Instant Mom

by Nia Vardalos

Overview

In Instant Mom, Nia Vardalos, writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, tells her hilarious and poignant road-to-parenting story that eventually leads to her daughter and prompts her to become a major advocate for adoption.
 
Moments after Nia Vardalos finds out she has been nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay for My Big Fat Greek Wedding, she is alone and en route to a fertility clinic, trying yet again for a chance at motherhood.
 
Vardalos chronicles her attempts to have a baby, and how she tries everything—from drinking jugs of green mud tea, to acupuncture, to working with two surrogates. Finally, she and her husband, actor Ian Gomez, decide to try adoption and discover a free service: Foster Family Agencies. Then one day, the social workers "match" her with an almost-three-year-old girl, who she knows, instantly, is her daughter.
 
With her signature wit and candor, Nia Vardalos reveals what really came next—the truth of how she and her husband transitioned a preschooler into their home. Vardalos opens up about the bawling-tears and belly-laughter that all make up what it means to be...a parent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062231840
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Nia Vardalos is the Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated writer and actress of such films as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Connie and Carla, My Life in Ruins, and I Hate Valentine's Day, and co-writer with Tom Hanks of Larry Crowne. She lives in Los Angeles with her family, and donates Instant Mom proceeds to adoption charities.

Read an Excerpt

Instant Mom

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By Nia Vardalos

HarperCollins Publishers

Copyright © 2013 Nia Vardalos
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-223183-3

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Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

It's late 2008 and I'm lying on the couch at my home, holding my three-year-old daughter as she cries. We're both gasping for breath.

Just a minute ago, I was standing in the kitchen as she walked by, sucking on a hard candy. She was happily jumping on the couch, when she suddenly grabbed her neck and looked at me. The candy had lodged in her throat. She tried to swallow it. She couldn't breathe. She was white.

Being a parent requires courage and, unfortunately, I'm a bit of a sucky 'fraidy-cat'. I sleep with a light on. I get out of an elevator if I'm alone when a man gets in. I never walk down back alleys. But in that moment, like anyone would, I ran toward my daughter. I knew exactly what to do, because to adopt, you have to take a first aid course. I knew not to put a finger in her throat and push that candy even farther in. I knew not to touch any part of her neck. I knew not to panic. I just grabbed my daughter, turned her upside down, and jumped — and finally that candy fell out.

She breathed. She cried. She was okay.

Now, as I am lying on this couch, holding her against my body, we both breathe in. And out. I try to relax so she'll feel soothed, comforted, and safe. I try to think of what else I should do now. I don't know. I wonder if the feeling of being an adult, being a grown up will ever come naturally to me.

I love being in charge. I am completely comfortable whether I'm throwing a giant dinner party or directing a micro-budget independent film. I don't get stressed and I don't yell. I like to calmly problem-solve and enjoy getting things done. However, as a grown up in sophisticated situations, I am not completely at ease. In scenarios that require decorum and restraint, I usually want to make a fart joke and run. But, as a mom, I try to act like an adult, especially at this moment. Tight against each other, my daughter and I eventually calm down, now listening to our hearts beating. We are very still. I realize this is what it might have felt like if I'd grown her inside me. She would have heard my heart beating; I would have felt her move. Instead, I met my daughter just recently. I've only been her mom for a few months. The adoption isn't even finalized. Anyone who ever wondered how much they could love a child who did not spring from their own loins, know this: it is the same. The feeling of love is so profound, it's incredible and surprising. I love my daughter so much I want to carry her around in my mouth.

As I'm holding her now, I am in an emotional place I'm not used to. I feel content.

This is new. It's not at all how I felt for a very long time. For years, I felt exactly the opposite.
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Instant Mom by Nia Vardalos. Copyright © 2013 by Nia Vardalos. Excerpted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

Jewel

“Funny, smart,and full of grounded wisdom that shines much-needed light on adoption I couldn’t stop reading this hilarious and gripping rollercoaster of a story. Nia is an authentic, rocking female role model in so many ways...and being an instant mom is just one of them.”

Rachel Dratch

“I expected to laugh. I didn’t expect to cry. And I certainly didn’t expect to laugh and cry on the same page. Instant Mom is for anyone whose life plan didn’t follow the path they anticipated, and shows us that unexpected obstacles can lead to beautiful rewards.”

