Shows
Cocoon#34: It Was a JourneyTysha was basically born wanting to have a family of her own, with as many children as she could handle. But she got a late start, and it seemed as though she might never reach the destination she'd had in her heart when she started. 2023-10-1642 min
Cocoon#33: 17 YearsFor 17 years Jamie had hoped to have a baby but only experienced loss after loss after loss. Meanwhile, her cousin Bonnie was watching and waiting—knowing and hoping that she could offer a solution that would bring healing to both of them.2023-02-0646 min
Cocoon#32: "It Was the First Time I Took Charge of the Decision" (part 3 of 3)After a bit of difficulty trying to get pregnant with their third baby together, Kristin and David decided to pursue IVF. It was an experience that would stretch them and help Kristin find her own boundaries around her body.2022-08-0135 min
Cocoon#31: Surprises, Good and Sad (part 2 of 3)David and Kristin got married in 2008 and after taking some time to adjust and blend their lives with their 3 children, they decided it was time to try to have a baby together. Before too long, they were parents of two daughters. And then . . . things started to drift.2022-07-2521 min
Cocoon#30: "You Already Know Who It Is"When David was 30, he was a kindergarten teacher in a rough part of LA. He decided that, despite being a single man, there must be something he could do to relieve the suffering of a child in foster care and chose to pursue adoption for a child in need. It was the first step in creating a home that is a refuge for many different people with many different needs.2022-07-1833 min
Cocoon#29: The SurrogateAmanda was at a crossroads in her life—a tricky transitional place between bearing children and moving beyond that—when a friend asked for some help finding someone who might be willing to be a surrogate for her. Amanda took some time to think about it and found that she could be that person.
Over the course of the next year, Amanda took on a physical and emotional challenge that would not only result in a beautiful baby girl, but in strengthened friendships, greater peace as she closed her childbearing chapter, and (no surprise) the best sleep of h...2020-12-1433 min
Cocoon#28: A Physician and A MotherRebecca decided to pursue a career in medicine about the same time that she had her first baby. And it has always been an open question whether she could have both the family she dreamed of and the career she felt called to. Recently that question has been pressing on her with a little more urgency and she reached out to Lizzie, who happens to be a friend of hers, to talk about it. Lizzie thinks about these kinds of things a lot.
The two of them talked about some of the hopes and hesitations that fuel...2020-10-0150 min
Cocoon#27: Everything ChangesFour and a half years ago, Jill stood on the sidewalk and watched as another family drove away with the little boy she had given birth to days before. While pregnant, she had been unemployed, depressed, and certain she could not care for a child the way he deserved to be cared for. But the experience did not quiet the yearning she had always felt to be a mom. If anything, it strengthened it.
At first Jill set aside the feelings, but time passed and while her circumstances changed, her feelings didn't. She soon had a job...2020-04-0439 min
Cocoon#26: A Lot of Things Can HappenRobin’s first pregnancy was one of the happiest times of her life—and something she had been looking forward to since childhood. But when she was 41 weeks and 6 days pregnant, she found out that a lot of things can happen when babies are born.
In the aftermath of Robin’s pregnancy, she had a lot of work to do. Healing for herself, sensitivity to her husband and his trauma—and looking ahead to her future family. And that meant preparing to face another pregnancy, another childbirth where anything could happen.
When we meet someone like Rob...2019-06-0348 min
CocoonMini Episode #3: Between Worlds, StillValerie and I often talk about how, no matter when we talk to someone, we are always in the middle of their story. We continue to change and evolve and process and grow. Our priorities change, our circumstances change, our lives change. We adjust, we readjust, we find balance—and then we fall again. And begin again.
More than 4 years ago I wrote about what it was like trying to rebuild my life after a devastating miscarriage knocked me off my feet. I’ve revisited that essay and updated it to give an update on what feelslike a conti...2019-04-0112 min
Cocoon#25: Are We Done Yet?Andrea Weaver’s family
We all know that in family planning there is no “one size fits all,” there is no, “take this quiz and find out how many kids you should have!” There is not necessarily a magic number or a magic feeling. We knew that for many women the decision is just as much of an emotional decision as it is a rational one, that often spirituality and religion enter the picture, and that to even be having this conversation is a serious privilege—and at times a very weighty privilege.
