Free to a good home - 3 postpartum maxi pads Designed to absorb Lake Erie For the discerning woman who recently pushed something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a walnut. Pink-wrapped, NWOT pads are genuine hospital-issue and approximately the thickness of a queen pillow-top mattress. The high-end luxury hotel kind, not the bargain-basement mattresses found in Motel 6. Designed to absorb Lake Erie every eight hours without any pesky leaks or troublesome Asian carp. Generously sized, these formidable pads will easily span any woman's mangled undercarriage, from her gelatinous post-baby bellybutton to the top of her tremendously sore ass crack. Works nicely with ice packs. Suggested use: from first days home from hospital until you can sit down without wincing (approximately 7-14 days). Also would work as a comfortable resting place for any medium-sized dog, such as golden retriever or basset hound. As a bonus, you can compare your once-perky boobs to the ...

I don't think everything happens for a reason. I don't believe events take place when the time is right. I don't see -- or look for -- signs from God, or the universe, or a higher power. Which is what made this particular addition to my family all the more special. It was a random Wednesday in October. Isn't that when signs appear, when you least expect them? At almost 8 1/2 months pregnant with baby #2 , I was enjoying near constant backaches, heartburn after every meal, and the kind of fatigue that leaves you exhausted after unloading the dishwasher. You know, the fun pregnancy stuff. To add insult to discomfort, somewhere during the previous months I had lost my well-honed ability to nap. All of my adult naps up to this point were mere practice for the afternoon rests which I now really, really needed...yet suddenly I could not reach my goal of drifting off to sleep for a few precious minutes of recuperation during the long days. I was tired, I was frustrated, I w...

Three years ago today I found myself sitting in a darkened exam room, clutching an ultrasound image, crying. Crying so hard the ultrasound technician excused herself to "give me a moment." These weren't tears of happiness or relief, but of a disappointment I was unable to contain: I had just been told that I was having a boy. What kind of horrible mother are you?  you're probably thinking. I wondered that too. For three-and-a-half years I had struggled to have a child, and out of that struggle came a miracle. Yet here I was feeling like what I had graciously been given wasn't enough. I didn't just want a baby . I wished for a daughter . I had some reasons for feeling this way, flimsy though they seem now. First, I don't know (or care) much about things little boys are typically interested in -- dinosaurs and dump trucks and sports, bodily emissions and pratfalls and comic books. What would my son and I bond over? How would I ever connect with him? Se...

One of the biggest questions I've had while pregnant (besides " what the hell am I doing? ") has been how big is the baby right now ? It's incredible that a human starts out smaller than a speck of dust, then weighs almost an ounce -- about as much as a slice of bread -- by 13 weeks gestation. At 20 weeks, halfway through baking, she weighs less than a pound but at 40 weeks she'll be more than 7.5 pounds. That's some serious growth in a relatively short amount of time. For some reason, books and websites insist on offering a visual of a fetus's size by comparing her to fruits and vegetables. I assume this is to further drive home the point that I should be eating healthful foods full of vitamins and minerals, and not half that bag of mini chocolate-caramel-pecan turtles I polished off about 20 minutes ago. The first problem with the fruits and vegetables scenario (besides their lack of chocolate and caramel) is that I don't know what half of them are...

There is beauty in symmetry. Two halves, equal and opposite, which compose a whole. A balance and proportion that indicates completion. Evidence that there is a deliberateness and orderliness to the world which I find both comforting and awe-inspiring. The human mind reaches for things that make sense. We have sought symmetry since the dawn of time -- it transcends cultures, eras, and trends. The architecture of Egypt's pyramids, Gothic cathedrals, the White House are all based on symmetric design. Leonardo da Vinci's pen-and-ink drawing of the Vitruvian Man is a symbol of the beautiful proportion and symmetry of the human body, and by extension, the universe. Musical compositions, especially classical, are exercises in repeating patterns of melody and form. Sonnets crafted by Shakespeare and E.E. Cummings flow in persistent rhythms and rhymes that reflect upon themselves. Even Mother Nature boasts of the symmetrical: a starfish, a snowflake, a honeycomb, the ratio from the s...