Alanis Morissette, musician and somewhat new mom, has written a blog about motherhood for iVillage that is wholly fascinating and entirely interesting to read. As you may recall, Alanis and hubby Mario Souleye Treadway gave birth to Ever Imre on December 25, 2010 and Alanis shares some of what she learned in her first 10 months as a mom. In the excerpts below, you will read how surprised Alanis was by motherhood and how well she’s been able to adapt thus far.

No one told me about postpartum. And when they did, their shared recollections were semi-hazy and greatest hits-esque. They made the after-the-baby-is-born era sound somewhat idyllic, if they remembered it at all. So, as I was wont to do, I put their stories together, composite-style, into a fantasy that included bursting into blissful tears, buoyed by clouds and surrounded by cherub angels gushing how the lil’ one’s lips were his father’s and his deep contemplative gaze mine. Cue record scratching sound. Not the first time there were other parts, beyond the fantasy, that I hadn’t considered. I had used, as usual, the I’ll-rise-to-that-occasion-when-I-get-there approach to the post-child-bearing journey, so all my DVD-watching and focus went toward the birth experience itself, and how best to prepare myself for that (as though I really could prepare for a Human. Being. Coming. Out. Of. My. Body.) … I remain baffled at how little I was prepared for what was to come. It was all I could do not to cry out for the kind of mothering that I was intending to offer my lil’ one. Someone who could swoop in and just DO THIS FOR ME while they pet my trembling head, while I whimpered in the corner. I remember crying out on a walk up the street, startling a dog. This dog was not easily startled. But no, this motherhood business was my call to rise to. And mine alone. And there was no doula alive that could have reached in and taught me what I have learned through experience. There was no midwife who could show me how to grow up, warp-speed from complicated contemplative maiden to accountable matriarch. These things required months of growth and calibrating! And here I naively thought that I would arrive as a MOM at the same time as my lil’ boy arrived as a SON. The latter waaay preceded the former. But necessity precedes form sometimes. My humility and reduction-to-knees has now found me wanting to kiss the feet of all mothers who have gone before me. I will never be so blithe and casual around the topic of motherhood again! (So sorry, Mom.) Since last December, I’ve borne holes through to the soul of any new mother who will indulge it, with a look that says: “Yes,I am with you.” All this to say that I now look at mommas, whether their birth happened at home, hospital, field, tub, taxicab…anywhere, with or without an epidural, exactly or couldn’t-be-farther-from-their ideal picture of birth, and I bow … See, I thought postpartum would be all about the birth of my baby. I had no idea the person I’d always dreamed of becoming was being born at the exact same time.

The full text of Alanis‘s blog can be read HERE. She is such a great writer … as a man, I will never know what it means to give birth (obvs) but she has a way of describing her situation that makes her story more palatable. I’d love to read more from Alanis in future blogposts like this. I miss her music, no question, but the mommy side of Alanis is interesting as well.

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