Rating: 
Summary: A reassuring book to calm new mother's fears
Review: As every pregnant woman must, I started to have my doubts about myself as a mother. As much as I've always wanted children, and have seen myself as a good mother, the overwhelming sense of fear engulfed me in the start of my second trimester. The very thought of someone feeling about me and depending upon me the way I STILL feel and depend on my own mother was terrifying.Enter Child of Mine. I devoured this book in about a day and a half, learning about motherhood, NEW motherhood, from women who had been there; women from backgrounds similar and opposite of mine. Yet, in all their stories, I found a sense of calm. Here was a set of stories that didn't candy-coat pregnancy and motherhood the way everyone around me was doing. (I think it's the rosy remembrances of pregnancy and motherhood!) All in all, this was the right book at the right time, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
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Summary: Book offers real perspective to first year insanity
Review: I am perhaps in the unusual situation that I read this book when I was pregnant with my first child and then again after I had her. When I was pregnant, my reaction was that many women in the book were extremely negative, ungrateful, and downright weird about the children they were blessed with. Then, lo and behold, after about a week with my newborn, as I cried buckets during fits of sleep-deprived postpartum depression, painfully tried to nurse with engorged breasts and wondered whether I was going insane, I remembered the book and checked it out of the library again. Reading it again was such a comfort. So many books ignore or gloss over those overwhelming, exhausting first few months with a newborn. This book tells it like it is from women who have not let time fade their memories. Yes, it does get better, and my daughter is a joy. But this book is highly recommended for any new mother who has difficulty adjusting to her new role. She needs to know she is not ! ! alone.
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Summary: Amazing, comforting, painfully real
Review: I read this book when my son was six months old. I wish I had found it sooner. Since then, I have given it to my closest new-mother/pregnant friends. They tell me they are passing it on as well. It is the only book I found that spoke to the emotions of the incredible first year of motherhood. I found what I had searched for with futility in the "how-tos." I saw a part of myself in each essay and took great comfort in the fact that I was not alone.
Rating:
Summary: Very helpful for new moms
Review: I really liked - and appreciated - this book. Some essays were more easily for me to identify with, but all were so very helpful during my first month or two of being a mother. I'd recommend buying it and reading during your last 2 months of pregnancy, if you can.
Rating:
Summary: Very helpful for new moms
Review: I really liked - and appreciated - this book. Some essays were more easily for me to identify with, but all were so very helpful during my first month or two of being a mother. I'd recommend buying it and reading during your last 2 months of pregnancy, if you can.
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Summary: A life-saver!
Review: I received this book from a dear friend a few months after the birth of my daughter, and found it to be the best gift I had ever gotten! The voices of these women, with experiences like mine but far greater ability to put them on paper, were extraordinarily reassuring during the often-difficult transition to motherhood. I now give this to every new mom, and it's always greatly appreciated.
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Summary: Overwhelming gratitude
Review: I SO wish I had found this book years ago. It is the freshest, most intelligent, and best-written book about what it's like to be new mother that I have ever read. Don't get the impression that this collection of essays is strictly for women who "did the career thing" before they had children. This is an honest and touching examination from some of the most articulate women around...of all ages and career levels. I have three sons (including 6-year-old twins) and although I was excited and felt "chosen" that I was blessed with such an honor, it was without question the scariest and most difficult thing I have ever done. Unfortunately there seems to be a whole culture of people who recoil at the gritty details of bearing and raising infants--you're supposed to have a positive attitude and a smile on your face at all times. Even the (sometimes) profound pain of labor has become a hackneyed Hollywood comedy staple, when you think about it. Sugar-coating the reality of what women go through physically and emotionally when they bear children is simply another form of the tremendous cultural pressure on women in this country. That this book enthralled me years after I had babies at home is an indication of how deep my feelings are to this day...as an independent person, I felt the loss of control over my life, our finances, and my dreams at my very core...even though pregnancy was a choice I had made. Reading this book was like finally being able to breathe after years of not being able to articulate what was happening to me. Every single essay in this book focuses on the extraordinary adventure motherhood is, and how it's an ongoing, joyful process that molds a mother in unexpected and wonderful ways. A great mood-lifter for anyone with a small infant at home. I can't give it enough of a recommendation.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent real-life stories
Review: I was searching for a book to give a friend who was curious about motherhood and I read this all the way through before giving it to her. Her comment was,"I don't know if this makes it easier or harder to make the decision to have a child!" I agree wholeheartedly - as the mother of a 2 year old the stories in this book are a synchonicity of awe, wonder, exhaustion, frustration and many of the other emotions that occur during the first year of parenthood. I am ordering another copy for a friend who has a five year old and is due to have a baby in August. I think this will be a great refresher...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent real-life stories
Review: I was searching for a book to give a friend who was curious about motherhood and I read this all the way through before giving it to her. Her comment was,"I don't know if this makes it easier or harder to make the decision to have a child!" I agree wholeheartedly - as the mother of a 2 year old the stories in this book are a synchonicity of awe, wonder, exhaustion, frustration and many of the other emotions that occur during the first year of parenthood. I am ordering another copy for a friend who has a five year old and is due to have a baby in August. I think this will be a great refresher...
Rating: 
Summary: One star is not low enough.
Review: This book is quite possibly the worst expression of motherhood that I have ever run across. I am the mother of a 9 month old baby and have read more than my share of child rearing and motherhood books. These essays all seem to be geared towards the negative and selfish aspects of the writers lives. Pregnancy and childbirth are portrayed as predominantly negative experiences which will infringe on the otherwise productive lives of the "mothers" who wrote them. Fathers and doctors are shown as incompetent buffoons who are not necessary or even conducive to a good pregnancy/birthing experience. In fact, in many of the essays pregnancy is expressed as a weakness that the women finally succumb to, not as the precious gift that it is. As a woman and as a mother I was wholy offended and put off by this derogatory and negative view of pregnancy and children. I would whole heartedly not recommend this book for anyone, most especially for those who do not have practical experience with pregnancy and their own children.
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