Stage 1

Altered States

Pregnancy, Birth, and the Fourth Trimester



I was thirty-one when I became pregnant with our first child. From the moment my obstetrician gave us the good news, I began to fantasize about our baby, to picture myself as a mother. The hazy sonogram image I carried in my wallet, the fetal heartbeat, those first fluttery kicks changed my sense of who I was and who I was becoming. Long before my husband, Steven, and I settled on our baby's name, Molly, I had turned a dramatic corner. Just how sharp that corner really was I would discover in an agonizing way.

Molly died two days after her birth, tearing a hole in our lives. Even though I knew that I could have done nothing to prevent her death, which was due to a highly rare form of intrauterine growth retardation, I suffered profound feelings of worthlessness and guilt. During the succeeding weeks, Steve and I held on to each other, sharing our sadness and loss. Then Steve returned to work and I recuperated at home. As the news spread, a love tide of condolence notes poured in from family and friends, colleagues, acquaintances, people we saw often and others we hardly knew. I found myself reading and rereading every word--whether a multipage letter or a treacly Hallmark card. I hoarded the notes, counted them, organized and sorted them. Opening the mail became a kind of obsession, the one pastime I craved during an otherwise desolate period.

Only when I was pregnant with Maddie the following year did I understand why the letters had meant so much. Having planned for months to be a mother, redefining myself in terms of our baby and our new life as a family, I suddenly felt as though I had no purpose, no handle on where to go from there. I had lost not only a chance to hold and love our baby, I was deprived of my new identity. For the better part of a year, I had carried a vision of myself and of Molly that informed every minute of my day and affected my dreams at night. Losing her meant losing me--or at least an experience of myself I wanted desperately to embrace.

I hoarded the letters not because of what they said but because they reminded me that I was also a friend, cousin, employee, colleague, daughter, sister, aunt. The more letters I received, the more I was connected to these other roles and the easier it became to retrace my steps. I slowly reclaimed my old self, began to feel on solid ground again, but I never really stepped back completely from the place I had entered eight months before. Even if I had never conceived another child, I would have forever defined myself as a mother.

Most of us become mothers in our minds the minute that second pink line blooms in the plastic window or the call to the doctor's office confirms the news. We breathe a little differently, see a different reflection in the mirror long before our contours actually change. I doubt the Dalai Lama could clear his mind of thoughts of the future were he lucky enough to experience pregnancy, because being pregnant is all about the future. We may go about the mundane business of our lives--having supper with our spouse, catching a movie with friends, going to work, taking a walk in the park--but we're already acutely aware that nothing will ever be the same, that our own personal history, and that of our baby-to-be, is about to change in ways that are thrilling and terrifying. The psychologist Daphne de Marneffe aptly describes this sense of "history in the making" as all the more awe-inspiring in the context of our day-to-day lives: "We are both part of the cycle of life and the march of history. This is an incarnation, and...

 

Ann Pleshette Murphy, one-time editor of PARENTS magazine, offers a personal look at motherhood, providing an overview of the role and her own evolution as a mother. Murphy uses a lot of quotes from other mothers, sprinkling in tidbits from experts, as well as her own experiences, to produce a "lite" perspective on parenting. Cassandra Campbell captures this tone well, reading with the compassion, pride, and patience one would expect from a seasoned mom. While not full of parenting advice, Murphy's book provides a sense of camaraderie and friendship in a box, and Campbell delivers just that through the warmth of her reading. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

 

"Ann Pleshette Murphy is one of my heroes."

 

"No one is in a better position to support and inform parents than Ann Pleshette Murphy, whom every parent can look to with extreme confidence because her years of personal experience as a mother, unlimited access to experts and perhaps most important, the special warmth and honesty with which she approaches the joys and challenges of parenthood. As the extraordinarily successful and highly respected editor-in-chief of Parents for more than ten years, she has been able to bring a unique perspective to supporting, advising, and best of all understanding child-rearing issues--always going beyond the obvious and reaching out with depth and empathy. Any parent who reads this book will gain insight and increased confidence."

 

"Ann Pleshette Murphy is every Mom's--and Dad's--best friend. She has captured the complexities, joys, and sorrows of parenting and presented them in ways that help us manage the usual and unusual crises of caring for children in the midst of a busy life. She is like a good parent to her readers: she lends a helping hand, she is a supportive voice in your ear, but her greatest joy is seeing you go off on your own, confident and competent."

 

"Ann Pleshette Murphy knows what to expect after you're expecting. Her stories and insights about mothering do more than teach the facts of children's development. This is a book about adult development--about how running the emotional gauntlet of parenting changes us forever."