I’ve set up a lot Google “mom” alerts. They often give me inspiration about what to write about next. They are also often inherently full of celebrity mom gossip. And I usually ignore them, especially if it contains the words “Kim” or “Kardashian.” But this week, one in particular headline caught my eye:
I don’t really know why, I just wanted to see Courtney Cox’s daughter, Coco, interview her mom and be super uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because I’m secretly fascinated with Courtney Cox’s plastic “surgeried” face and how different she looks now from her time on Bruce’s stage or the Friends couch. Maybe I was just fucking bored. Whatever the reason, instead of deleting the alert with my usual rapid fire, I thought, Hmm. That could be interesting.
Turns out, it was. First of all, Courtney had some pretty real pregnancy struggles pre Coco that lends some context to the story. Second of all, that look Courtney has on her face when Coco cuddles up to her at the end of the “interview” is pretty priceless and worth the watch, IMHO. It’s the look every mom has on their face at various times throughout their motherhood “career” when they get to snuggle their babies...and it's usually riiight before they totally piss us off. But no matter how much these humans of ours grow into real people—and no matter how much they drive us literally bonkers—they will always feel like cute, snuggly, warm little babies to us. It's science.
Secondly, this “interview” is really just a plug for Cox’s Facebook Watch show, 9 Months, which follows the journey of different expecting couples from across the country. And I’m not even mad at it. Not even the slightest bit, despite the fact that it’s on Facebook Watch (because that’s weird, right?). I really don’t hate anything that gives us a realistic look into what pregnancy is really like, because the more we can lift that curtain, the more we can have honest conversations about how complicated of an experience it really is. As much as pregnancy is a natural female experience, it’s bizarre. And hard. And disorienting. And we need all the honesty as we can get. As Courtney herself voices over in one of the episodes (and I’m totally paraphrasing here):
From the minute you decide you want a family, you lose your footing. You find out you have little control of anything in this world.
So yeah, I binged the entire thing in pretty much one day. When each episode is under 15 minutes, it’s kind of hard not to. And all the raw emotions of pregnancy are here, sucking me in, but not in the traditional pink and pale blue ways you might expect. Here’s just a taste of what I'm talking about:
Intense: The mom who finds out she has breast cancer two weeks after she discovers she’s pregnant.
Sweet: The woman who has been dreaming of having children her whole life and is now pregnant with twins. At 50. And celebrates with her dad. Who is 91.
Heartbreaking: The couple trying to overcome the emotional and financial struggles of infertility.
Unexpected: The woman who decided to be a surrogate for a couple for second time. And is now pregnant with triplets. TRIPLETS.
Intriguing: The same sex couple who are deciding who is going to be the “egg” and who is going to be the "carrier".
Overwhelming: The mom of eight who is expecting her ninth and praying for a miscarriage. Whoa.
Complex: The high school couple trying to balance pregnancy and a super conflicted Minnesota mom. (Adoption or no adoption?)
Frustrating: The Hindu couple expecting their first child while navigating many, many family expectations.
Awkward: The gay and lesbian “couple” fulfilling their mutual desire to be parents together, but not like together together.
Have I hooked you in yet? To be honest, what really roped me in was the story of the young couple from right here in Minnesota. Their tale could be ripped right out of MTV’s Teen Mom. (Yeah, I watched that too. No shame.) A young and in love high school couple, living with the boy’s mom, clearly grappling with the idea of bringing a baby into their world. And obviously, the mother has a lot to say. But it is not salacious like Teen Mom. Their story, like all the others in the series, has enough plot twists and turns and is edited to keep you watching because that's what TV does. But there aren’t any behind the scenes producers trying to make their lives more dramatic than they already are. No, it’s pretty real. Well, as real as you can get on Facebook Watch with a narrator whose face honestly hasn't seen “real” in over a decade. Just go with it. I promise there's a happy ending...and a season 2.
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