Stephanie Robertson’s crew
...2019-02-2748 min
Cocoon#24: A Hand to HoldEighteen years ago, when Kelli was 24 weeks pregnant, she left work wondering if she had pushed herself too hard. She was feeling sick—something was wrong. By the end of the evening she would be rushed to the hospital and her baby would be delivered. At 24 weeks and 1 day, he was a micro-premie just barely on the living side of viability.
For the next 4 months, Kelli’s life revolved around the isolated and tenuous world of the NICU, where parents whose hopes and dreams had been brought up short watched and waited to see how thei...2018-11-2646 min
Cocoon#23: “You Just Live Life As Best You Can”
When Kristy went into labor at 33 weeks gestation and had her baby via emergency c-section, it seemed like a series of small miracles took place. She and the baby would have the healthiest outcome in a scary, unpredictable situation. End of story.
But week after week, as Kristy and her family learned more about what had possibly caused her pre-term labor, it became clear how truly dire the situation was.
Over the course of the next year and a half, Kristy endured a physically and emotionally painful roller coaster ride that...2018-07-1757 min
Cocoon#22: Helen (part 2 of 2)
It wasn’t too long after her mother died that Meg began to feel . . . tired. Maybe a little under the weather. Possibly depressed. But it was winter—cold and gray. She was grieving. And her life was hectic with house renovations. And then a more familiar nausea set in . . . .
For months Meg struggled to process this unexpected development in her life. But eventually, through moments big and small, the light started to shine through the fog she had been stuck in.
The “shining light” was Helen.
2018-05-0227 min
Cocoon#21: The Greatest Gift My Mother Gave Me (part 1 of 2)
The relationship we have with our moms can be fraught and complicated. We must differentiate ourselves from our moms, but no matter what we do or who we become, they are always guides or shadows on our paths. We can never fully disentangle ourselves from their influence—and in the best case scenario, we probably would not want to.
Meg is her mother’s only daughter, her only child. She says she feels privileged to hold that position. But she also wondered if she did her duty as her only child, especially after Meg’...2018-04-1131 min
Cocoon#19: “I Could Bring Him to His Family”Jill is, and was, a productive, contributing member of society. She has a master’s degree, she’s worked for several companies, and as a teacher she’s seen her students flourish. In 2012, she had friends, a community, a great apartment, and a pretty solid social circle of support—and she also had a mental illness. Jill suffers from fairly serious depression at times, but had always managed it well enough. That year, however, the bottom fell out.
In a few short months, she lost just about everything she’d worked so hard for and just as sh...2017-10-1946 min
Cocoon#18: “We Have Derailed”
It’s often the long view of life that is the clearest. We know where we want to go, where we want to end up, but it’s the getting there that is difficult. If we are serious about what we want, we do whatever we can to stay on track.
When Grace Poulsen was 28, she had just finished breastfeeding her 2nd daughter. Her husband, Dave, was working through his residency as an ophthalmologist. And their life in the Bronx, New York, was busy and mentally and physically taxing.
And then she...2017-07-2838 min
Cocoon#17: The MidwivesWhen you are pregnant and on your way to becoming a mother there can be so many worries and wonders you have about what is going to happen to you—what is happening to you—and your family. Some of those worries are physical, but they can be mental, emotional, and spiritual as well. And who can you turn to to help you explore all those things you are facing as you enter this new chapter in your life?
It often seems like in our society, we are all anticipation of the baby and its health...2017-04-2743 min
CocoonMini Episode #2: Imperfectly PerfectIn this week’s mini episode JoAnna reads her essay about her baby Levi, who, after being diagnosed with trisomy-13 at 18 weeks, beat the odds and was born alive at 35 weeks gestation. Levi may have lead a tiny and quiet life, but his existence was like a firework that bursts onto the scene leaving wonder and beauty in its wake.
You can read the full text of the episode here.
2017-03-2810 min
Cocoon#16: “This is What I Am Meant To Do”Bente kept a journal when she was growing up in which she wrote that she would have 12 kids: 2 boys, then 2 girls, then 2 boys, and on and on. A couple of decades later we meet up with her and find that things went surprisingly well for her.
