Motherhood Memoir

A wide range of women—actors, athletes, academics, CEOs, writers, small-business owners, birth workers, physicians, and activists—share their experiences of becoming mothers in this multifaceted, moving, and revealing collection.

Early motherhood is supposed to be joyous, but for Aaisha Alvi those early days were ruined by terrifying thoughts about her baby and family. Her experience was the antithesis of everything she had ever been told about motherhood, far beyond the trials of breastfeeding or putting her baby to sleep. Aaisha did recover and began to enjoy motherhood. She was thrilled when she fell pregnant again. Sadly, that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and the psychosis returned. This time, however, she was blindsided by the unimaginable: voices urged her to stab her daughter and to harm innocent people.

Kate Braestrup's life was transformed by the loss of her husband; now Kate faces the possibility that she may lose her son. As a young mother, Kate Braestrup discovered the fierce protectiveness that accompanies parenthood. In the intervening years - through mourning her husband and the joy of remarriage and a blended family - Kate has absorbed the rewards and complications of that spirit. But when her eldest son joins the marines, Kate is at a crossroads.

Louise was like any other excited mother-to-be during her first pregnancy, but no one could have predicted what happened when she gave birth. During an emergency c-section, she had severe complications and fought for her life over a number of days, whilst her son was taken into NICU. This terrifying experience impacted on Louise's mental health in a way that completely changed her life, as she has battled to come to terms with what happened to her, whilst also becoming a mother.

Lauren’s life story is a raw and gripping journey through the darker side of human experience. With the false freedom of quick cash and the harsh reality of hitting rock bottom, Lauren's quest for independence and survival is both intense and inspiring. When adversity strikes, she reaches out for help but encounters predators at every turn, each encounter shaping her understanding of herself and the world. Reflecting on her troubled childhood in a small town, Lauren's narrative captures the delicate balance between innocence and exploitation, strength and vulnerability. Through vivid and ...

When Madeleine Dean discovered that her son Harry was stealing from the family to feed a painkiller addiction, she was days away from taking the biggest risk of her life: running for statewide office in Pennsylvania. For years, she had sensed something was wrong. Harry was losing weight and losing friends. He had lost the brightness in his eyes and voice, changing from a young boy with boundless enthusiasm to a shadow of himself, chasing something she could not see. Now her worst fears had come to light.

The literary tradition of the fairy tale has long endured as the vehicle by which we interrogate the laws of reality. These fantastical stories, populated with wolves, kings, and wicked witches, have throughout history served as a template for understanding culture, society, and that muddy terrain we call our collective human psyche. In Happily, Sabrina Orah Mark reimagines the modern fairy tale, turning it inside out and searching it for the wisdom to better understand our contemporary moment in what Mark so incisively calls “this strange American weather.”

When Meaghan O'Connell got accidentally pregnant in her twenties and decided to keep the baby, she realized that the book she needed - a brutally honest, agenda-free reckoning with the emotional and existential impact of motherhood - didn't exist. So she decided to write it herself. And Now We Have Everything is O'Connell's exploration of the cataclysmic, impossible-to-prepare-for experience of becoming a mother. With her dark humor and hair-trigger B.S. detector, O'Connell addresses the pervasive imposter syndrome that comes with unplanned pregnancy, among other issues.

As a multiracial household in Chicago’s North Side community of Rogers Park, race is at the core of Francesca T. Royster and her family's world, influencing everyday acts of parenting and the conception of what family truly means. Like Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, this lyrical and affecting memoir focuses on a unit of three: the author; her wife Annie, who's white; and Cecilia, the Black daughter they adopt as a couple in their forties and fifties.

One ordinary day, a caseworker from the Department of Children and Families knocked on the Hays family’s door to investigate an anonymous complaint about the upbringing of their transgender child. It was this knock, this threat, that began the family’s journey out of the Bible Belt but never far from the hate and fear resting at the nation’s core. Self-aware and intimate, A Girlhood asks us all to love better, not just for the sake of Hays’s child but for children everywhere enduring injustice and prejudice just as they begin to understand themselves.

