Robin McGee Burns
Alternate Names for Heart Mom
after Danez Smith
- diagram-collector (staple them together and you get a flip-chart animation)
- insurance-checker
- appointment-scheduler
- worrier
- cradler
- last-minute-stalling-in-the-kitchen-food-prepper
- buzzer-holder
- tropical-fish-in-the-fish-tank-watcher
- photo-documenter
- daughter
- breast-milk-stock-piler
- guilty-conscience-date-goer
- out-of-body-weak-kneed morning-rotation team member
- forgetter-of-appropriate-acronyms-(CICU? CPICU?)-wing-dweller
- take-your-own-mom-out-and-about-to-tourist-attractions-like-Pike-Place-Market-goer
- distracter
- cafeteria-meal-eater
- check-casher (thanks, Dad – we ate it all in six days, disbelieving)
- walking-the-grounds-mushroom-spotter
- AA-meeting-goer
- sister-in-sobriety-gift-book-receiver
- cell-phone-dropper
- invitation-extender
- presidential-debates-on-tv-watcher
- doorway-stander
- hallway-pacer
- sofa-sleeper
- mastitis-avoider (heat-pack handler, breast massager)
- in-room-shower-taker
- hospital-gift-shop-sweatpants-buyer
- forgetter
- hand-my-baby-over-er
- fall-down-in-the-hallway-er
- helped-back-up-by-my-wife-er
- hope-upon-hope-I-get-to-keep-being-a-mother-er
Robin McGee Burns (she/they) is a queer, divorced, and disabled writer living and gardening in Lincoln, Nebraska. Robin is the parent of a donor-conceived child who was diagnosed in utero with Tetralogy of Fallot, member of the ParagraphNY writing community, attendee of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and winner of the 2021 Robertson Prize. She is currently at work on a memoir about discovering she, like her child, was donor-conceived.