Not only did she surpass her childhood expectations as far as number of children, she nailed her calling in life. Motherhood is where she feels most real, most fulfilled, and most whole.
We talk with Bente about how she came to this decision, what the hardest parts...2017-03-0634 min
Cocoon#15: Who Am I Without This?“At some point, every woman needs to make peace with her uterus.”
So says Liz Ostler, who has known since she was a child that she would be a mother. It was the fact she based many of her life decisions around, the hope that caused her to hold on to flagging relationships . . . and the thing that made her—again, her own words—”a crazy person.”
Here Liz, single and nearly 40, opens up about why motherhood was and is so important to her and how she did “the work” to loosen her grip on that hope. And...2017-02-0643 min
Cocoon#14: “In The End, Wasn’t It Worth It?”
Before Nicole even had a chance to take a pregnancy test, her body was reacting strongly to the baby that had just begun to develop. She had a severe case of pregnancy sickness called hyperemesis gravidarum—which is definitely NOT morning sickness—that left her feeling like a shell of a person for virtually her entire pregnancy. Actually, both of her pregnancies.
Why some women get so severely sick during pregnancy is a mystery. Another mystery: why our society is so slow to recognize that someone as sick as Nicole was—no matter the cause—needs help...2016-11-0936 min
CocoonMini Episode #1: Love the One You’re WithToday’s episode is an essay written and read by Lizzie Heiselt. It takes on the “all that matters is that you have a healthy baby” idea. For anyone who’s been told this, you know there’s not really a response to that. On some level, it’s true. Having a baby—let alone a healthy one—is something to be grateful for. But it doesn’t mean that sometimes there isn’t something to mourn, that there isn’t a sense of loss. And it doesn’t mean that we’re not entitled to feel those feelings.
Lizzie takes one ang...2016-09-3009 min
CocoonBonus: A Beautiful HeartIn the days after Gina gave birth to her stillborn son, James, she wrote a record of the event on her blog. It was a beginning of her mourning and rebuilding process and captures both the grief she was feeling at the time and the hope that she had that her life would be made better by James and her relationship with him—as brief as it was.
(more…)2016-08-3108 min
Cocoon#13: The Full Human Experience
The full human experience includes this: pregnancy, birth, life, death. And if all goes well and normally, the pregnancy is 9 months, the birth takes a day or so, the life is decades long, and the death neither sneaks up nor hovers for too long.
But the normal order is sometimes confused. The pregnancy is too short. The birthing process is unusually long. The death casts a shadow for months and even years. And sometimes, things happen in the wrong order. Death skips ahead and takes a life before it has even had a chance to be...2016-08-1534 min
Cocoon#12: “But Honestly, How Are You Feeling?”“Winter Fear” by Kay Ryan
Is it just Winter
or is this worse.
Is this the year
when outer damp
obscures a deeper curse
that spring can’t fix,
when gears that
turn the earth
won’t shift the view
when clouds won’t lift
though all the skies
go blue.
There is an expectation with pregnancy that growing a life leads to glowing. The question, “How are you feeling?” is supposed to el...2016-07-1834 min
Cocoon#10: What Does “Healthy Birth” Even Mean?Among her 5 children, Alanna Smith has had just about every type of childbirth experience you can have, and each one has left an impression and shaped her perspective. In episode 10 she shares the ups and downs of childbirth—and how, by the time she had her 4th baby, she found what she was looking for in a healthy birth.
And it may not be what you expect. Her story includes frantic phone calls and late night pondering, lots of research and many prayers. There were difficult conversations and fights with doctors, and moments of insight and peace th...2016-03-0435 min
Cocoon#9: “My Joy Is Always Tainted” (part 2 of 2)
In episode 8, Misty told us about how when she was 18, she was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease that made it a really bad idea for her to have biological children, and about the first few disappointments she and her husband went through as they pursued growing their family through adoption.
In this episode Misty shares each of her children’s adoption stories—from the strength she witnessed in the birth mothers, to the harrowing moments when it looked like things might not work out, and the sad and joyful and confusing moments in between.