Small Animals is a riveting examination of the ways our culture of competitive, anxious, and judgmental parenting has profoundly altered the experiences of parents and children. In her signature style - by turns funny, penetrating, and always illuminating - which has dazzled millions of fans and been called "striking" by the New York Times Book Review and "beautiful" by the National Book Critics Circle, Brooks offers a provocative, compelling portrait of parenthood in America and calls us to examine what we most value in our relationships with our children and one another.

For fans of the beloved TV show Little House on the Prairie, a self-help audiobook by Melissa Francis, best-selling author of Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter and child star of Little House on the Prairie, revealing important life lessons inspired by a childhood on set. Melissa Francis was only eight years old when she won the role of a lifetime: Playing Cassandra Cooper Ingalls on the world's most famous prime-time soap opera, Little House on the Prairie.

Based on the belief that there's more to women's lives than just getting a date, Gilman's stories tell of struggling to get a life and a clue, and engaging in some spectacularly demented behavior along the way. At turns heartbreaking, insightful, and screamingly funny, it uniquely chronicles a generation and heralds a talented writer of note.

Three years after giving birth to twin daughters, Kate and Jon Gosselin became pregnant again - with sextuplets. Kate's candid and emotionally-charged book chronicles the exhausting challenges she and Jon faced from the time the babies were conceived through the first two years of their lives, and the faith it took to get through each day.

Dana Bowman can't escape the lure of perfectionism, trying to be a flawless wife, mother, and person in recovery. When Dana experiences a short-lived relapse during the Christmas holiday, she has the startling realization that recovery is more than just giving up alcohol. In this funny and revealing follow-up to her best-selling book Bottled, Dana reflects on how we live in a society of excess, always pushing ourselves to do and be better. However, it doesn’t take her long to realize that self-care and getting over herself is the key to happiness.

Against all odds, just barely one month after Jessica Buchanan had been rescued by SEAL Team Six by order of President Obama, she found out she was pregnant. After spending ninety-three days at the hands of Somali pirates who had demanded a 45-million-dollar ransom in exchange for her freedom, Jessica could not imagine a reality in which her traumatized mind and malnourished body could grow, birth, and nurture this new life. But he grew, and as a result, so did she; in her capacity to trust her heart, her therapist, and the wise plan of the Universe.

Josiah was 19 with the world at his feet when things changed. Without warning, the new university student's mental health deteriorated to the point that he planned his own death. His mother, bestselling author Amanda Prowse, found herself grappling for ways to help him, with no clear sense of where that could be found. This is the book they wish had been there for them during those dark times.

Linda is not a woman who shies away from a challenge - the only female swordfish boat captain in the country and a survivor of the real Perfect Storm, she is also a New York Times best-selling author. Through hard work and determination, she had created the peaceful, independent life she craved, living on a rugged island off the coast of Maine. It was all finally coming together… Then came Mariah.

2014 INDIEFAB AWARD finalist!! Inspiration. Empowerment. Reinvention. From soccer mom to prosecuting attorney. From body cast to the back seat of a Harley. From sneakers to stilettos. When a hard fall from a tall horse landed Mary T. Wagner—then a freelance writer and a soccer mom with four young children—in a body cast for three months with a broken back, she didn’t take it as a sign to ease back on the throttle. Instead, she changed careers, went to law school, took a job prosecuting criminals, and bought her first pair of spike heels. And THEN she started writing again. In essays ...

Unlocked begins with a vivid depiction of the author's life with her autistic son, Ben. Feelings of isolation and self-hate and even moments of hatred toward her own child in response to his behaviors, as well as the impact on her marriage and younger daughter, impel her to seek solutions for his condition. Through years of trial and error, Susan eventually discovers methods that bring about radical improvement in Ben.