Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother by Beth Ann Fennelly
224 pages	W.W. Norton	April 2006	Hardcover

The former student has recently undergone the loss of her mother, followed by a marriage and the expectation of a child, asking her teacher-mentor for guidance in the form of these letters, advice gladly given by a woman who has found the experience to be enriching and joyful. There are no real parameters in this shadow world of intuition, instinct and the things our mothers have taught us (some useful, some not).

Certainly, every marriage must endure the unexpected stresses of a new baby, the sleepless nights, hormonal imbalance of the birth process, the depressing struggle with weight gain. The role of caretaker is redefined, often isolating the new mother from her former employment and peer group while she attempts to rebalance her life priorities before reentering the world-at-large.

Then there is the difficulty of scheduling time with a neglected spouse, and the endless small details that new parents are confronted with as they work together: “Truly, babies are hyphenated- they are endearing-exasperating; they are amusing-annoying.” But each phase is bittersweet, lasting only a moment, including the transition from baby gurgles to language skills: “Daddy can’t eat wif us if we eat girl cheese sandwiches.”

Filled with personal revelations, Fennelly’s letters to her former student describe the evolution of her own personality through the daily business of mothering a daughter: “Looking back, I see how both poetry and love prepared me for raising Claire.”

Passed from one mother-to-be to another, this intimate correspondence cried out for print, a necessary volume for all mothers-to-be. Part memoir, part life instruction, Fennelly blends language, experience and affection to speak her truths: “I love science’s instinct for metaphors, though they all fail… your baby is like nothing that’s ever been created.”