Guest Author - Susan Thompson

Anyone who has ever had a baby and switched from career mode to fulltime mom can tell you the adjustment is not an easy one. In the book The Second Nine Months, Author Vicki Glembocki, tells of her experience of having her first baby. This book is not like any I have ever read before. Without giving away too much of her story, I can tell you that I laughed out loud at some parts and was near tears at other parts. I couldn’t wait to see how the book ended!

As part of this review, I interviewed the author because I just couldn’t review the book without asking the following questions.

Me: I am sure you've answered this question a few hundred times, but when
you were writing The Second Nine Months were you afraid of how people would
judge you?

Vicki: You know, you're the first person to ask me that question. When I was
actually writing the book, I didn't worry about that too much. There were
things I wrote that made the little protective voice in the back of my head
say, "Vicki, are you SURE you want to tell that story? Are you SURE you want
to admit that?" But I always reminded myself that that was the whole point
of this book--to NOT hold back, to NOT edit myself, to tell the real truth
about my experience. But, I'll tell you, when I got the first copy of the
book in the mail from my publisher, I thought, "Oh my God! This is going to
be OUT there! People are going to READ this." And that's when I started to
worry a little about what people would think. But, so far, I've really only
had moms saying, "Reading this book was like a year of therapy! It cracked
me up! It was so true." But, believe me, I'm ready for the other
shoe to drop. When I wrote an article about this before the book came out,
we got letters to the editor that said, "This writer should be
institutionalized." Challenging the myth that motherhood is all sunshine and
puppies and lollipops can really, really, really make people mad.

Me: When you were going through your toughest moments, why didn't you open
up to the people closest to you like your mom or husband?

Vicki: It was just so hard for me to face--that I felt like I didn't know what to
do with this baby, like I was doing everything wrong, like I didn't have the
maternal gene. I just didn't want anyone to know that. I was afraid people
would think I was a bad mom. So I said the same thing to everyone--my mom,
my friends, even my husband (when I wasn't yelling at him)--"I'm fine. We're
fine. It's fine." And with my husband, he didn't know what he was doing
either, so he was looking to ME to know what to do, so I spent a lot of time
pretending to know what to do. I just felt hugely responsible for
everything. This was MY job. I was the mom. I was supposed to know how to do
this. And I was a person pre-baby who DID tend know how to do things, or
know how to figure out how to do things. So I didn't even recognize myself
in this woman I'd suddenly become. It was surreal.

Me: What was the best parenting advice you ever received?

Vicki: My mother told me that she always brought me home for naps--always. She
never let me sleep in the car or in the stroller. She made sure that, more
often than not, I slept in my crib. And I did that, after the six months it
took to even figure out HOW to get the baby to nap. But it has SO paid off.
My kids--Blair, who the book is about, is now three, and my youngest
daughter Drew, is 8 months--are phenomenal sleepers. (And, for the record, I
knocked on wood when I wrote that sentence.)


Me: What is the best advice you would give to a new mother?

Vicki: Find other new moms. Go to Mommy and Me events. Go to coffee shops where
moms hang out. Just make sure that you find people who are going through what you're going
through--even if it's just to have someone to compare baby-poop colors with.



Me: If you could go back in time, knowing what you know now, what would you
change about that time in your life?

Vicki: I would ask for help. It was so hard for me to ask for help, partly because
I'm just not that kind of person, generally. But, you know how, when you
have a baby, your neighbors and your colleagues say things like, "If you
need anything, let me know." Well, if I could go back, I would have let them
know. Because, let's face it--having a baby is hard, transitioning into
being a mother is hard. It's going to be hard. (I wish I'd have known HOW
hard, which is why I wrote the book.) But it's okay that it's hard. It's
normal that it's hard. Asking a neighbor to come hold the baby for 20
minutes while you take a shower would just have made it 20 minutes-less
hard.

I hope you pick up this book and enjoy it as much as I did.