Each month, Elizabeth Esther, of “Kids, Twins, & Laundry Bins,” hosts a blog carnival, The Saturday Evening Blog Post. Bloggers can feature their favorite post from the previous month, and find tons of great new writers. Visit her site, link to your favorite January post, or find other amazing bloggers.

I am passionate about the topic of “As long as it’s healthy,” in which I ask people to stop saying that about their unborn baby. (It’s usually in the context of “We don’t care whether we have a boy or a girl as long as it’s healthy.”) I have birthed two children who were unhealthy and I know firsthand that our love for them was powerful in its ability to see the person despite layers of life support and burdens of intense physical needs. It smacks of conditional love to hear someone say “as long as it’s healthy.

A close second for the month is “Five Ways to Match Expectations to Real Life” where I talked about some of the biggest surprises of adulthood and motherhood, and how difficult those were for me to accept. Many commenters shared similar struggles and how helpful it was to hear that those things are difficult for others as well.