile wide / As she holds light cupped in her hands, / Her tippy-toes as she lets this light go, / The flicker of a single firefly / Still lighting my mind and my soul, / Surely that is evidence / Enough for me.

By Chelsy Meyer | “Some woman at the park . . . tried to take Dominic,” I choked out. The last word, my son’s name, came out as a sob. I struggled to explain what happened while keeping my emotions in check. I knew calling my husband would be the thing that tore down the wall holding back my tears as I stood in front of the police officers.

By Mary Rothery | Time has altered since I became a mother. It is not the measured constant it once was before I held my tiny squalling daughter in my arms. No longer a reliable yardstick, it bends and shifts, rolling away from me as clouds roll across the Downs. It swells and roars around me, crashing like a wave breaking upon a rocky shore.

By Christine Carpenter | I squeeze my engorged breast like a sandwich, twisting the swollen, tender flesh and shoving my massive nipple into the tiniest mouth I’ve ever seen in real life. What am I doing? I am not prepared for this. Before I became a mother, I never had a desire to breastfeed.

By Mona Ray | I used to think that the “ultimate birthing experience” was to give birth naturally: no drugs, no epidural, no hospital, no IV, no help – and maybe that's an ode to the ancestors, why any of us may feel that way. My great, Filipina grandmother had twelve kids, none of which were delivered in the hospital.

By Laci Hoyt | from “How Memories Survive” - For Cleo. On my walk today, I passed black walnuts on the street / broken open, partially crushed, their little pig noses / face up to the sky.

By Colleen Tirtiriain | The doorbell rings and I hobble my huge, pregnant-with-twins blob of a body over to the front door. It’s a FedEx delivery man here with multiple, large boxes. I know exactly what this is: our stroller. But it’s not just any stroller . . . it is THE stroller; the one I researched like it was some kind of make-it-or-break-it situation.

By Kaitlin Solimine | The eve before I turn 38 weeks pregnant, I start hearing voices saying, “Mama!” The first time, I’m in bed with my second born and hear someone calling “Mama! Mama!” in a desperate cry from down the hall but the voice isn’t a child’s, it’s a man’s: My husband’s?

By Leslie Yeary | I am in a really good place right now. I linger on this realization as I post (I’m not biased) the cutest picture in the entire world of my mini-mes and their dad. We are at The Kentucky Horse Park. The fields have those itty-bitty lavender flowers crawling up from the dirt, and the Bluegrass gently floats underneath a spring breeze orchestrated by paint-brush tails and whinnies so sweet you’ll melt.

By Karla Filibeck | My right knee hits the pavement – hard. My upper body lurches forward. I pop back up so fast, I have no idea what else of me, if anything, made contact with the ground. My hands fumble behind my neck to unbuckle my baby carrier. Both of my girls are crying.

By Lucy Beckley | The buzzard and her two fledglings soar overhead. I see them high up in the distance as I drive down the lane. I’m coming back home from a long and difficult day. Too much caffeine and an incredibly early start means that I’m jumpy and anxious, chewing on the bottom of my lip and clenching my shoulders. My coffee-stained mind is fraying with all the things I need to do . . .

By Micah Klassen | Tomorrow, our youngest son turns two. It’s Friday morning, February 24th and I’m in the shower trying to think through the small celebration we’ve planned for him with a few friends and family members at my in-laws’, but my mind keeps jumping to the footage I saw earlier of NICU newborns being cared for in a bomb shelter in the Ukraine.

By Melaina Williams | from Heal - Show thyself, woman,/
to thyself and be made whole./Write new scripture and/
let the Spirit manifest in you/as creation dancing off/your titillating tongue/to grow limbs upon your heart/so, your love may walk. 

By Kailyn Rhinehart | My toddler doesn’t sleep. I know – plenty of toddlers don’t sleep. Maybe there are some unicorn toddlers out there who lull themselves to sleep each night at 7 p.m. and wake up a full twelve hours later, happy as a clam (I’m told those exist). However, my child is no unicorn.

By Kelsey Cichoski | Sunlight was beaming through the window for what felt like the first time in months. There was so much for me to do around the house, yet I couldn’t stop noticing the warmth of the sun each time I walked past our kitchen window.

By Leesha Mony | In the late months of pregnancy, I found my exhausted, growing, and worried self staring down the aisle at a consignment shop in search of the thing that, in my mind, would solve all of my problems. A new throw pillow. I have heard the tales of pregnancy obsessions, whether it be with food, rituals, baby gear, but for me, it was a new throw pillow for my expanding bed.

By Jacqueline Hernandez Lewis | From the Rocking Chair - It’s 3 a.m./I’m exhausted beyond belief/Trying to rock you back to sleep/Reminding myself:/Babies don’t keep…