Welcome to my new site! I have been working behind the scenes with my talented friend Leslie Forman to relaunch this platform for my professional work as well as my message. Both have evolved over these five years of posting. I started writing here when I moved to Chile as a newlywed. I continue to write here as the mother of two, one living.

The inspiration for the overhaul was two-fold. One, I needed to bring my blog into the present and make it easier to navigate and connect across communities. Two, writing after loss is not simply the evolution of my life; it’s my creative enterprise. It may even be my life’s work. For now, I’ve stopped wondering for how long it will be and have embraced that it simply is.

My goal in sharing our story is the same today as it was when I first told it: to help other parents walking in shoes like ours. With that in mind, you’ll find that this site talks directly to those parents and those seeking to help them. My aim is to make it easier for those searching for stories like theirs—as I did and do—to find me and consider me a friend in solidarity. Part of grief is feeling alone in it, but I hope to minimize the time it takes to realize that you’re actually not. That directness is not at the exclusion of other readers. I hope anyone interested will find value here. That may be the toughest balance to strike as a writer: providing something of the universal through a singular experience. 

In a recent episode of Longform‘s resourceful podcast about creative nonfiction, the memoir powerhouse who is Cheryl Strayed said something that has stayed with me:

“When we see a painting that we love, we’re not standing there thinking about the artist who made it—we’re thinking about how that painting makes us feel, what that reflects to us about our lives and the world… This is especially true in memoir, where you’re writing about yourself—it has this horrible, false reputation of being the narcissistic form, which I think is pure bullshit. No good memoir is really about the writer—and yet it’s deeply about the writer.”

Here we see that challenging divide: writing something that will inspire feeling in the reader, but is still our story. Great writers like Strayed succeed. Some of the most significant books in my life are singular stories writ large, and I’m sure you feel the same. Strayed’s memoir Wild helped me immensely in my early grief even though her journey stemmed from the loss of her mother. Sometimes, grief is grief and healing is healing.

As I edited my memoir this last pass, it became clear that there were still two audiences: grieving mothers, fathers, and couples—and everyone else. Which means the story held water, progressed through time, and the reader was left with the hope of H.—the upswing of an ending that reps of the book business have told me is needed, but may be the last thing a new loss mom needs. As for me, I wanted to explain things clearly enough for anyone to really understand both our decision and our subsequent grief. Three years out, I see what a difficult ask that is.

So I sat with it, this book that was begging to be two. The grief hit particularly hard one day and a bit of a breakdown proceeded to a pretty enormous breakthrough. And I rewrote it for the people I’m most concerned with helping: those other grieving parents. The revision of this website is in a similar vein.

I don’t yet know if that means everyone will respond to this version of the painting or a select few. I do hope those brave enough to listen in will better understand the tenor of the experience that is pregnancy and infant loss. I have a great reason to hold that hope—many in my life have listened these last years. They have tried to feel what they can, and I have been accepting of what they cannot.

One of those who has listened is Leslie. She built me a beautiful website. I invite you to have a look around.