Pregnancy and Childbirth https://www.thesunmagazine.org/rss en-us The Good End of Pleasant Street When our landlords came by to introduce themselves, they stood beside a shelf of our books on how to avoid suffering: “Develop a mind that clings to nothing,” said the Buddhist Diamond Sutra; Be Here Now, read the spine of a Ram Dass book. Dan was a general contractor and wore a flat cap and a half grin. Or a sneer. I wasn’t sure which.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28987 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-the-good-end-of-pleasant-street 606-14-easley-preview.jpg 606 - Easley - Lanier Milk Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28993 Sun, 31 May 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-milk 606-30-wild-preview.jpg 606 - Wild - Milk Nicknames Get to know Boxcar Betty, Stick Dick, Lali, and the Cajun Asian

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28923 Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/602-nicknames 602-30-bookbinder-preview.jpg 602 - Bookbinder - Nicknames Love in All Directions Sometimes you had to conjure your own joy. Scratch that. Most of the time you had to conjure your own joy. So you had better suck it up and start chopping onions.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28902 Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/601-love-in-all-directions 601-44-fields-preview.jpg 601 - Fields - Mandelbaum House Hunting Our sordid credit history seems to sadden more than shock her. Such nice people, she must be thinking. How do these things happen?

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28883 Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/600-house-hunting 600-20-abeles-preview.jpg 600-Abeles-Greenberg The Childless Aunt Though a faint hope that I might yet conceive continued to smolder in the back of my mind, at some point it dawned on me that none of these joys and trials I wished for myself were exclusive to biological parents. I could love any child who needed me.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28866 Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/599-the-childless-aunt 599-24-hayashi-preview.jpg 599-Hayashi-Kulidzan Selected Poems sybil.smith7@gmail.com I know now, / having woken / and climbed away from you / in the chill / that I can do it. / Cast a spell / on my body.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28864 Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/599-selected-poems 599-31-dickert-preview.jpg 599-Dickert-Smith Inside the Whale Excerpted from Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story by Erica Stern. Available via Barrel House. Copyright © 2025. All rights reserved.



]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28790 Tue, 17 Jun 2025 16:33:49 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28790-inside-the-whale Tart jill.marie.k@gmail.com After the massage I take myself to lunch. I eat a passion fruit tart. It’s delicious—sour and sweet both in perfect balance. Its perfection makes me angry. The filling is bright yellow. I watch my fork pick up the yellow and the crumbs. I am too focused on this tart. I wonder if I have been worrying so much that the worry muscles in my brain are now broken, permanently sharpened to a point of attention that is useless now, an ambulance siren for no one.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28718 Fri, 28 Feb 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/591-tart 591-22-feld-preview.jpg 591-Feld-Kolongowski Love and Other Pandemics jhnelson427@gmail.com The thing about the apocalypse is that nobody said it would be so beautiful. Spring is letting down her hair. The air is warm, sweet, and clear. Moss drapes over a storm drain, parting for the rush of early-morning runoff. A heavy quiet has descended since we took to our homes, save for the shrieking hawks circling the shuttered strip-mall parking lot next door to my mother’s house outside of Philadelphia.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28605 Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/587-love-and-other-pandemics 587-41-kaye-preview.jpg 587 - Kaye - Nelson Timing A broken clock, a chance encounter, a long-distance relationship

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28603 Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/587-timing 587-30-bruns-preview.jpg 587 - Bruns - Timing Penumbra If Roe was created in the liminal space of the penumbra, Dobbs is the total eclipse that makes all go dark.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28574 Mon, 30 Sep 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/586-penumbra 586-14-ellis-preview.jpg 586 - Ellis - Stein August at Forty-Three For six years we’ve taken no precautions / and my body has made no / third baby, nor have we plotted / to create another life, content / to let nature do what it would

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28536 Wed, 31 Jul 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/584-august-at-forty-three Better Yet Wanting to go beyond where I’ve already been: / Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing to do? / Then why would I rather go all the way back to the day / before I was born?

