Alena Dillon Interviewed on Parent Footprint

Alena Dillon spoke about her new memoir My Body Is A Big Fat Temple on Parent Footprint with Dr. Dan. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts as Alena Dillon discusses marriage, morning sickness, motherhood, mom guilt, body changes, breastfeeding, baby blues, the heartache of not loving her son as she thinks she should, pandemic parenting, being present, postpartum depression, self care, singing, and her new running routine.

My Body Is A Big Fat Temple, a memoir of pregnancy and early motherhood, follows a writer as she debates having children, miscarries, faces morning sickness, uncertainty, physical impairments, labor, breastfeeding, the “baby blues,” the heartache of not loving her son as she thinks she should, parenting through a plague, until finally (basically, mostly) blossoming into her new identity.

Creating life is a primal phenomenon. It requires grit, resilience, and a lot of bathroom breaks. There are dry heaves and darkened nipples, crotch lightning and brain fuzz, milk stains, sleep regressions, and equal amounts of despair and joy. It's a complicated magic. The undertaking is airbrushed to preserve the ideal of motherhood, and exacerbated by a culture that dictates what women can do and how they should feel. We don’t get the full story, so mothers with unromantic experiences feel like aberrations, and worse, alone. This is why the voices of women matter. The voices of mothers matter. Here’s one to keep you company, and to remind you to do your Kegels. (They’re really important.)