When: Wednesday, July 11, 12:30pm – 2 days postpartum
Where: Carle Hospital, Post Partum Unit
We were packing our things to leave, and all of a sudden I realized that for the last 36 hours, I had been in this room, and this room alone. I did not remember […]
When: Monday, July 9, 4:30pm – 40 Weeks, 3 Days
Where: Carle Hospital, 24 into my labor
Martin made his way back upstairs, sensing the urgency in my Mom’s text. My doctor laid it all out for us, in the simplest of terms. She said: […]
When: Friday, July 6, 6:00pm – 40 Weeks, Exactly
Where: The local Mexican restaurant, eating a spicy steak burrito the size of my head
In between bites, while discussing nothing in particular, my body began to tremor, […]
Folks, I’m here with another installment of Thursday Things. This week has been a tough one, because the world lost someone amazing. He’s been in quite a few posts I’ve written, in fact, I’ve only ever referred to him as “The Boy’s Dad” here on Hopeful Midwesterner. So today’s Thursday Things are dedicated to you […]
Trigger warning ahead: violence and foul language
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After college, I lived in an apartment on the north side of the city, with my all-star roommates, (please read the sarcasm there) we’ll call them Elizabeth and Jessica. We were fortunate enough to have some outstanding downstairs neighbors. (Please read the additional sarcasm utterly dripping from there, too.) […]
I’ve been told the story of my birth, my grand entrance into this world, by countless people throughout my life. You see, I was the first grandchild on both my Mom and Dad’s side. I was kind of a big deal…
This Friday will mark 8 weeks exactly into this pregnancy, which also happens to be 2/3 of the way through the First Trimester (Y’all gon’ learn today!)
The first trimester of a pregnancy is mainly marked by morning sickness (in more than 50% of women!), gas, cravings, and emotional turbulence (because hormones are all kinds of whack-a-doo.)
Morning Sickness has me. But it’s […]
I want to tell you a story about when things just happen the way they’re supposed to…
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It was springtime 2010. I had been out of college for a couple of years and had just moved back home with my parents in Evanston after an awful apartment situation in Rogers Park (a neighborhood in Chicago just north of the city). (That’s a story for another day!)
While I had lived in the apartment, I had the opportunity to […]
Again, we were Collaborative Camping one summer in my youth, up nearby one of the zillions of lakes in Wisconsin, with my parents, and next door neighbors and their three boys. The three boys and I were so close that they were more like my brothers.
We had been camping for a few days, so our tents and site were pretty well established at this point, but one morning it began to rain. And rain, and rain, and rain […]
Let’s continue on the Camping thread, and journey to our second and third Collaborative Camping trips, in Eagle River, Wisconsin. We found a spot that we loved: nestled in the corner of the camping property, far enough away from most other sites, (We had to drive down a hill to access our site, and at one point, all the kids were out running an errand with the boy’s Dad. He stopped at the top of the hill and said, get out and HANG ON! […]
A Hopeful Midwesterner 