Blog | Brittany L. Bergman

Would I Do It All Again?

The ding-dings of cheerful chimes filled my ears, infiltrating my foggy head. I struggled to make sense of why my alarm was pulling me out of sleep at 2:00 in the morning and why my body felt as though it had been hit by a truck. I forced my eyes open, letting them adjust to the darkness, and I noticed my daughter’s bassinet just a few feet away from my bed. My swirling thoughts converged: it was our first night home from the hospital, and it was time for another feeding. I wondered how long ago my husband had been… Read More

The Sound of My Voice

Oct 9 Leave a Comment

I don’t have a neat label for what he did to me. All I’m really sure of is he took something from me that I didn’t want to give, and now I have the trauma but no proof. I was home for the summer before my senior year of college. I saw him for the first time on stage, playing guitar and leading worship for the youth group where my parents were leaders. Mild flirtation on MySpace became hanging out and then going on a real date. He took me to the driving range on a warm summer night, the… Read More

Armchair Chats // Time, Memory, and Breaking Out of Survival Mode

Sep 28 Leave a Comment

This month was a whole lot quieter than last month, but it still seemed to whirl by without me really breathing it in. Selah has been sick for the past week, and I have been home with her nearly all day, every day—staying home over the weekend when she was too feverish to get out of the house, working from home when she couldn’t go to daycare. (Dan has borne much of the responsibility too, just to be clear.) But after 6 straight days of being housebound with a sick kid, I realized that this week has actually felt like… Read More

Fun Mom

Sep 19 Leave a Comment

Most Saturday mornings in my house look the same: I sit on the couch next to Selah, her tiny body snuggled into mine, one of my arms encircling her shoulder. The TV is tuned to Peppa Pig or Daniel Tiger or whoever is the character of the week, and with my free hand I hold my most recent library book. I’ll glance at my phone and see that it’s close to 9, and I don’t feel too bad. It’s still early, plenty of time to get outside or play some puzzles or make a donut run. And then I’ll glance… Read More

Timeline of a Miscarriage

Sep 12 Leave a Comment

Dan and I are at Fire + Wine celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary. The daily cocktail is right up my alley: blueberry-infused gin, a splash of grapefruit juice, a squeeze of lemon. I groan when the waiter leaves because I want that drink so badly, but I am secretly giddy to have to refuse. When he comes back I ask him which of the house-made cheeses are pasteurized. “Everything except the pecorino and manchego,” he says. I dutifully substitute parmesan on our stuffed gnocchi appetizer. It turns out I could have eaten the damn pecorino. *** Before I go to… Read More

Armchair Chats // The Craziest Month of My Life

Aug 29 Leave a Comment

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

Aug 8 Leave a Comment

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

Jul 11 Leave a Comment

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

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