birth
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This Is Not a Story About a Ghost
This is a story about memory. About neurons misfiring, about the strange space between dream and awake, that feeling, when I’m falling asleep, of falling backwards, swinging my arms up to catch myself.
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Lost Labor
Certain ways of avoiding a childbirth scene in contemporary fiction have become almost predictable, as clichéd as the clothes scattered on the floor in a movie rated PG-13: the frantic car ride to the hospital, followed by a jump cut…
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: On Madness and Mad Men
In my eight years as a Mad Men fan, the series has repeatedly prompted me to reflect on parenting.
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The Rumpus Interview with Maggie Nelson
Author Maggie Nelson talks about matrophobia, “sodomitical maternity,” breaking down categories between genres of writing, and her new book, The Argonauts.
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Build-A-Bear
Other kids were just the grab-bag prize their parents were stuck with when they unwrapped it, whereas mine had gone shopping and picked me.
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The Rumpus Interview with Elisa Albert
Elisa Albert discusses her new novel, After Birth, postpartum depression, childbearing, and the misogyny of modern medicine in pathologizing the normal processes of birth and the female body.
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Don’t Dream It’s Over
One of the surest indicators of change on the horizon (per the standard tropes of dream interpretation) is being pregnant in a dream.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Cynthia Marie Hoffman
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Cynthia Marie Hoffman about her new book, Paper Doll Fetus, twilight sleep, and the importance of giving voice to the voiceless.
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On Giving Birth and Making Sense of it All
Before giving birth to her first child, Hannah Gersen had hoped to find an anthology of birth stories. At The Millions, Gersen writes that Labor Day is just what she was seeking, though she didn’t discover it until after she had given birth. But she found…
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The Post-Pregnancy Body
Belly: There was extra room there for a while, in case he wanted to come back, I suppose.
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Birth Story
This is the part of the birth story when the woman is supposed to tap into the primal strength of her ancestors, a pool with a hundred thousand years of depth…