★★★ “Pregnancy is both a sudden blessing and a plunge into an endless precipice.
“Here is a book that will help you understand this ambivalent feeling that only mothers feel.” _Kim So-young (CEO of Book Power Plant)

“Can I ever get back to who I was before I became a mother?
No, is that okay?”

I want to save the countless me inside me
A record of love and support for all women and mothers.

The author has lived his entire life as an adventurer, traveling the world in various professions, including as a world-class climber, mountain guide, social entrepreneur, writer, and film director.
As she was climbing the rock face as usual, she looked at her husband's back as he walked ahead and suddenly realized that a small but large crack was forming in her life.
For a body-conscious climber, pregnancy is both a blessing and a curse.
This book, which chronicles the journey through six winters until spring arrives, is a new mother's intimate confession, written while climbing the arduous rock of pregnancy and childbirth barehanded, and a meticulous record of growth that depicts the emotional ups and downs faced while raising two children for approximately five years.
This story of a woman finding her own balance between a life of extreme risk and the new responsibilities of parenthood will offer practical comfort and courage to those who long to rediscover their pre-mother selves and to all who long to discover the countless selves within themselves beyond childcare and housework.

“I think I might be pregnant.”
“Is there such a thing as ‘maybe’ pregnancy?” your dad asked.
I tried other test machines too.
Another faint line appeared.
I searched on Google.
Opinions on the internet were unanimous.
There are no false positives, just faint lines.
I was pregnant.
I couldn't sleep that night.
We really do do this.
I kept repeating it to myself.
But at some point, while I was tossing and turning late into the night, the word 'we' disappeared from this sentence.
I'm doing this.
That night, when the moonlight was shining brightly, I was awake and your father was sleeping soundly as if he had no worries in the world.
In the first place, I thought that since I was the one who brought us here to have a baby, I should be the one who carries this dream into the future.
--- pp.23-24

Life is so ironic.
You two are truly the greatest paradox and joy in your father's and my life.
I want to tell you how excited, hopeful, and happy I am as I prepare for the day you will arrive in this world.
But I won't lie.
You shouldn't expect complete certainty and conviction from me as your mother, and I hope you don't expect me to be 100 percent sure when you become parents.

--- p.58

but.
Mom has something she wants to do.
I feel like I'm missing out on the best part of you.
I don't want to miss a single one, but if I try to take care of you all without any help while I'm working, I'll go crazy.
I think the constant conflict between what I want to do and what I have to do is a major issue in life as a mother.

--- p.87

In my early 20s, when I was tackling increasingly difficult courses, a senior mountaineer once told me to “fall upward.”
If you stop trying and just hang on the rope or fall, it's considered a failure.
If you're going to fall while trying, at least fall in the right direction.
Maybe I'm doing that with your dad.
Falling upwards with you.
Becoming your parents is the ultimate onsight for us.
Onsight is a rock climbing term that means completing an ascent without falling in a single attempt, without any prior knowledge or information.
But as a climber, if you fail to onsight, you find another rock and try to onsight again.
As a parent, Onsite cannot climb another rock face, whether it is successful or not, and only continues the same 'climb'.
Even my dad has never been on this road before, so how can he expect to climb it all in one go?
We don't know where we are going now.
I don't know twice.

--- p.94

6 am.
I took a shower and changed into a suit.
I packed my breast pump and put it in my bag and went to DC, which was still dark.
There were a lot of meetings going on, and I was busy with some free time in between.
I took the Corner Bakery bathroom, the only one open at 7:30 in the morning.
I stood by the sink, holding the pump in place, trying my best not to disturb anything in this tiny bathroom, hoping no one would come in, and feeling guilty about the 15 minutes it took to empty my breasts.
Later, I sat on the toilet in the women's bathroom of the Earth Environment Fund and urinated while fully clothed.
Hopefully, I can fill my bottle quickly and get back to the Nature Conservancy Africa conference table in time.

--- pp.109-110

I grew up with the determination to live as cool and proudly as anyone else as a woman.
I saw that in my mother, and I was always told I was strong and special, and I thought I should follow in the footsteps of women who fight.
I never once thought that I could (or could) be the only mother.
(syncopation)
I wonder if it was easy for your maternal grandmother, your mother's mother, to return to work.
I hate that kind of mom a little.
And I love that kind of mom a little bit.
I want to go see my mother's mother and ask her.
"How did you do this? How did you feel? What were your true feelings?"
I have completely changed and am always in awe of the immense love I have for you.
This love is instinctive.
I want to eat you up, kiss you, and slather you all over.

--- pp.149-150

You are not the people I want to write to.
This is your dad.
Maybe it's your dad and me.
Maybe he has something to say to all of us.
I'm angry.
It's not that I don't want to be with you, it's that I want to be with you.
But I also want to be a little more free.
I wish I had time.
I hope you don't live your life feeling like you're constantly writing and crossing off a never-ending to-do list, or feeling like you're being crushed by the hectic pace of life.
Elizabeth says that the very intention to change someone else's behavior is already a failed excuse.
So what can we change?
--- p.226

I feel like I have to go through a lot of steps to get back to being me, let alone wanting to do this work.
Will things change in the future? I expect it will.
perhaps.
It might be easier to be a mother.
perhaps.
So, mothers are going back to work.
How can I be successful professionally while also raising little people at home? Right now, work feels like another area I need to excel at, but in reality, there are only two or three things I can excel at.
Actually, there are two.
Kazu and Irena.
You are those two.

--- pp.240-241

"mom.
“I want to grow up like my mom,” Irena said.
"good.
Let's grow up together and become adults.

--- p.356

“Thank you for making dinner, Dad and Mom,” Kaz said.
“Daddy made it, baby.
“My mother did, so to speak, invisible labor.”
Everyone is looking at me.
“Mom paid the utility bills, took the masks out of your bags, replaced them with new ones for tomorrow, and texted your doctor about your armpit rashes.”
“Thank you for being invisible,” Irena says.
Your dad and I laughed all evening over that.

--- pp.407-408