After Birth: Unconventional Writings From the Mommylands

Author Jenny Fiore did not give birth to her baby in a sacred glacial lake. She failed in the art of cloth-diaper origami. And her placenta is not fertilizing a mango tree in her backyard—and not because she ate it. She does, however, dwell in the world where these things happen. Welcome to the Mommylands, where all mothers go in the years beyond the birthing suite. Through contemplative essays, tongue-in-cheek screenplay excerpts, and saucily imagined correspondence, Fiore shares her hilarious and poignant experiences as a mother in today’s world of how-to manuals and helicopter parenting. Like a would-be shaman with dried spit-up on her yoga pants, she navigates her children through everything from death to tampons. Follow her from droopy-boob-fixes to brushes with booger-eating, and from a parent’s fears in a terrorized world to her everyday brushes with the divine. The pieces in After Birth are just the right serving size for a mommy’s stolen-away moments of solitude. Often, sadly, these occur on the toilet, so this book is waterproof. Not really. This is life after birth.