DAY 97: June 26, 2020

Day Nine

by Amanda Munday

A harrowing memoir about a woman’s struggle with postpartum depression.

Nine days after the birth of her daughter, Amanda was involuntarily admitted to a Toronto psychiatric ward for postpartum depression. The typical hold-and-release process in Ontario is seventy-two hours. She stayed eighteen days.

New parent sleep deprivation is familiar, but Munday’s tumultuous experience with depression is one rarely discussed within parent communities. Any mental illness comes with a strong public stigma, and with mental illness connected to motherhood, the judgments run deep. Through her experiences, Munday presents the harsh realities of new parenthood and the quiet suffering postpartum depression commands.

Day Nine is an intimate memoir that reads like a freight train, revealing how common life transitions ― childbirth and parenthood ― can unravel into a medical emergency few new parents are prepared for.