Gemma Hartley

I want to live my best life and, honestly, it's exhausting. Sometimes I wish I could just take a break and say I'm content with where I'm at.

I went on to drink a small glass of wine or two per week throughout my pregnancy once I got over the initial shock of it being unplanned. Once I had adjusted to the fact that I was going to bring another baby into the world, I was still overwhelmed by the stress it brought on. I had suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of my son and we had decided not to have any more children. I didn't want the risks or the horrible anxiety that came with pregnancy. Yet here I was, facing all that uncertainty again. Damn right I needed a drink.

I had a lot of well-meaning friends and family searching for the right words to say after my back-to-back miscarriages. So many offered solace by guessing at where my lost babies resided in the ether: taken away to Heaven, perhaps forever, perhaps waiting for a better moment— an unknown, destined time these small souls were meant to break into the world. I accepted these comments silently, because they did nothing to comfort me.

If you were to walk into my house on any given day, you wouldn’t know that I am an efficient and organized person.

As a freelancer who works from home, I get the best of both worlds as a parent.

There is a time to be prudent and fair to “many sides” of an issue, but dealing with Nazis is not that time.

Making friends as a grown woman is hard. I figured out a few tips on how to set up successful one-on-one friend dates, as well as how to handle the territory of a budding platonic relationship with another woman.

There is a chasm separating "bad behavior" from "being bad." Our kids have to learn from us that their one-time actions do not permanently define them.

Travelling solo for the first time allowed me to regain my sense of self outside of motherhood. It showed me that I could still be a whole and interesting person without using my kids as my stand-in.

To be honest, I consider myself pretty damn good at adulting. I’m a great cook, as long as I have a recipe. I’m a self-taught professional baker.