In 1999, Linda Sherwood gave birth to her fourth child. The oldest was just four years old, and the second-oldest had been potty-trained for only three weeks. Linda not only had her hands full, she had her lap full too. Even her shopping cart was full — Linda frequently shopped with two carts: one full of kids and the other full of food.
The path to becoming a mother of four was not an easy one. Autumn, the oldest, was actually Linda’s fourth pregnancy. The first three pregnancies had ended in miscarriages. Doctors diagnosed the miscarriages as “blighted ovums,” which means the placenta existed, but what never became a child had been absorbed back into the surrounding tissue.
In order to become a mother, Linda and Steve visited a genetic specialist and underwent many tests and swore there wasn’t any chance they were possibly related (Yes, they asked.).
With the help of some candy corn*, Linda managed to stay pregnant. Autumn arrived, and her arrival was celebrated by all. The miracle of her birth (and the struggle Linda and Steve underwent to have her) was documented briefly (and oh-so-positively) in the magazine, Woman’s World. (That article now hangs framed in the Sherwood’s living room.)
To maintain her sanity, it was only a few months after the birth of her youngest child that Linda began writing her parenting humor column, I’m the Mommy. It is a self-syndicated column that has appeared in the Missaukee County Sentinel and The Roscommon County Herald-News as well as numerous regional parenting publications.
I’m the Mommy won a number of awards from the Michigan Press Association.
You can read a number of Linda’s published columns here.
*Candy corn: It wasn’t really candy corn. It was a progesterone supplement that was manufactured by a pharmacist. The progesterone was placed inside a wax capsule shaped like candy corn and in ways not discussed here, it was delivered to Linda and helped Linda’s body maintain her pregnancies.
