There are days when being a mom makes me feel like the luckiest woman in the world. I feel blessed to have two beautiful children who are thriving under my care, and the rewards seem endless. Other days…well, I don’t have to tell you about other days. Whether they involve temper tantrums, sleep deprivation or just the general chaos that often comes with parenthood, those are the days that try a woman’s soul.

Being a mother is a life-transforming event that can rock even the most even-keeled, self-assured female to the core. Suddenly you aren’t who you thought you were, and the rules that once governed your world are turned upside down by the demands of a tiny yet emotionally powerful little person. … //READ MORE

My pregnancy with our first child was nothing out of the ordinary, except that she kicked and moved a lot. When she was born, the nurse noticed her face looked blue and her cry was not robust, so they whisked her off to the NICU after I held her for a minute. She was in there for two days as they ran tests and determined that she had some fluid in her lungs. The next six months were a blur of bottles, diapers and a baby who slept perfectly through the night after the third week home. My husband and I felt incredibly blessed.

Things began to change after the sixth month. Our daughter began to change from a healthy, active baby to one who was extremely intense. … //READ MORE

During a recent dinner with several mom friends, the discussion turned to the stay-at-home vs. go-back-to-work debate. Now, this is a hot topic that many women start thinking about from the day that little plus sign appears on their pregnancy-test applicator. It’s a subject on which everyone—from mothers-in-law to politicians—seems to have a strong opinion, and those opinions can get pretty heated. When women begin judging one another, it can become downright nasty. I know a few stay-at-home moms who are righteous about their choice, as well as a couple of career-driven moms who view themselves as superior for remaining in the work force. Thank goodness, the majority of my friends fall somewhere in between, understanding that this is a decision every woman must make for herself, that there’s no one right answer and, most important, that children raised by both working moms and stay-at-home moms will most likely turn out absolutely fine.

Still, everyone has something to say on the topic. At this gathering of close friends, guards dropped and the women at the table got honest and emotional talking about the often-agonizing decision of whether to head back to a work and leave your baby in someone else’s care, or stay at home to enjoy your child but put the brakes on your career. One of the moms said she knew the moment she got engaged that she wanted to stay home to raise a family full time. (“My mom and grandma and great-grandma did it—I guess it’s in my DNA,” she said.) Another woman insisted she was destined to work until the day she died. “As much as I love my kids, I would be bored out of my fucking mind … //READ MORE

To all you supermoms out there who had absolutely no problems breastfeeding, I say congratulations and go to hell. (Of course, I mean that in the most affectionate way.) But if your nursing endeavors resembled, like mine did, a Stanley Kubrick flick, I say, pull up a chair, sista, and let’s commiserate.

Nursing did not come easy to me. For starters, none of the women in my family had done it, so there was no maternal experience trickling down through the generations. Second, I gave birth in a New York hospital where “doula” was a dirty word and the nurses were too understaffed and not as educated as they should’ve been on the benefits of breastfeeding. At the time my daughter was born, a new mother with any intentions of not bottle-feeding in that maternity ward had the Similac cans stacked against her. … //READ MORE

Sitting on the concrete basement floor packing away my youngest daughter’s outgrown toddler clothes, I spied the rose-and-ivory chenille sweater someone had knit for her, and heard the whisper. “There’s no one else to save this for.” I surveyed the hill of blankets, onesies and elastic-waist pants I was so neatly folding and packing in plastic bins, and began to consider why I was bothering with the effort. We had said two, now we had two.

Yet I continued my careful sorting and folding.

I let that whisper float in my heart for months, not daring to make my doubt real by voicing it to my husband. It just kind of lingered, while I waited to see whether it would intensify or fade.

We were good, the four of us, two adults, two kids. Why mess with that? Parenthood is the ultimate leap of faith. Nothing is guaranteed—not your health, not the child’s, and you don’t know who you’re going to get. So I should have been content with my lucky lot. But I just couldn’t shake the baby feeling. When I broached the subject of a third, my husband considered it for a few weeks before agreeing to “see what happens.” … //READ MORE