Book Review: And Now We Have Everything by Meaghan O’Connell
When I was pregnant the first time I read obsessively about the growth of my baby – in books, on apps, by looking at fruit in the grocery store… and I thought a lot about what birth was going to be like (pretty much exactly like it was on every episode of 16 and Pregnant, obviously. Pump up the Pit!). What I didn’t think about at all was what my life was going to look like with a baby in it and who I was going to be. It seemed pretty simple – baby is born, we bring baby home, and we all move on with our lives, but as a family and at playgrounds or in the children’s section of Barnes & Noble. We would get coffee at our local café and when the baby woke up, I would nurse him while we continued to enjoy our coffee.
Needless to say, wow…none of that happened. First, my baby shot out of me less than three hours after my first contraction, which might sound great, but…no. It wasn’t. Despite all of my reading, I had no idea that could happen. And as for the coffee? I mean, we did get coffee…but it got cold because the baby was screaming and we had to drive home in despair and left the coffee in the car. With $700,000 in education between us, we were completely incompetent in our new lives, or so it felt.
My point is that I had dedicated a LOT of time to thinking about making and birthing a baby but very little thought to how I would experience it and feel about it. I had no friends with babies and hadn’t seen a baby in real life in years before I was wholly responsible for one. Today, a couple of babies in, I now make three major recommendations to the pregnant women who solicit my advice: hire a doula (if you’re able), take a multi-week childbirth education class that supports all birth preferences, and don’t underestimate early motherhood!
So with all of that being said, I want to highly recommend a book that recalls early motherhood in all of its raw and visceral glory: And Now We Have Everything by Meaghan O’Connell.
The story begins with an unexpected, but wanted pregnancy and moves through birth, breastfeeding, relationship struggles, and internal reckoning all in the context of the life of a young writer living in NYC. O’Connell describes her desire to “achieve” the socially-desirable unmedicated birth and yet end up with a cesarean, which leaves her feeling a sense of failure in one of her first acts of motherhood. Her birth is followed by a deep insecurity and struggle to embrace her role as a parent. Breastfeeding leaves her feeling overstimulated and underwhelmed, while simultaneously being one of the only things she feels that she’s “succeeding” at. All the while, she struggles with severe anxiety, desperation for time alone, a return to normal, and to understand why her body has suddenly lost all desire for her fiancé.
The book is at the same time hilarious, moving, lighthearted, and dark. You feel as though you’re sitting on her couch, surrounded by unfolded laundry, while she deliberates her predicament. O’Connell gives us a rare, honest, and important glance into what is normal for so many mothers, but often remains unspoken – the transformation from an independent being into a mother (or parent) is a deep, personal, and inherently difficult transition, no matter how much you adore the baby responsible for it.
To quote NPR’s 2018 review: “So much of pregnancy language is euphemisms about paths and journeys, flowers and rivers. O'Connell thinks that obscuring the reality only serves to make women feel guilty for suffering: "What if," when talking about giving birth, "instead of worrying about scaring women, we told them the truth?" O'Connell asks. "What if we treated women like thinking adults?"”
So check it out – I encourage you to read this book and think about what personal challenges you may face, and then remind yourself that you have the strength to overcome, but it might take some time and/or lots of tears – and that’s okay.
