In 2014, just a few weeks after we returned from our sailing trip across the Pacific, Rob began suffering from insomnia, paralyzing indecision and panic attacks. We didn’t know it at the time, but his mental illness was likely linked to the physical and emotional changes associated with becoming a father.
All good stories start with water. With a flow, a rush, a release. So did you. You were made on the sea, in nights full of stars and gently rocking boats. You were made when laughter was simple, and music echoed through it all. Here is what I want you […]
I want to tell you about the calm in the center of a storm. About a timeless place of softly swirling nothing. About drifting weightless across eons that span mere moments. About a galaxy inside of each of us that is filled with peace and trust and so much depth. […]
Talon Randall Roberts reached into the world with a hand wide open, ready to catch his parents’ hearts. Our little dude arrived on August 14th at 12:44 pm, weighing in at 6.9 lbs and 19.5 inches long after a 12-hour labor at the Missoula Birth Center. Although his passport won’t show […]
Uncertain abundance. The phrase kept repeating itself in the cobwebs between sleep and wake last night. It captures our summer so aptly: ripe and potent, tenuous and vague. Sands shifting beneath our feet. Waves of love lapping at our toes. Uncertain abundance. This last month of pregnancy is ringed with the […]
I recently ran into a friend and blog reader in downtown Missoula. She asked if I would write a post on how it feels to practice yoga while pregnant. This one’s for you, Wendy! One of my first questions after learning I was pregnant was whether I could still practice […]
Kick and squirm. Jostle and poke. Nudge. Nudge. Hiccup. Flip. Someone else is sharing my inner space: my breath, my blood, my body. He has his own routine, his own rhythm. He tickles and gulps and listens and sucks. I can’t see any of it with my eyes, but I […]
Sometimes you walk through the wildflowers and straight into stinging nettles. I did it this weekend. I never looked down at the path below, focusing instead on the creek ahead. My inner thighs tingled for hours, pinpricks reminding me that beauty has a bite. Rob tells me that maybe I […]
Drawing the line between what’s important and what’s irrelevant It’s starting to sink in that pregnancy actually ends with a new person in our lives. And that the new little human is gonna need some things. This is a frustrating realization when accumulating things is a source of anxiety for […]
Blow up dicks aren’t typically a decoration associated with pregnant women. Yet I recently found my 5-month pregnant self wading gleefully through cock-and-ball straws, shot skis filled with tequila, and naked hot-tubbers drinking sangria. Even more startling, the scene transpired only a few days after my re-entry to America after […]
“Yesterday, there was a war here,” said Romeo, our Burmese trekking guide. He was holding a hand-drawn map, and pointing to the spot where we were about to embark on a 3-day hike through northeastern Myanmar. “Wait, what?” I said. “A war? What do you mean, ‘war’?” I asked half […]
My husband says that having a pregnant wife is like riding on the back of a motorcycle—you give up control, replace it with trust, and hold on for dear life. He told me that after I declared that riding on the back of our rented motorcycle for a week in […]
The first question I get after the requisite “how are you feeling?” is “did you find it hard to be pregnant on a sailboat?” Short answers? Really good and not at all. Actually, I’ve felt eerily not pregnant, based on the lack of first trimester symptoms most of my friends […]
A few days after peeing on a stick, I cringed when I realized that appeasing pregnancy cravings in Tonga would be like trying to sail a yacht down Montana’s Blackfoot River. In other words, I had a snowball’s chance in hell of fulfilling my food fantasies in this remote island […]
Rob and I piled into the 1990 mauve sedan with a Kiwi, a Brit, three ukeleles, two guitars and a mandolin. The car pointed southwest for the three-hour drive from Auckland to Tauranga, windows down, keeping time with our own clapping and strumming since the radio didn’t work. We were […]