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avesmaria's review
2.0
Some glimmers of good writing (especially the chapter where her friends come to visit her just after she has the baby) but mostly just a swamp of self-pitying, non-introspective bleh. So many big questions hinted at that were barely addressed.
bookph1le's review against another edition
3.0
"What if, instead of worrying about scaring pregnant women, people told them the truth? What if pregnant women were treated like thinking adults? What if everyone worried less about giving women a bad impression of motherhood?"
As someone who is sometimes a bit disillusioned and confused by parenthood, the description of this book immediately caught my eye. However, I found the premise somewhat misleading. You can definitely make the argument that, no matter how ready people think they are to become parents, they have no idea what's coming. I mean, how could anyone? If you don't have kids of your own, how could you possibly understand what's involved in caring 24/7 for a human being who starts out utterly dependent on you for their very survival? Yet while the subtitle of the book says the author wasn't ready for kids, she actually was. It wasn't as if she got pregnant without wanting to be pregnant; she'd already thought extensively about having a baby and knew she wanted one. I think, really, what she was feeling was a sense of ambivalence about the whole endeavor, and I wish the book had been slanted more that way because I think it would have resonated more deeply with me. I, too, wanted children, but once I was pregnant and thrust into the realities of raising kids, I realized that parenthood wasn't quite what I'd been sold.
Now, that doesn't mean parenthood is bad, but I chose to open this review with the quote above for a very specific reason: I have this deeply rooted sense that people are not only not entirely honest about parenthood, some people are actively trying to mislead others about it. The fact is, parenthood is hard and visceral in a way that most people are unfamiliar with unless they're in the medical profession or have cared for a sick loved one. Parenting is physically and emotionally demanding in ways few other relationships in life are, and the physical and emotional sides of parenting can be downright grueling at times. Sure, people laugh about "terrible twos" but almost in the same breath they'll start painting all these dewy pictures about all the wonderful things you'll do with your kids and how much you'll love them. Yes, there certainly are good sides, but when you're deep in parenting and going through a rough patch, sometimes those good parts are little glimmers in the midst of a whole lot of soul-sucking, demanding, exhausting work. And as hard as it is when you have a newborn, some things do get easier with time, but others most decidedly do not--and I speak from experience here.
The fact is, you're raising a human being. What I think is absent from the conversation, and what I think O'Connell is bringing to the table, is the fact that women in particular are often both explicitly and implicitly encouraged to subsume their entire selves in order to raise their children. Having trouble nursing? Spend a week in bed doing nothing but feeding your baby on demand. (And let's face it, that suggestion right there reeks of privilege. How can women who don't get any paid leave possibly do that?) Frazzled from enduring the three hundredth temper tantrum of the day? Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and think of how grateful you are to be a mother. Spend time with your kids. Read to them. Bathe them, clothe them, love them. Spend your every waking (and sometimes sleeping) moment worrying about everything: their health, how the world is going to treat them, whether they're meeting their developmental goals, etc., etc., etc. The fact is, the job of being a mother never, ever ends, and sometimes you would do anything just to get an hour to yourself so you can catch your breath. That's entirely normal and even healthy for mothers AND children, yet it's only now that we're really starting to talk frankly about these things. Yet given how high-stakes parenting has become these days, even as we are being more honest about the hard work of parenting, we're also being bombarded with messages that tell us to work harder and do more.
I guess what I wanted from this book was to see O'Connell reflect on what it was that made her want to have a baby, and how she felt her image of what it would be like matched to her image of what it was actually like. I admire how frank and open she is about how much she struggled to put her motherhood in terms she herself could understand. Mothers are judged so harshly that it's no mean feat to put it all out there for others to read and dissect. But this book felt like it was still being pretty delicate, probing at the edges of the question of what it meant for O'Connell to become a mother without treading too far into dark territory. I'm not suggesting that O'Connell is putting up a front and that she doesn't love her child, because I think she very clearly does love him. What I mean is that while there is a lot of introspection in this book, with the exception of the quote I posted above, I didn't feel there was as much dissection of how misguided and downright harmful societal expectations surrounding motherhood can be.
