Interview with Kristin “Momming from Bed”

Melissa Ashley Hernandez
April 30th, 2026

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I sent out a query on Bluesky asking for people who wanted to talk about their experience with motherhood to reach out. Three people responded and asked to participate. I conducted these interviews more as conversations, which felt more personal and, by extension, more appropriate for the vulnerability that can arise when discussing this topic. I went in with no prepared questions, just an open mind and a desire for humanness through the stories of strangers.

This was Kristin’s message to me:

Hello! I’m a mom of four (14, 12, 9, 7), a writer, and a litmag editor — and I’ve been mostly bedridden for coming up on four years. It’s absolutely difficult and not traditional, but I’d like to think I’ve learned to be a good mom under the circumstances. The mom guilt is extra heavy, but I’m also, I think, more acutely aware of my value/importance.

(You can read our Mums issue here!)

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Interview with Kristin Houlihan

WILD WILLOW MAGAZINE: Thanks so much for agreeing to do this interview with me, Kristin. Firstly, I want to ask the obvious question: What made you decide you wanted to do this interview?

KRISTIN HOULIHAN: The short answer, I guess, is awareness. I want people to know that moms like me exist, but more than that, I want people to know our reality. It is freaking HARD – for the mom in bed, for the spouse, for the kids. I’m not trying to be inspirational and I don’t want to sugarcoat any of my reality, BUT I also want people to know that it is possible to be a good mom from bed. When I first got sick, I got a lot of “your kids need you,” as if I wasn’t still there for them? I mean, I was a lot sicker than I am now, and I could do even less than I do now, but I also know that what I was present for was vital for all of us. I still do it to myself; berate myself for what I can’t do, but there’s an awful lot I do! And I know my worth in my kids’ lives. And my kids do too – and I want the haters and ableists to know about it, and I especially want other moms in my position to know it, too. 

WWM: If you don’t mind, and I realize it may be a bit heavy, but could you talk a little bit about what it was like when you received your diagnosis from the lens of motherhood? I realize there was a ramp-up in symptoms before then, so feel free to talk about that as well. What was it like for you? What was it like for your family?

KH: So, my actual diagnosis (with MECFS) was a huge relief, but by that time I was already seriously disabled. I got the diagnosis at Stanford and was basically advised to get into bed, which I did, and I’ve been here ever since. It was a relief because the previous year had been an epic struggle and a steep decline in health, and I was struggling to get doctors to believe me, take me seriously, and treat me appropriately. Once I had the Stanford stamp, though! People respect them (for good reason, though the care I received there turned out not to be awesome.) It opened a lot of doors and changed the way my other providers were interacting with me; suddenly, I wasn’t the crazy woman anymore! I got a power chair covered by insurance! A parking placard! My long COVID diagnosis came later – I had no positive test for COVID because I was sick in March 2020, so Stanford wouldn’t even consider it. I had to leave Stanford and Kaiser and seek out really expensive options that weren’t covered by insurance, but eventually, I got testing and treatment specific to long COVID and started to make very small bits of progress. So the diagnosis and being bedridden coincided with one another: March 2022, four years ago (!!). I was in such a terrible place at the time that I don’t really remember how I viewed it in terms of motherhood, except that I had a constant feeling of being a failure as a mother. I slept a ton, and when I was awake, I was not engaged. I had a kid in diapers and no one to care for him. I do remember getting angry, though – and I think some of that anger helped change my perspective. It’s gotten easier as the kids have gotten older – their needs have evolved into less physical things that I can’t provide and more emotional or guidance-based things that I can provide, especially as my cognition improves. But the anger… I had a visceral reaction to people implying I wasn’t there for my kids, which made me pay attention to all the ways I am (and was) there for them, all the ways I know I am an essential and integral part of my family’s life. Believe me, I am acutely aware of all that I cannot and do not do – for my kids, my spouse, myself, my home – but when the prevailing assumption is that people like me are a useless waste of space (is that harsh? maybe a little hyperbolic but I FEEL it from the outside sometimes) it gets easier to be like, “no, I am worthy, actually!” and pick out the places where I contribute, to pay more attention to those things than to my own perceived failures or moments of “wish I could.”

WWM: What was it like for you and your family adjusting to your new normal?

KH: Hm, “new normal” – there really isn’t one! Both the nature of my illness(es) as a dynamic condition and the reality of four growing kids means as soon as we think we have a routine, it changes. I mean, there are givens: my spouse worked out a telework agreement for his job because someone has to get the kids to and from school, and I can’t (we have no bus service here). We had two years of everyone in the same school (beautiful thing), but now we have two schools and three different dismissal times plus high school sports… I gave up driving before I was bedridden. This, plus my spouse needing to work and care for us all, means my kids have to do less – a lot less. I used to take them to the park to play outside after school every day – now they come home. and spend a lot more time on screens. We don’t typically have people over for playdates, because Mom is sick and Dad is working. They can’t do after-school activities because how will they get there and back? 

