pregnancy | Vela

FeaturesApril 7, 2017

SuperBabies Don’t Cry

By Heather Kirn Lanier

When I was pregnant, I tried to make a SuperBaby. I did not realize I was doing this. I believed I’d long ago shed the theory that a body could be made perfect. But looking back, my goal was clear.

Women We Read This WeekApril 16, 2016

Women We Read This Week

By Vela

Palmer’s piece begins with a family on the run. It’s her family, but they have new names and are not sure where they’re headed.

MilestonesMarch 30, 2016

Portrait of a New Mom With Smartphone

By Hannah Stephenson

How to shower when alone with baby, I type into Safari. 21,500,000 results flutter back at me, a ticker tape parade of anxiety and confusion. My favorites are the forums, rife with desperation, spelling mistakes, and a slew of unfamiliar acronyms.

OutlinesDecember 22, 2015

Loss and Labor: An interview with Mira Ptacin

By Eryn Loeb

In 2008, when Mira Ptacin was five months pregnant, she attended a writing workshop in Northern California.

Body of WorkDecember 2, 2015

Tough Odds, Lady Bird

By Erika Bolstad

I first noticed the robin one day in early June, as she swiped dead stalks from one of the two potted lavender plants on our deck.

The Writing LifeJuly 30, 2015

Writing Like a Mother(f*cker)

By Sarah Menkedick

In the first few months after the baby is born, I experience a singing clarity: Milk! Diapers! Milk! Diapers! Lusty oxytocin! Sleep! Cheez-it binge! Sleep! I have cleared out a space–no, cleared out my whole brain–for this time, and I have no expectation of writing.

BookmarkedMarch 24, 2015

Sarah Menkedick’s Four Books on Early Motherhood

By Sarah Menkedick

Sarah Menkedick recommends four books on early motherhood. “One of the many surprises of pregnancy was the craving I developed for literature, not too distant in its urgency from the craving for Haribo gummy raspberries.”

FeaturesFebruary 23, 2015

A Wilderness of Waiting

By Sarah Menkedick

In the eighth month of my nine-month human pregnancy, I go on a binge-Googling of animal gestation periods. Frilled sharks, I discover, gestate for 42 months. Elephants take 22 months. Sperm whales: 16. Walruses: 15. Rhinos: 14.