She does, however, cover some territory that I think is critically important, such as the effects pregnancy and early motherhood have on a woman's body. Breastfeeding in particular is an issue I take to heart, since it was so excruciating for me, which took me completely by surprise. Like O'Connell says, we're constantly fed messages about how "natural" it is and how it's what's best for baby, but I can't once remember having anyone tell me it was going to be painful and that it might be a difficult process for both me and my baby. No one told me how to look for signs of failure to thrive, so that when my first child lost a dangerous amount of weight, I was shocked. I was nursing her non-stop, yet I didn't produce enough milk for her, and she was quite literally starving. I had no idea. She was my first, and I thought maybe she was colicky, so when the pediatrician told me (not in a judgemental way--the pediatrician was really great and supportive) what was going on, I just sobbed. I felt like the worst person in the world, like I was starving my own baby, when in reality I had been operating with far too little information, resulting in bad health effects for both me and my baby. I have no problem with women being encouraged to breastfeed, but I have a HUGE problem with the fact that they aren't comprehensively educated about it, that lactation consultants and nurses don't sit down and inform women about things like mastitis (had it--had no idea what was going on until I got to my ob/gyn and was diagnosed. Didn't even know it was possible.) or clogged ducts or the possibility that they won't produce enough milk even if they nurse constantly and/or pump. So O'Connell's honesty about breastfeeding really resonated with me. I'm sincerely happy for every woman who is able to breastfeed with ease and who enjoys it, but by not being honest with women about how hard it can be, we encourage them to internalize the problem and turn the blame on themselves if it doesn't work out. When I think of the lengths I went to with both my kids--the hospital-grade pumping that produced tiny quantities at each session, the drugs I took that made me physically ill, the pain I endured--it boggles my mind. It's not that women are unwilling to make sacrifices or take on difficult tasks for their children, it's that society tends to infantilize them, either out of fear that they'll put women off the difficult parts of parenting or an insidious form of patriarchal oppression that believes the child is always more important than the mother, so it's best to lie to the mother and manipulate her into doing what needs to be done.
Another part of the book I found especially important was O'Connell's confessions about her experiences with sex after pregnancy. Again, as she says, women need to know about these things. I could feel myself tearing up when things finally came to a head and she realized that her own worries and fears and lack of desire were interpreted by her partner as disinterest in him. How is this good for anyone? Why do most of us have to go through birthing classes to learn what we need to do during labor, but not postpartum classes, where we can learn about the changes to our body and how to cope, where we can be evaluated for postpartum depression and find the help we need? A couple of times, O'Connell touches on the thing I discovered about pregnancy and post-pregnancy: when you're visibly pregnant, people will go out of their way for you, but the minute you give birth, you're rendered invisible. When I had that "baby bump" (a cutesy term I hate with a passion) people held doors for me, but when I was struggling to get through a door while pushing a stroller holding my baby, people would walk right past me. I think this speaks to the cult of motherhood that exists in this country, a cult that worships fetuses over mothers, then absolves itself of any responsibility to care for either mothers or babies once they're born. If people were really, really serious about the importance of babies, this country wouldn't have issues like a lack of paid family leave, prohibitively expensive childcare, or rampant child poverty.
This book reads very quickly with some very short asides, like the one I posted above. I think this is reflective of the blog style of writing, and while I don't dislike it per se, I think it sometimes sacrifices depth for punch. The quote I used was so fantastic and so profound, and I wish I'd seen some more in-depth exploration of it in the book.
There's one other aspect of this story I'd like to comment on, and that's the author's relationship with her then-fiance. Yes, a lot of their problems boil down to a lack of communication, particularly on the author's part at times, since she doesn't tell him important things she should say to him so he would understand her better. I'm not going to lay all the blame at either her feet or his, though. For as important as I think educating women about childbirth and parenting is, it's equally important for men to learn. For heterosexual relationships in particular, if men were taught about the effects pregnancy and childbirth have on a woman's body, they would be better equipped to help their partners. They would know the signs of postpartum depression and could help their partners seek the care they need. They would know about (and hopefully be sympathetic to) the ways pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding can wreck havoc on a woman's body, making things that used to be pleasurable and enjoyable anything but. This would help not only their female partners but the men themselves, because it would help them to see that if their female partners are too exhausted or too tapped out to give to them, the situation will hopefully be temporary. I don't see how your romantic relationship can't take the backseat to parenting for a while, and hopefully by fostering this kind of understanding between parents, we could make them equal partners and educate them on how to support and help one another.
