Eat, Darling, Eat 

By the time Emma Murphy learned that a drug she took to manage epilepsy could harm babies in the womb, her daughter Lauren had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. She co-founded In-Fact (the Independent Fetal Anti- Convulsant Trust) to prevent other families from being victimized by a scandal deemed bigger than thalidomide. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/22/the-mothers-fighting-a-scandal-bigger-than-thalidomide-we-were-told-the-medication-was-safe (Janet Williams and Emma Murphy, co-founders of In-Fact, to support other parents of children affected by sodium valproate. Photograph: Annie Challenger/The Guardian)

Judge Deborah Lukens was a single mother raising two daughters on a lot of peanut butter and noodles. Her daughter, Judge Jodi Griffis, went the same law school as her mother, and Judge Lukens presented her daughter to the bar. They are the only mother and daughter serving on the bench in Pennsylvania at the same time, and now Judge Lukens is turning over her gavel to her daughter as Montgomery County Magisterial District Judge.

Twenty-four-year-old Grace Szymchack had planned to graduate on Friday, December. 15, and have a C-section to deliver her baby, Annabelle, on Monday, December. 18. Those plans changed when Annabelle came early on December. 6. But Szymchack had no intention of missing commencement. "I’d worked hard for this degree, and I was determined to walk with the rest of my class," she said, "so I just brought her to graduation with me." Szymchack received her bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education with ten-day-old Annabelle tucked inside her graduation gown. "I hope to see her walk across the stage one day too," said Szymchack, "whichever college or university she chooses....without me having to carry her." www.abc10.com/article/news/local/woman-graduates-with-baby-ferris-state/69-d866a3d4-77a0-4782-829c-96a2930d60ce?tag1=kxtvshare Photo credit: Ferris State/Andrew Schmidt