An...2016-01-0457 min
Cocoon#8: “I Don’t Want You To Bear Children” (part 1 of 2)When she was 18 years old Misty Brough went from being a vibrant college freshman to being told that she was on the verge of death within a few hours. A year or so and many scans, surgeries, and treatments later, she was back at school, defying expectations and getting her life back on track. Then her doctor told her, “I don’t want you to bear children.” The risks and uncertainties—and the effects of the intense treatment she’d been through—made pregnancy a really, really bad idea.
Adoption was her only option, so instead of go...2015-12-0835 min
Cocoon#7: I Never Stopped Building My LifeYou’re 17—young, in love, full of life and hope and possibility. And then you discover that you actually are growing a life, and it seems as though that love and hope and possibility fade away—or suddenly disappear.
Gloria shares her experience finding her way through the betrayal, the heartbreak, and the early years of (very) young motherhood. And she talks about how she never wanted to make excuses for herself, but continued to work and build her life through it all.
She also brings up important issues about the loneliness of being a...2015-11-2140 min
Cocoon#6: The Ups and Downs of BreastfeedingIt’s often the first thing we do for our babies when they emerge from our bodies: put them to our breasts and hope they know what to do. Sometimes it is that easy. And sometimes it’s not. Feeding your child is the most basic and fundamental way of caring for your baby. It speaks to issues like nutrition, bonding, and infant development—so it’s no wonder people get touchy, and pushy, about it. But breastfeeding also has to do with comfort, practicality, and, sometimes, doing the impossible.
Scarlett and Brandilyn walk us through...2015-11-0435 min
Cocoon#5: Not My Mother’s StoryTwo years ago, Suvi had a baby. He was her first and he was (and is) a beautiful, healthy boy, born from a healthy—but haunted—pregnancy. Many women experience fear during pregnancy: fear of pain, fear that something is wrong with the baby, even fear of death—their own or the baby’s. But not many women have actual first-hand experience with the realities of aternal mortality. Suvi does. And that experience brought her to a place where the cultural expectation of a glowing, happy, exclusively positive pregnancy just didn’t fit.
She tells us about h...2015-10-2123 min
CocoonBonus: Jodie’s JournalLots of us turn to writing when life gets tough. It’s a proven form of therapy and it let’s us understand and experience our emotions so that we can untangle them and—sometimes—make something beautiful with them. As Jodie was pregnant with Anna, and realizing that she was not going to be able to raise her, she wrote about her experience, her thoughts and her fears—and her love for Anna—in her journal. We share it with you and hope that it may help you find beauty and peace and hope even in the most difficult ti...2015-10-1412 min
Cocoon#4: Incompatible With LifeYou’re 20 weeks pregnant and it looks like something is wrong with the baby. How do you spend the rest of the pregnancy? Jodie and Adrian tell us how they handled a worst case scenario and came out of it feeling strengthened, loved, and grateful.
2015-10-071h 03
Cocoon#3: The Birth of a Podcast
There is always hope that out of every difficult, painful experience, there is something good to be gained. Lizzie tells about her own losses and struggles and her hope that Cocoon Stories will help her—and others—find a silver lining.
Listen in iTunes here.2015-09-2337 min
Cocoon#2: Cancer Has No Place in this FamilyAnnie and Ben Howington share their experience of helping their daughter fight childhood cancer—and what it did to their family. We all have unexpected situations that come up in our lives—things that could change our plans and our goals forever. Maybe they do, and maybe they don’t, but we can choose how we respond and how much we let our circumstances shape our lives and our future. That’s what we learn from Annie and Ben.
Listen in iTunes here.2015-09-0935 min
Cocoon#1: It’s About Being Passionate About Two Things
Our first episode features Mary Jane Callister telling us how she’s handled two things that are both so common and yet so personal to so many women: the challenge of getting pregnant and starting a family, and the challenge of balancing your various passions once you become a mom.
The struggle is real.
We’d love to hear how you working to find balance in your own life—how you balance motherhood with your other passions.
p.s. You can see some of Mary Jane’s work here...2015-08-2641 min