I would recommend this book to anyone curious about becoming a parent, anyone who's about to become a parent, or anyone who is a parent. There's something for all of us here, because if we had more of a sense of community instead of feeling like we're each our own lonely island, maybe we could make parenting a better experience for all, which would benefit not just parents, but also children.
As someone who is sometimes a bit disillusioned and confused by parenthood, the description of this book immediately caught my eye. However, I found the premise somewhat misleading. You can definitely make the argument that, no matter how ready people think they are to become parents, they have no idea what's coming. I mean, how could anyone? If you don't have kids of your own, how could you possibly understand what's involved in caring 24/7 for a human being who starts out utterly dependent on you for their very survival? Yet while the subtitle of the book says the author wasn't ready for kids, she actually was. It wasn't as if she got pregnant without wanting to be pregnant; she'd already thought extensively about having a baby and knew she wanted one. I think, really, what she was feeling was a sense of ambivalence about the whole endeavor, and I wish the book had been slanted more that way because I think it would have resonated more deeply with me. I, too, wanted children, but once I was pregnant and thrust into the realities of raising kids, I realized that parenthood wasn't quite what I'd been sold.
Now, that doesn't mean parenthood is bad, but I chose to open this review with the quote above for a very specific reason: I have this deeply rooted sense that people are not only not entirely honest about parenthood, some people are actively trying to mislead others about it. The fact is, parenthood is hard and visceral in a way that most people are unfamiliar with unless they're in the medical profession or have cared for a sick loved one. Parenting is physically and emotionally demanding in ways few other relationships in life are, and the physical and emotional sides of parenting can be downright grueling at times. Sure, people laugh about "terrible twos" but almost in the same breath they'll start painting all these dewy pictures about all the wonderful things you'll do with your kids and how much you'll love them. Yes, there certainly are good sides, but when you're deep in parenting and going through a rough patch, sometimes those good parts are little glimmers in the midst of a whole lot of soul-sucking, demanding, exhausting work. And as hard as it is when you have a newborn, some things do get easier with time, but others most decidedly do not--and I speak from experience here.
The fact is, you're raising a human being. What I think is absent from the conversation, and what I think O'Connell is bringing to the table, is the fact that women in particular are often both explicitly and implicitly encouraged to subsume their entire selves in order to raise their children. Having trouble nursing? Spend a week in bed doing nothing but feeding your baby on demand. (And let's face it, that suggestion right there reeks of privilege. How can women who don't get any paid leave possibly do that?) Frazzled from enduring the three hundredth temper tantrum of the day? Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and think of how grateful you are to be a mother. Spend time with your kids. Read to them. Bathe them, clothe them, love them. Spend your every waking (and sometimes sleeping) moment worrying about everything: their health, how the world is going to treat them, whether they're meeting their developmental goals, etc., etc., etc. The fact is, the job of being a mother never, ever ends, and sometimes you would do anything just to get an hour to yourself so you can catch your breath. That's entirely normal and even healthy for mothers AND children, yet it's only now that we're really starting to talk frankly about these things. Yet given how high-stakes parenting has become these days, even as we are being more honest about the hard work of parenting, we're also being bombarded with messages that tell us to work harder and do more.
I guess what I wanted from this book was to see O'Connell reflect on what it was that made her want to have a baby, and how she felt her image of what it would be like matched to her image of what it was actually like. I admire how frank and open she is about how much she struggled to put her motherhood in terms she herself could understand. Mothers are judged so harshly that it's no mean feat to put it all out there for others to read and dissect. But this book felt like it was still being pretty delicate, probing at the edges of the question of what it meant for O'Connell to become a mother without treading too far into dark territory. I'm not suggesting that O'Connell is putting up a front and that she doesn't love her child, because I think she very clearly does love him. What I mean is that while there is a lot of introspection in this book, with the exception of the quote I posted above, I didn't feel there was as much dissection of how misguided and downright harmful societal expectations surrounding motherhood can be.
