Association Of Catholic Bloggers

I discovered that giving birth and dying are not that different and life and death are not as far apart as I had once presumed. Exactly three years ago, I finally became cognizant of how thin the line between life and death really is when I nearly lost one of my daughters as she struggled to give birth. During labour, she almost bled out when she lost a litre of blood in mere seconds after an emergency C-section, the result of a series of unforeseen complications, a one-in-ten-thousand chance. continue

Pain and fear of inadequacy,   Instantly swept aside. Surprised as A surge of motherly love Rose up in my heart. A sense of awe at The miracle of creation. We examined tiny, Perfectly formed Fingers and toes. continue

A few weekends ago, I traveled to North Carolina to be with a friend that I have the privilege of calling a lifelong friend, for her after-the-fact wedding reception (she was married out of the country, and was celebrating with a reception in NC). The friend I mentioned above is currently pregnant with her first baby, and we were talking about birth for a little while. She was asking about my experiences with birth, and she asked me what I thought about it.... for her. "What kind of birth is right, for me?" she asked. She's a blog reader (and informed me that so is her sister, hooray!), so even though we already talked about it in person, I'm going to answer her question here! Q: What kind of birth is "right"? In what direction should I go if I'm on the fence about the whole "birth" thing? Are you "hardcore" about doing birth a certain way, and should I be? A: This is a very, very good question. Birth.... it's a tough subject...

Lent.  We tend to think of Advent as a time of joyful anticipation and Lent as a dismal period of sack cloth and ashes. How ridiculous. We are preparing to celebrate THE most joyful event in the history of humanity, the death and resurrection of our Saviour. Lent is the most joyful, light filled season for me because I empty myself so that I might die and rise with Christ in triumphant glory. The darkness of my sin, the sin of others or the sin of the world is not a malignant force as much as it is simply the absence of light. The light of just one candle banishes darkness. I have been pregnant during Advent and given birth right on Christmas Eve and I have been pregnant all of Lent and given birth right on Easter Morning. Both pregnancies and births were a time ” to give to the light”, to give new life to Christ. In a sense we are all pregnant during Advent and Lent every year and we all give birth to Christ within us more fully every Christmas and every Easter morning....

I’ve begun writing the third and final installment for my Women’s Christian Inspirational Fiction series. The first title is Elizabeth: A Holy Land Pilgrimage , the second is Miriam: Repentance and Redemption in Rome and the third is Sophia: Wife, Mother, Daughter, Sister, Friend . I’m winding back to the United States with this book. The first takes place in Israel and the second in Rome. The reason I share all this with you is that in this last book, the main character Sophia (who is Elizabeth’s daughter and Miriam’s goddaughter) suffers from post partum depression—a topic that is very personal to me and one that I want to approach as honestly as possible in the book. My hope is to gather some feedback from different women who have suffered through any of the symptoms of this illness, regardless of the degree. I want to offer Sophia’s experience with PPMD as a ray of hope to women everywhere; the questions for which I am asking feedback on are designed for me to draw knowl...

I first wrote about this on my blog a few years ago. When my firstborn was a new baby, I went to a La Leche League meeting to make some new friends and to get some support for my breastfeeding adventure. Within an hour or so I had made friends with another new mom of a baby boy. As we chatted I discovered that her birth experience was almost identical to mine. She had entered the hospital, had her membranes ruptured, pitocin started, and an epidural. The baby was shortly thereafter in fetal distress and an "emergency" C-section (that took an hour before they could get her into an operating room) ensued with delivery of a robust and healthy infant with great APGARs. It was wonderful to find someone else who would speak openly about her experience. She confirmed for me that I was not a terrible, crazy person for not being "just grateful" that I had a healthy baby, and that wishing for a better atraumatic birth experience experience didn't make me neurotic! This...

Last night, I awakened at least four times due to tingling hands and feet and, frankly, stinky perspiration. As I live out my fiftieth year on the planet, I am experiencing that change of life that is the trade-off for the miraculous ability to nurture life inside me and give birth to children. As a culture, we rightly celebrate women's fertility. A woman of child-bearing age is considered the most beautiful of all. Think Jennifer Lopez.  I've never looked anything like her, but the thing is, she is beautiful in this picture largely because she looks so fertile. Read more here...

By Allison Salerno During my eighth period hall-walking duty, I heard a commotion in the downstairs hallway by the high school's gym. The school nurse, who was standing with the school's security officer and a local police officer, told me a deer had given birth to two fawns in an outside alcove. Staff and students had watched while the new mom hustled into the woods with one of her newborns, leaving the other fawn in the shade of our concrete building. Worry filled the air: what would happen to the new fawn?