It Sucked and Then I Cried Book Review by ChristineMM

It Sucked and Then I Cried Book Review by ChristineMM

Title: It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown and a Much Needed Margarita
Author: Heather B. Armstrong
Publication: Simon Spotlight Entertainment, March 2009

Star Rating: 4 stars out of 5 = I Liked It
Summary Statement: Good Storytelling, Funny, Not Serious or Deep Reflections




This is a memoir capturing the intentional conception of the author’s first child, the pregnancy and the first nine months of mothering. Very important to the author’s story is that she had suffered from clinical depression and was under prescription medication therapy but had to go off the drugs in order to get pregnant and then during the time she breastfed her baby. So a large part of the author’s perspective on pregnancy, childbirth and mothering a baby full-time at home was through the lens of a person suffering from depression. As the subtitle states she eventually says she had a breakdown and did resume prescription medication treatment and therapy for her depression.

I knew the gist of the book and requested a pre-publication review copy because I wanted the perspective of a woman suffering from depression. I thought I’d get more heart sharing and deep thoughts. Again I was not a dooce.com reader. Instead I found this book was more surface talk and complaining about the daily grind of life, and trying to be funny by using hyperbole. This memoir wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be. The part that came the closest to what I was hoping for was the part at the end when she spoke about her feelings for her husband and how he was so patient with her when she was suffering from depression. I had hoped for more of that kind of writing in this memoir.

The author, Heather Armstrong has been blogging since 2001 and in my research to understand more about the author, I read that this book is a compilation and retelling of some of the previously blogged stories. Since I was not a dooce.com reader I didn’t yet know any of these stories or much about Armstrong or what her writing style is like. All of my perceptions about the book were from reading the book without having gotten to know Armstrong through her blog dooce.com.

I do feel that Armstrong is a good storyteller. Often in a chapter I’d ask, “How did we get onto this topic?” That is a good thing because she is able to flow from one topic to another without the reader always noticing the change in direction. This reminds me of many conversations I have with my mom friends when the topic shifts and changes to and fro and winds up on topics that we never intended to speak about.

I found the book both sad and funny, alternating between the two. At one end of the pendulum, Armstrong seems to make mountains out of molehills and is quite dramatic in her reaction to everything, which can be funny but other times was a bit over the top and annoying to me. There is use of hyperbole but sometimes it is just whining and complaining type talk. I say this as a woman who has gone through two pregnancies, has gone past her due date, had a horrible birth experience with my first child, and also having suffered through breastfeeding problems in the early days and dealt with feelings of isolation and loneliness as a new stay at home mother who also mourned the loss of her former career. I say this as a mother who pushed out a 9.5 lb baby (with epidural and some bad side effects) then later an 11.5 lb baby (without drugs). I can empathize with all that Armstrong said but feel she’s a tad too dramatic for me to relate to due to overly focusing on the negative and not always seeing the bright side of things (either due to the depression or perhaps this just the way she is, I don’t know.)

At the other end of the pendulum I felt sorry for Armstrong as I am certain that some of her perceptions and anxiety was definitely caused from the depression. My heart goes out to her for having depression and having missed out on some of the best feelings due to the screen that depression puts over a person’s mind that alters their perception of reality or doesn’t let them feel joy.

Perhaps if my own life was more like Armstrong’s, if I could identify more with her, I’d have loved the book more. Maybe then I’d have laughed at everything she said not just some of it. Since I am the mother of two tween-aged kids reading about pregnancy and adjusting to those first days of parenting is no so interesting to me anymore. Having parented young kids while watching some relative suffer with Cancer, having a friend from my stay-at-home mother group with young children die of Cancer, those are just a taste of the bigger things that I’ve dealt with that outweigh complaints of sleep deprivation caused by breastfeeding babies. I can’t get worked up over hemorrhoids from pregnancy now, not even to laugh about it, hemorrhoids are a small issue in the general scheme of life. I wonder how Armstrong will navigate the trickier territory of parenting school aged children, tweens and teenagers. I wonder how she will react to some of the craziness that goes on with parents in America, helicopter parenting, schools issues, bullying and other such matters, the “bigger fish to fry”. For that I may have to start reading her blog on a regular basis.

In thinking about who the perfect audience for this book is, perhaps it would be most appreciated by first time pregnant mothers or new mothers in need of a dose of humor. It could be considered “light summer reading” perhaps, if this is the type of writing that makes you laugh. Pregnant mothers and new mothers may also find humor in the books by Vicki Iovine starting with GIRLFRIEND’S GUIDE TO PREGNANCY which I found really hilarious when I was pregnant as a good antidote to all the serious nonfiction books that scared the pants off of me.



Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the Amazon Vine program.

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