She does, however, cover some territory that I think is critically important, such as the effects pregnancy and early motherhood have on a woman's body. Breastfeeding in particular is an issue I take to heart, since it was so excruciating for me, which took me completely by surprise. Like O'Connell says, we're constantly fed messages about how "natural" it is and how it's what's best for baby, but I can't once remember having anyone tell me it was going to be painful and that it might be a difficult process for both me and my baby. No one told me how to look for signs of failure to thrive, so that when my first child lost a dangerous amount of weight, I was shocked. I was nursing her non-stop, yet I didn't produce enough milk for her, and she was quite literally starving. I had no idea. She was my first, and I thought maybe she was colicky, so when the pediatrician told me (not in a judgemental way--the pediatrician was really great and supportive) what was going on, I just sobbed. I felt like the worst person in the world, like I was starving my own baby, when in reality I had been operating with far too little information, resulting in bad health effects for both me and my baby. I have no problem with women being encouraged to breastfeed, but I have a HUGE problem with the fact that they aren't comprehensively educated about it, that lactation consultants and nurses don't sit down and inform women about things like mastitis (had it--had no idea what was going on until I got to my ob/gyn and was diagnosed. Didn't even know it was possible.) or clogged ducts or the possibility that they won't produce enough milk even if they nurse constantly and/or pump. So O'Connell's honesty about breastfeeding really resonated with me. I'm sincerely happy for every woman who is able to breastfeed with ease and who enjoys it, but by not being honest with women about how hard it can be, we encourage them to internalize the problem and turn the blame on themselves if it doesn't work out. When I think of the lengths I went to with both my kids--the hospital-grade pumping that produced tiny quantities at each session, the drugs I took that made me physically ill, the pain I endured--it boggles my mind. It's not that women are unwilling to make sacrifices or take on difficult tasks for their children, it's that society tends to infantilize them, either out of fear that they'll put women off the difficult parts of parenting or an insidious form of patriarchal oppression that believes the child is always more important than the mother, so it's best to lie to the mother and manipulate her into doing what needs to be done.
Another part of the book I found especially important was O'Connell's confessions about her experiences with sex after pregnancy. Again, as she says, women need to know about these things. I could feel myself tearing up when things finally came to a head and she realized that her own worries and fears and lack of desire were interpreted by her partner as disinterest in him. How is this good for anyone? Why do most of us have to go through birthing classes to learn what we need to do during labor, but not postpartum classes, where we can learn about the changes to our body and how to cope, where we can be evaluated for postpartum depression and find the help we need? A couple of times, O'Connell touches on the thing I discovered about pregnancy and post-pregnancy: when you're visibly pregnant, people will go out of their way for you, but the minute you give birth, you're rendered invisible. When I had that "baby bump" (a cutesy term I hate with a passion) people held doors for me, but when I was struggling to get through a door while pushing a stroller holding my baby, people would walk right past me. I think this speaks to the cult of motherhood that exists in this country, a cult that worships fetuses over mothers, then absolves itself of any responsibility to care for either mothers or babies once they're born. If people were really, really serious about the importance of babies, this country wouldn't have issues like a lack of paid family leave, prohibitively expensive childcare, or rampant child poverty.
This book reads very quickly with some very short asides, like the one I posted above. I think this is reflective of the blog style of writing, and while I don't dislike it per se, I think it sometimes sacrifices depth for punch. The quote I used was so fantastic and so profound, and I wish I'd seen some more in-depth exploration of it in the book.
There's one other aspect of this story I'd like to comment on, and that's the author's relationship with her then-fiance. Yes, a lot of their problems boil down to a lack of communication, particularly on the author's part at times, since she doesn't tell him important things she should say to him so he would understand her better. I'm not going to lay all the blame at either her feet or his, though. For as important as I think educating women about childbirth and parenting is, it's equally important for men to learn. For heterosexual relationships in particular, if men were taught about the effects pregnancy and childbirth have on a woman's body, they would be better equipped to help their partners. They would know the signs of postpartum depression and could help their partners seek the care they need. They would know about (and hopefully be sympathetic to) the ways pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding can wreck havoc on a woman's body, making things that used to be pleasurable and enjoyable anything but. This would help not only their female partners but the men themselves, because it would help them to see that if their female partners are too exhausted or too tapped out to give to them, the situation will hopefully be temporary. I don't see how your romantic relationship can't take the backseat to parenting for a while, and hopefully by fostering this kind of understanding between parents, we could make them equal partners and educate them on how to support and help one another.
