Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

Armchair Chats // The Craziest Month of My Life

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Oh, what a month! On July 21, Dan and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary with the best wood-fired pizza I’ve ever had (thanks, Fire + Wine!). I knew I was pregnant at the time, so I dutifully passed on the cocktail menu and sipped my water instead. The next day, I miscarried that sweet baby. I don’t remember the exact date, but sometime that week we found out our dog Riley had cancer on her tail, and shortly after that she had surgery to remove it. The tests revealed that it had not spread and the vet was able… Read More

Your God Will Be My God

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Dan and I spoke our marriage vows on a warm July day, the air thick with humidity after a surprise summer storm. We held hands and took turns echoing the pastor: “For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.” I tried to focus on the words, on their weight, on Dan’s eyes, on my commitment. But all I could think about was the stray hair blowing against my cheek and the dense air that had gotten trapped under my dress. It felt like my legs were suffocating. After declaring “till death parts us,” we spoke… Read More

Jumping the Rails

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The lights dimmed as Linkin Park’s early-2000s hit “In the End” began to pulse through the speakers. Instantly I was transported back to my high school weight room, which smelled of rubber and teenage body odor and where the floor was always inexplicably gritty. The workout instructor’s husky voice crackled into her microphone, projecting through the speakers louder than was really necessary. She told us that class would begin in two minutes and we could warm up at our stations until then. I took my place on rowing machine number four, strapped my feet into the plastic braces, and grasped… Read More

Armchair Chats // A Tiny Act of Love

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I’m fairly no-nonsense when it comes to Selah’s bedtime. I’ll admit that our routine is a little longer than I’d like, made even longer by typical toddler stalling techniques, but I do what I can to keep it from going too far overboard. Once she’s in her crib (I cringe to think about switching her to a toddler bed soon), I tuck the watercolor rose muslin blanket around her little body—the same one I swaddled her in during our first morning together in the hospital. She kisses each of my hands and then I kiss hers. I plant a kiss… Read More

This Is 31 // A Birthday Q & A

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I had some pretty big thoughts about turning 29, and more big thoughts about turning 30. But turning 31? It just doesn’t feel that monumental. Since I didn’t have anything super profound to share, I thought it would be fun to crowd source a birthday post in the form of an old-school Q & A blog post. The format and questions don’t really have anything to do with my birthday (well, one question does), but I still think it’s fun. Here we go! What are 3 books that have changed your life? The New Jim Crow: Before I read this… Read More

Armchair Chats // Royal Wedding Edition

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I’m about to out myself as an obsessive fan of the royal family, and I’m only mildly embarrassed about it. When I was a kid, I made up these little fantasy stories that I was actually part of the royal family. As I got older, these morphed into love stories in which I married William or Harry and lived a difficult but satisfying life as a royal. At one point I even grilled my mom to make sure she wasn’t keeping secrets from me, considering my name literally means “from Britain.” She assured me that she read the name Brittany in… Read More

I Carried You

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I wrote this essay about six months ago, and a portion of it was shared on the Coffee + Crumbs social media accounts as a #ccfreewrite. Today I’m sharing the whole essay because that seems appropriate for the week after Mother’s Day. I carried you before I even knew you were there, back when you were just a poppy seed inside my rapidly growing womb. I didn’t believe the pregnancy test at first, convinced as I was that my turn was still many months away. I carried you to church on the day I thought I was losing you, choosing… Read More

The #1 Thing I Learned from My 3rd Round of Whole 30

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I’m currently doing my third Whole 30 (the other two were way back three years ago), and honestly, I was a little nervous about starting it. I knew I could handle the cooking—I had plenty of favorite recipes to choose from—and I certainly knew I could handle the discipline of following the rules. I’m a classic type-A personality, a true Upholder, and an Enneagram type 1. I am HERE for all the rules. But it was actually the rules that made my first two Whole 30 experiences so unhealthy. Back in the day, I was chasing hard after the perfect… Read More

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