Birmingham
You know that feeling of arriving somewhere and instantly sensing a deep soul connection? That’s exactly how I felt when I first landed in Birmingham in October 2023.
I’ve lived in many places throughout my life— Salt Lake City, Utah; La Paz, Baja California, and Sur, Mexico; Bloomington, Indiana; and then a decade in New York City, where my husband and I built our careers and started our family. In the summer of 2020, we moved back to Utah, staying for three years until one day, we looked up and realized we were ready for a new adventure. We rented out our house, packed the essentials into the back of our pickup truck, and drove down the Baja peninsula. We thought we’d stay in La Paz for a year or two.
Five months in, Birmingham came at us from out of left field. In September, my husband applied for a job as a food stylist at Dotdash Meredith, received an offer soon after, and moved here at the beginning of October. The kids and I were supposed to stay in Baja until the holiday break, but after a hurricane left our home unlivable, we packed up and left earlier than planned.
We arrived in Birmingham on Halloween weekend. We went to the Witches Ride and trick-or-treated in Homewood, and we did the Día de los muertos event at Sloss Furnace. The fall weather was perfect, the tree-lined streets were beginning to turn, and everywhere we went, people were warm and welcoming. Even though I had never stepped foot in the South before this, I had the overwhelming feeling that this move for us was a true return home.
Mom
I always knew I wanted to bring babies into the world. In undergrad, I dreamed of becoming a nurse midwife (a failed chemistry class derailed that plan), and becoming a mother was always a given. The journey to motherhood, however, wasn’t easy for me—I was a high risk pregnancy due to a chronic blood clotting disorder, and I had to endure two years of fertility treatments before my first pregnancy and another year before my second pregnancy. Two pregnancies, 3 kids: my oldest, Asher is now 10 and I have boy/ girl twins, Mira and Ezra, who are now 5.
My approach to motherhood is rooted in community, play, creativity, and exploration — a reflection of both my personality and my experience of becoming a mother in NYC. Life as a mom in New York balances hyper-local, deeply rooted neighborhood connections with the expansive possibilities of the world at your fingertips in such a vibrant, layered city. There, life happens as much outside the home as within it—on the sidewalk, at playgrounds, riding the subway, perusing museums, or walking the neighborhood popping into shops and restaurants.
This same ethos guides how I’m raising my kids here in Birmingham. Our weekends as a family are shaped by a spirit of playful discovery, seeing this new city through our children’s eyes. Recently, Asher (10) told me, “Mom, I feel like I’m finally making memories now.” When I heard this, my heart swelled with joy, knowing he’s beginning to feel like he’s finally finding home, too.
Collective
My personal collective has always been made up of people scattered across different places, with extended family, including my parents, spread across two countries and multiple states, my career network primarily based in NYC (where I work virtually from home), and my closest mom friends living in different cities. Here in Birmingham, I’m only just beginning to get an idea of what my local collective might look like. 
As I put down roots in this new city, my deep intention is to be an active, meaningful part of the communities I live in by showing up, giving my time, sharing my voice, my story, and my experiences, and building authentic, lasting relationships.
That’s what this opportunity to contribute to Birmingham Mom Collective means to me. Starting over from scratch in a new city is a rare chance to build an entirely new world for myself and my family. I sense that as I write about our city and my life here, I am quite literally planting the seeds and tending the roots of what I hope will grow into something beautiful.