Editorial Reviews

An instant classic. Refreshingly candid for all parents-plus anyone considering adoption. (I was adopted!) We know Nia is many things: writer, actress, director, musical theater lover! Here, though, you learn she is a mom first. Pure, beautiful honesty.

Kristin Chenoweth

Funny, smart,and full of grounded wisdom that shines much-needed light on adoption I couldn’t stop reading this hilarious and gripping rollercoaster of a story. Nia is an authentic, rocking female role model in so many ways...and being an instant mom is just one of them.

Jewel

Laugh-out-loud and painful-in-the-shins.…The author holds nothing back as she chronicles the years leading up to the adoption.” — Kirkus

“I expected to laugh. I didn’t expect to cry. And I certainly didn’t expect to laugh and cry on the same page. Instant Mom is for anyone whose life plan didn’t follow the path they anticipated, and shows us that unexpected obstacles can lead to beautiful rewards.” — Rachel Dratch, author of Girl Walks Into a Bar

“Funny, smart,and full of grounded wisdom that shines much-needed light on adoption I couldn’t stop reading this hilarious and gripping rollercoaster of a story. Nia is an authentic, rocking female role model in so many ways...and being an instant mom is just one of them.” — Jewel

An instant classic. Refreshingly candid for all parents-plus anyone considering adoption. (I was adopted!) We know Nia is many things: writer, actress, director, musical theater lover! Here, though, you learn she is a mom first. Pure, beautiful honesty.” — Kristin Chenoweth

“Readers can feel the tension between desire to share her joy and good fortune and wish to maintain her child’s privacy. Vardalos offers candor, humor, and poignancy in her account of adoption and parenthood as she pokes fun at parenting memoirs but delivers on emotional impact.” — Booklist

“If you have ever considered bringing a child who isn’t an infant into your family, it’s the book you’ll want to read. And if you just enjoy a good, honest memoir, it’s the book for you, too.” — New York Times’ Motherlode Blog

From the Publisher

Readers can feel the tension between desire to share her joy and good fortune and wish to maintain her child’s privacy. Vardalos offers candor, humor, and poignancy in her account of adoption and parenthood as she pokes fun at parenting memoirs but delivers on emotional impact.

Booklist

If you have ever considered bringing a child who isn’t an infant into your family, it’s the book you’ll want to read. And if you just enjoy a good, honest memoir, it’s the book for you, too.

New York Times’ Motherlode Blog

I expected to laugh. I didn’t expect to cry. And I certainly didn’t expect to laugh and cry on the same page. Instant Mom is for anyone whose life plan didn’t follow the path they anticipated, and shows us that unexpected obstacles can lead to beautiful rewards.

Rachel Dratch

If you have ever considered bringing a child who isn’t an infant into your family, it’s the book you’ll want to read. And if you just enjoy a good, honest memoir, it’s the book for you, too.

New York Times’ Motherlode Blog

Readers can feel the tension between desire to share her joy and good fortune and wish to maintain her child’s privacy. Vardalos offers candor, humor, and poignancy in her account of adoption and parenthood as she pokes fun at parenting memoirs but delivers on emotional impact.

Booklist

A humorous celebrity parenting story. Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, etc.) had a successful career writing and acting in films, a loving husband, a close-knit family and good friends, but she was missing one thing many women find impossible to live without: a child. Years of fertility treatments left her exhausted and distressed--until she decided to investigate the "fost-adopt" system: the option to adopt a child in the U.S. foster-care program. Within hours of a match, the inexperienced author found herself the mother of a nontalking toddler. "Of course there isn't a baby shower," she writes. "It's not just that there isn't time for one, it's because I hate them. I have left one too many stuffy houses on a Sunday afternoon with a throatful of egg salad and an empty aching uterus to inflict this same abuse on others." Suddenly, Vardalos' life was turned upside down as she learned to navigate the laugh-out-loud and painful-in-the-shins moments of raising a scared 3-year-old child. The author holds nothing back as she chronicles the years leading up to the adoption, and she recounts the minute details of the first year of life as a mother, as her daughter began to learn how to love and trust her new surroundings. Vardalos provides solid information on the foster-care system and includes an appendix of questions and answers on all types of adoption. Parents will relate but may find the situation too similar to their own child-rearing adventures to consider the author's experiences unique. A heartwarming tale of adoption and unconditional love.

Kirkus Reviews