I read this seven months after I gave birth, but I wish wish wish I had read it while pregnant. Maso's situation is unconventional, but she focuses mostly on her feelings about pregnancy, which are largely positive. She does, however, question her decisions at times, and doesn't (seem to) pretend to feel what she doesn't actually feel. That is to say, some sections, like her descriptions of the postpartum period covered in the journal, are almost shocking in their honesty (yet I completely related to what she describes).

One of the primary tensions she highlights is writing vs. mothering ("Already I have had moments of genuine mourning for my old life"). She's very concerned that she won't be able to continue her creative life. In this the book is similar to others like Sarah Manguso's Ongoingness, but Maso's book touched me far more deeply.

Negatives for some readers might be a) The vagueness of her disclosures - this isn't a tell-all diary or a frank description of her personal life. The focus really is on her feelings about pregnancy, and sometimes she leaves the reader with a lot of confusion about what actually may have happened. b) Sometimes the free-association can be slightly grating, at least to me ("I'm dreaming of France again").

These are very minor issues, though, and more of a description of her style than a criticism. For me, the high points were the description of the birth (stunningly gorgeous writing, and expressive of something I have found impossible to express) as well as the searing honesty of the aftermath.

A couple of my favorite passages:

"What was I thinking? To create a being who is going to suffer. To be responsible, utterly, for someone's death. A grave indictment. It was not a lark. Did I take this all too lightly? How else was I to take it and still go forward?"

"How was I to know that I was always just a shell? It keeps returning. How was I to know that I carried an emptiness so large, so wide inside me, like a child? Would the night devoid of stars realize it? Would the day without light? And that after those nine precious months I would become a shell again - only now to be so aware of it. How to know that the world would leave me this way forever - bereft." ( )