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28531 Wed, 31 Jul 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/584-better-yet Staying Tender michelle.egan.dubarry@gmail.com Listening to parents who are newly grieving, I notice the places where their voices break. It is not when they describe the concrete details of suffering and lifeless bodies; it is in the emptiness that follows.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28529 Wed, 31 Jul 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/584-staying-tender 584-14-wolf-preview.jpg 584 - Wolf - DuBarry New Life Since I had no one else to ask, I asked the hunger where it wanted to go. It said, West, like that was a point on the map called Freedom. So I drove west. I stopped at a Walmart somewhere in Kansas and bought a propane camp stove and a tent, because hotels were not in the budget.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28509 Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/583-new-life 583 - Malizio - Osterloh - Preview 583 - Malizio - Osterloh Falling Action in Hoboken There is something hard in me, a seedlike malignancy. I can’t say how it got there or when, but I can’t remember the last time I felt pure love or sadness or joy. It’s always a mix of things, some confused and muted in-between.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24219 Wed, 31 Jan 2024 05:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24219-falling-action-in-hoboken Animal Moments At the hospital two nurses, a doctor, and Dave all stand and watch as I transform into animal. My body expels fluids, feces, and finally a human baby. I grip the bed, howl, grunt, and writhe. Outside the window the trees are sunlit, and the leaves stutter in the breeze. I try to forget that I took a shit in front of Dave.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28072 Tue, 31 Oct 2023 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28072-animal-moments Portrait Of US Monica Jane Frisell and Adam Scher have been traveling the U.S. in their “nomadic photo ark” . . . . attempting to find evidence of what we share by making large-format portraits of Americans from different states and recording short audio interviews with them.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26276 Fri, 30 Jun 2023 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26276-portrait-of-us Pain Breaking a leg, giving birth, suffering for beauty

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27324 Wed, 31 May 2023 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27324-pain Long After Long after we divorced, long after you died of alcoholism, I still remember that day when I stepped out of the clinic, blinked hard against tears, sank into your VW Bug, pulled the door shut, and whispered, “I’m pregnant.”

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23965 Sat, 31 Dec 2022 05:10:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23965-long-after Invasion Of Privacy Three of the nine justices have publicly articulated their position that the Constitution does not contain a right to privacy — at least, when it comes to matters involving contraception. . . . And that’s just the three we know about.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27704 Mon, 31 Oct 2022 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27704-invasion-of-privacy The Great Decline Frisch: You found about a 1 percent decline in sperm counts per year.

Swan: Yes, which would mean a 50 percent decline over fifty years. We’re actually seeing something a little steeper than that.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27626 Wed, 31 Aug 2022 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27626-the-great-decline Grief Almanac For An Apocalypse To live long enough in this world means to learn to nestle the twins of grief and hope in your arms. I tuck the bottle of fertility medication next to the black dress I bought for my mother’s funeral. We plant a white pine in the yard, in view of the window of our empty nursery.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25077 Wed, 31 Aug 2022 04:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/25077-grief-almanac-for-an-apocalypse Coffins Lining The Road I wondered if I had stumbled upon some universal principle: the more beautiful the illusion, the more egregious the lie.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26703 Mon, 31 Jan 2022 05:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26703-coffins-lining-the-road Life, Without Imitation Some nights, when medication and meditation have failed to put me to sleep, I think of the relatives who abandoned my family to become white people.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24079 Thu, 28 Oct 2021 04:05:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/24079-life-without-imitation The Unknowing Watching my wife, I have finally found the key to the map. I understand why men have spent millennia constructing systems to strip the power from this body: Look how she pulls her spine up to the sky. Look how effortlessly she strings herself between the ordinary and the divine.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21901 Thu, 24 Jun 2021 04:10:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/21901-the-unknowing The Cat Years He stops short, horrified that he has interrupted his employer during an emotional moment. Bishop quickly wipes away her tears and says, in Portuguese, Don’t worry, José. I’m only crying in English.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26267 Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/26267-the-cat-years What To Expect Try to avoid symbolism and metaphors, and leave fate out of it, too. Fate was not preparing you for this loss when you were an eight-year-old farm girl and held that stillborn piglet for hours in the barn.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23942 Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/23942-what-to-expect Hello, Goodbye You want to write back, He died. You want your hurt to be the world’s hurt. This pain is what was born tonight. It’s a palpable, physical thing, an object of infinite dimension that can be looked at from many angles, held closely or at a distance, and always there is some new aspect of the sorrow.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27761 Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/27761-hello-goodbye