They Arrested Her For Losing Her Pregnancy

Society told us our pregnant bodies weren’t our own; now they’re criminalizing us.

I just published this on Medium.

Photo by Dexter Chatuluka on Unsplash

 

We Tried to Choose the Sex of Our Baby

We Tried to Choose the Sex of Our Baby
Even though we knew it shouldn't matter.

Published in P. S. I Love You on Medium.

My baby peeking at you. Photo Credit: Author

"We thought about all the cultures that favored boy babies, and wanted to offset that. Smash the patriarchy, and all that.

And we both appreciated how, currently, it’s a lot easier to raise a female to be whoever she wants to be (quiet or loud, wild or bookish, beautifully embodying every contradiction). Raising males this way is important work too, but it sounded harder, and we are lazy.

So why not just choose a girl?"

Read it all on Medium.

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My Mom Friends Saved My Life

My Mom Friends Saved My Life: Post-partum depression and the power of friendship.
Published by P. S. I Love You on Medium.

Mom friends. Photo by Julie Johnson on Unsplash

Dear Daughter,

Learning to love my body the way my daughter does.
Published in P.S. I Love You on Medium!

‘’Venus at Her Mirror’’ (The Rokeby Venus), 1650 painting by Diego Velázquez — Image is in the Public Domain.

A Lookback at My Favorite Writing on Medium This Year

Year-in-Review 2018
See it here (with all friends links, so you don't need to be a Medium member to read any of it).

Balloons. Photo by Sagar Patil on Unsplash

Childbirth is Madness - My Husband Tells His Side of the Story

There are many different ways to tell a story.
On Medium.

Sixty-Seven Hours of Homebirth

I've been writing and rewriting this birth story for years.

After an inspiring talk with my mama/writer friend Kai I started writing again this year, and the first thing I worked on was editing my birth story down to submit to the Pacific Northwest Writers' Association contest. I didn't win (or even expect to), but it got me back into writing, and now I've got 20-something new published pieces to show for it, and more slated to come out in print in Raise Vegan!

PNWA submissions receive two professional critiques, and I got my critiques in the mail this week.

There were some useful criticisms, which informed my editing today, some great compliments, and some criticisms I'm just going to have to disagree with:

"Additionally, some details are simply too personal for strangers to absorb, and do not need to be shared outside of one's loving family."

Both critiques mentioned that my pacing was spot-on, following the rhythm of my contractions. That was something that came naturally when I was writing it, and I loved that they both noticed it!

One thing I've struggled with was where to publish this, who exactly is my audience. When writing it, I didn't want to hold back on the "TMI" details (that's the problem with most depictions of birth--not enough reality), but who exactly is going to publish this sort of thing? I decided on Medium. Now it's out there, and it probably won't make any money, but hopefully pregnant people will read it (I was so hungry for birth stories when I was pregnant!), and if it gets some claps, even better!

Should You Rethink the Gender Reveal Party?

"Should You Rethink the Gender Reveal Party?" is my newest piece for Raise Vegan, but it's not about veganism. Raise Vegan has an awesome private Facebook group (Vegan Pregnancy & Parenting) with over 40,000 members, and people are constantly posting about "gender reveal parties" and "gender reveal cakes." I've been one of the voices commenting to suggest, at the least, rephrasing, and I thought it was about time time that I wrote it out in a shareable article that really explains the issue.

Tzivia before she had gender

WIC Vegan Food Options

I am so proud of my new article at Raise Vegan, because I would love more parents and parents-to-be to know about their WIC options!

Here's a photo of me that was in the Port Townsend Leader when I was pregnant. I got all the produce on the table (and those lovely carrots) at the Port Townsend Farmers' Market with my WIC farmers' market vouchers.

Prenatal Appointments with Midwives

My new article on Prenatal Appointments with Midwives just went up on Raise Vegan. I was lucky enough to have my prenatal appointments with Kathy Luch, Maya Horrocks and Melanie Dickson at Peninsula Midwives. Then Tzivia was born in a tub, right in our living room, where I'm sitting in this 2014 picture, when I was 14w5d pregnant.