WWM: Right, I can imagine how tough that is. I know that you mentioned your cognition is improving, so how is school now?

KH: This school year has been better in that I’m doing marginally better. I’m still in bed, but I can help with homework on a regular basis. I was able to supervise my daughter’s required science fair project and guide her and her partner through the hands-on process. I can put frozen pizza in the oven now and occasionally use the stove (or at least supervise a kid using the stove) – I used to shake too much to do any of that safely. I can read aloud to my kids almost every day. The kids just know now. That said, everyone has their turn to have a breakdown about it, you know? Like out of the blue, one of the kids will try to pull me out of bed, or yell that I need to get up or get better. It’s like, the pent-up frustration we all feel has to come out sometimes! We talk about my illnesses a lot, and I’m open about trying new things and when I’m feeling worse or better or whatnot (at varying levels of detail depending on the kid). I’ll say the one thing my kids seem incapable of adjusting to is my need for quiet. They are LOUD. And loud is very difficult for me. It just… doesn’t seem to sink in for them. Otherwise, we all know this is not a typical life, but we also all know this is our life, and we need to make the best of it. It’s hard. And messy. And we all miss out on a lot of things. We use more screens as a family than we did before, we get less physical activity, we order takeout a whole lot more than we used to and don’t eat as healthily. Our house is messy, but I haven’t been upstairs in four years! How can I teach my kids to keep their rooms clean and organized? I can’t. My spouse is a hero – he does more than one human’s share of laboring and loving around here, but he is still only one person. So a lot just doesn’t get done.

WWM: Let’s talk a bit about your writing. What are you writing right now? Or what is the most recent thing you’ve written?

KH: So, my writing! I feel like most of my creative energy goes to the magazines I co-run rather than my writing. But this year I’ve been doing a very tiny bit better and have been able to focus a bit more on my own writing, which is great!

I rarely set writing goals because my illness makes it near impossible to follow through, but I’ve been feeling good enough lately to set a goal of submitting one piece per month this year. Which isn’t necessarily writing a new piece, but I put it in the “writing” bin because it’s a focus on me and my writing rather than others’ writing. So far, I’m on track, which is exciting for me. WHAT am I writing? Recently, I’ve been focusing on haiku – doing some craft reading, working on my form. I tend to write free verse mostly because formal poetry intimidates me and takes a lot of concentration that I don’t always have. But haiku feels accessible to me, and I like its focus on nature. I don’t get out much, but it’s been a great way for me to capture something special about each time that I do manage to get out, even if it’s just 20 minutes on the front porch. I also write them to vicariously capture the moments my family tells me about, and that’s fun, too. I’ve also wanted to expand into writing more speculative or idea-based poetry, less of the narrative truth-telling that I more naturally write, and I’ve been dipping my toes into collaborative work. My most recent publication, in fact, is both of those – with Kathryn Reese, I wrote a collaborative piece that was published in the engine(idling (Habitat, Haunted by Kristin Houlihan and Kathryn Reese). Other than this stuff, I have a languishing draft of a poetry collection focused entirely on my long COVID experience. Languishing because I’m at the hard part: the pieces are drafted, I’ve had alpha readers, editors, and coaches, and now I have to make the edits and arrange the pieces in a coherent order. I’ve managed my illness and avoided PEM by basically not doing anything that “feels hard” – it sounds lazy and like a horrible way to live (And it is! A horrible way to live, I mean. Never challenging yourself? Blech), and this feels very hard. So it never gets my attention. Sometimes I think about writing an intro that says as much and publishing it/submitting it to presses as-is. But I want it to be good, you know? 

I’ve been awful at updating my website these past couple of years, so while I do have an archive of published stuff on my site, it is not at all up to date. You can, however, find purchase links for my book there! I self-published a chapbook of micrometry a few years ago called “Lift the Mask” – all the pieces were written based on one-word prompts from the #vss365 thing on Twitter at the time. I collected a bunch of them and published them; people seem to like them!

WWM: Let’s talk about your favorite pieces!

What are your favorite pieces of work? It could be books, specific poems, a short story, or even a piece of visual artwork. Just your favorite!

And in the same vein, because of the nature of this interview, are there any pieces of art, visual or written, that you really connect with as a mother?

KH: My favorite piece I’ve ever written is called “experimental procedure” and actually hasn’t been picked up anywhere, but it’s in my book draft! Of my favorite published pieces, you can find two of them here at Corporeal (“Conversation with my son” and “enemy of the gods.”) I wrote both of these really early in my illness, before I was bedridden. “Conversation with my son,” I wrote on my phone in my notes app while sitting next to my son in the other seat of the double stroller, one of the last times I was able to walk to school to pick up my kids. Yes, we did go to the park that day! From my published book, Lift the Mask, one of my favorite pieces is “#exist” because it perfectly encapsulates what it was like at my worst. (You can hear me read it here)

What art strikes me, as a mother? We’ve published a couple of pieces in Epistemic Literary that come to mind. First, by Rachel Woodgate, this poem called “Mother’s Shadow” from our Nostalgia issue. I can FEEL it, all of it. It even makes me miss it (nostalgia!). Another piece that comes to mind is “Free Drawings” by Megan Hanlon, in our Exclusion issue. Megan writes a lot about motherhood in her pieces published in litmags, but also on her blog.