I would recommend this book to anyone curious about becoming a parent, anyone who's about to become a parent, or anyone who is a parent. There's something for all of us here, because if we had more of a sense of community instead of feeling like we're each our own lonely island, maybe we could make parenting a better experience for all, which would benefit not just parents, but also children.
kdahlo's review
4.0
Easy to read and compelling. I don't normally read books about parenting or giving birth, so while I heard this book is very open and honest I have nothing to compare it to.
cdencklau's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
It is like Meaghan took my birthing and post-partum experience and put it in her book. It feels….like a big relief to see other people have similar experiences. All the things you are supposed to think and feel. This book is for everyone struggling with motherhood. Who am I? What do I do? Am I doing everything wrong? She doesn’t have the answers- but she’s here to be with you in these moments. ❤️
meaghanjohns's review
4.0
”What if everyone worried less about giving women a bad impression of motherhood?”
I’m so grateful for O’Connell’s honesty.
I’m so grateful for O’Connell’s honesty.
shelfexplanatory's review against another edition
3.0
"What if, instead of worrying about scaring pregnant women, people told them the truth? What if pregnant women were treated like thinking adults? What if everyone worried less about giving women a bad impression of motherhood?"
⭐⭐⭐1/2
AND NOW WE HAVE EVERYTHING is Meaghan O'Connell's exploration of pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood. O'Connell does not sugarcoat her experience; she goes into detail of her 30+ hours in labor, suffering excruciating pain despite being so heavily medicated that most of her body has gone numb.
Afterwards, in the early months of motherhood, O'Connell struggles with undiagnosed postpartum depression, constantly battling feelings of inadequacy and imposter syndrome. She resents the feeling that her identity is completely consumed by that of being a mother. She even seems to view herself as less than human at times, referring to her postpartum body as a "grey stack of flesh." And then she eventually emerges from the fog, only to have people suggest that she should start thinking of having another child.
I picked up this book on a complete whim and couldn't put it down. The subtitle is "On Motherhood Before I Was Ready," so I was expecting/hoping for some discussion on being pressured to have children, or some sort of crossroad where the author had to decide whether she wanted to be a mother. But the subtitle simply refers to pregnancy being unplanned and before she was married (though she was engaged and alluded to the fact that they were careless with their BC methods). Ultimately, she did know she always wanted to have a baby, so I was a little disappointed with the somewhat misleading title.
I've never had illusions about the less glamorous side of motherhood, but O'Connell's experience was still eye opening. Hopefully her experience is on the extreme end, but I definitely appreciated how honest this book was, and O'Connell does end it on a hopeful note which is encouraging. I probably need to read other stories to balance this one out, since the author definitely held a lot of privilege, such as her ability to decide when she wanted to go back to work.
⭐⭐⭐1/2
AND NOW WE HAVE EVERYTHING is Meaghan O'Connell's exploration of pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood. O'Connell does not sugarcoat her experience; she goes into detail of her 30+ hours in labor, suffering excruciating pain despite being so heavily medicated that most of her body has gone numb.
Afterwards, in the early months of motherhood, O'Connell struggles with undiagnosed postpartum depression, constantly battling feelings of inadequacy and imposter syndrome. She resents the feeling that her identity is completely consumed by that of being a mother. She even seems to view herself as less than human at times, referring to her postpartum body as a "grey stack of flesh." And then she eventually emerges from the fog, only to have people suggest that she should start thinking of having another child.
I picked up this book on a complete whim and couldn't put it down. The subtitle is "On Motherhood Before I Was Ready," so I was expecting/hoping for some discussion on being pressured to have children, or some sort of crossroad where the author had to decide whether she wanted to be a mother. But the subtitle simply refers to pregnancy being unplanned and before she was married (though she was engaged and alluded to the fact that they were careless with their BC methods). Ultimately, she did know she always wanted to have a baby, so I was a little disappointed with the somewhat misleading title.
I've never had illusions about the less glamorous side of motherhood, but O'Connell's experience was still eye opening. Hopefully her experience is on the extreme end, but I definitely appreciated how honest this book was, and O'Connell does end it on a hopeful note which is encouraging. I probably need to read other stories to balance this one out, since the author definitely held a lot of privilege, such as her ability to decide when she wanted to go back to work.
marpaige's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy and Abortion
hamilgrom's review
5.0
Five stars for brutal honestly. Thank you, Meaghan for sharing all of the deeply personal details of your journey to motherhood. Not always easy to read, but certainly easy to relate to whether or not you have kids.