baby steps

baby steps

featured

parenting & family

A Breastfeeding Journey Of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Baby Step

“I woke up feeling like someone had run me over with a truck and I thought, “I guess this is motherhood.” And probably would’ve died thinking that.”

Riese —

Jul 10, 2025

baby steps

featured

parenting & family

I Regret To Inform You That Our Baby Will Be Throwing Up On Your Shirt

At first you don’t really know which of the baby’s behaviors are going to be a Thing and which are just the music playing in the lobby before you sit…

Riese —

May 1, 2025

af+ personal essay

baby steps

af+

Our Birth Story Has Severe Features

Our birth story has everything: preclampsia with severe features, catheters, bloody explosions, ginger ale, nurses from heaven, a birthing ball used as a chair and the eventual debut of a…

Riese —

Apr 8, 2025

af+ personal essay

baby steps

af+

Baby Steps #6: The Best Laid Birth Plans

Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know until you know it — and if there’s anything I can say about our little Prenatal Birth & Labor class, it is…

Riese —

Feb 5, 2025

af+ personal essay

baby steps

queer pregnancy

Baby Steps #5: Fixing the Window

“If I’d made it this far into the pregnancy without being forced to face the reality that has inspired many of my generation to forego reproduction altogether, I could do…

Riese —

Jan 22, 2025

af+ personal essay

baby steps

af+

Baby Steps #4: And I Feel God At This Baby Shower Tonight

“When it comes to baby showers, my wife was pretty certain about what she wanted: not to have one.”

Riese —

Jan 8, 2025

af+ personal essay

baby steps

queer pregnancy

Baby Steps #3: Allegedly Essential Baby Products, Looking for Gays On The Baby App and Surveillance Anxiety

Of the many allegedly essential items we must procure for our baby — how many are actually essential and why do I feel so weird about surveillance products? Also: trying…

Riese —

Dec 17, 2024

af+ personal essay

baby steps

queer pregnancy

Baby Steps #2: Telling Chosen Family, Bonding With Heterosexuals and a Lot of Dog Feelings

When do you start telling people that you’re pregnant and how should you do it? Is pregnancy the great equalizer when it comes to the straight family gaze? Do unborn…

Riese —

Dec 3, 2024

af+ personal essay

baby steps

af+

Baby Steps #1: How We Got Gay Pregnant

My wife and I are having a baby and this is the first edition of Baby Steps, a column about the gestation and eventual birth of this human child who…

Riese —

Nov 19, 2024