WWM: What does your writing process look like on a day when your energy is limited? And separately, do you write differently now, either structurally or stylistically, than you did prior to the onset of your symptoms?

KH: So, on low-energy days, my writing process looks like not writing! I go long stretches without writing, and I don’t force things, mostly because I can’t. 

Before I got sick, I didn’t consider myself a writer at all; I mostly considered myself an editor. I was working very part time as a freelance copy editor, mostly for independent authors. I had a couple of regular clients who kept me as busy as I was able to be, and I loved it! I was writing, though – I was blogging fairly regularly, mostly book reviews. I didn’t start writing for publication outside my blog until right around when my symptoms started. It’s all a bit of a blur, but it was in that 2020-2021 timeframe when I was homeschooling and starting to experience weird stuff with my body. The biggest change, though, I’d say, is I’ve mostly lost my ability to write long-form. I gravitated toward poetry, and short forms at that, because I don’t have the cognitive stamina to write longer stuff. I can write you these emails off the cuff, but sitting down to write something organized or researched is really difficult, if not impossible. It crashes me, which I despise because I have so many ideas, but I just cannot implement them right now. Hopefully someday.

WWM: And I’m a little all over the place with questions, so apologies if this gives you a bit of whiplash, but I keep thinking about you talking about being present for your kids and what that means for you. Can you explore that thought a bit more?

KH: What does being “present” mean to me? Well, that has changed over time, too. At its most basic, being awake with my door open. For the first couple of years I was in bed, I was asleep a lot, and even when I was awake, I wasn’t able to do anything or be with people. Nowadays, my door is open almost all the time that I’m awake, and I’m sleeping more typical hours, so I tend to be awake most of the time the kids are awake – and I hear about it when I’m not! But merely being awake isn’t entirely what I mean – I conserve my energy, purposely structure my day so I have emotional energy for my kids. I can’t join them in the kitchen for their after-school snack, but I’m here and ready to hear about their day, see and gush over the prizes my kid got in class, commiserate over how sweaty they are from walking home… that kind of thing. I am ready to hear about swim practice when my high schooler gets home, and respond to random inquiries about chickens from my tween. Basically, all that totally random and unpredictable stuff moms end up talking about with their kids throughout the day – I can do that now! They just have to come to me in my room, so it’s a little less organic than if I were, say, in the kitchen making dinner while they do their homework at the table or whatever normal families do. I try really hard not to have done something unnecessary during the day that results in me having to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t have a conversation with you,” to one of my kids, or, “you can’t be in here right now.” Because there was a time, and there still are times, when the presence of another person is too much. But they’re rare now, and I’m grateful for that.

WWM: Do you think our culture defines “presence” too narrowly when it comes to motherhood? (I know you have the added lens of your chronic illness, but your unique perspective allows you to look at the question from angles others can’t.)

KH: I mean… short answer yes, long answer… I don’t know? I think our culture puts too many demands and expectations on motherhood – or, rather, on whoever the primary caregiver is. We’re expected to be everywhere and do everything, and there’s an extreme pressure to meet all of your kids’ desires (not needs – I hope that I am still meeting my kids’ needs). The line between wants and needs is constantly being examined in our home. My spouse can only be so many places at one time and do so many things in a day! But are we, for example, approaching a point where our seven-year-old NEEDS a physical activity outside of school as opposed to “thinks it would be fun/would be good for him”? We might be! So we’ll agonize over whether and how to make something happen and hopefully figure it out. 

I’m sure there are people who are wondering why they’ve never seen me at a swim meet (and it seriously BREAKS MY HEART BECAUSE I SO WANT TO BE THERE) – but I cannot be physically present. But my spouse is there, and I’m texting my kid and my spouse and following along with races and personal bests, and I’m the one buying the swimsuits, etc. I’m present, I’m involved – but not visibly. My third grader recently had a wax museum biography project coming up – I helped her figure out her costume and props and start her research,  and I did her hair the morning of, but I wasn’t able to show up and see her being the wax figure – I’m still “present.” I’m not seen at school, but teachers hear from me electronically and have been great about doing meetings virtually to accommodate me.

I often feel like I’m failing my kids. I can’t teach them to cook or clean, I’m not modeling how to care for a home, they use screens way too much because I need quiet time, they don’t get to do nearly as much outside the home as I’d like, and they get less time outside than would be good for them. But do they know that mom and dad are trying their best? Do they know they can come to us with anything? Do they know we love them more than anything? Yes, I’m pretty sure they do. And that is presence.

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A huge thank you to Kristin for granting us the time to conduct this interview! If you’d like to support her, you can see her published work on her site here.