Hopefully you watched the Oprah Show on Monday April 6. Here’s a little diary of our experience. Even our kids were excited – as Trish’s son said, “I’m gonna be on Opera!”
Sunday, March 8
Harpo crew arrives at Amy’s house. We wear our favorite comfy shirts and were promptly told that the microphones won’t ‘work’ with them. Oh okaaay, plan B! 6 hour shoot. Takes most of footage in messy kids playroom with us sitting on kid chairs. Every shot has to have all 5 kids in it—are you kidding? The kids somehow knew we had no control over them on this day and took total advantage of it. As little Julia now says “when you go on Oprah, you have to run around your mother in circles and you eat popsicles and you go to Amy’s house.” We talk about our journey, what led us to write the books. Shots of us in backyard, typing, front yard, kids running around. Includes video of Amy giving kids a bath, Trish & kids in hospital with Julia born. Video ends up being 2:40 and has Oprah’s voiceover: ”Amy & Trish were long-time friends who went on a journey to find out if everyone else was feeling the same way….wrote books…”
Somewhere in the back of our brains we are trying to comprehend what this all means—that we have a huge opportunity to help moms learn to love motherhood as much as they love their kids. Our original goal was to help just one mom do this. Amazing.
Tuesday, March 10
On the plane, 30 Rock with OPRAH airs – what?! Our hearts start beating really, really fast. Harpo limo picks us up, go to Omni hotel in downtown Chicago.
Immediately we go downstairs to hotel bar with our publicist Andrea Burnett and Christina Loff, and they tell us that we’re on starting in segment 3 for the ENTIRE SHOW, ON STAGE with Oprah! We order martini’s and start to freak out as Andrea asks us if we’ve ‘reviewed’ our books adequately. Uh….Martini tastes excellent.
In the room, we start to freak out, pacing around, and call our “energy lady” to ground ourselves, and ‘set our picture.’ It’s a 30 minute session which is great, we are breathing very deeply, eyes closed, on the couch. We feel so relaxed and grounded—we’re finally ready. Until we suddenly get snapped out of with her comment—”so you’ll send a check, then?” Uh, yes, we’ll send a check. ”And since you’ve achieved your goal, some people like to send me a bonus, so I’ll leave that up to you.” UH REALLY? REALLY? Seriously?? We collapse on the floor in peels of laughter, yet again, not believing where we are or what we’re doing! Oh well….we needed a good laugh.
We pack a little suitcase with our outfits, shoes, Andrea Fohrman jewelry, no makeup. We pop an Ambien around 11 with our books strewn around us.
Wednesday, March 11 — OPRAH TAPING!
6:15 a.m. — We choke down a few bites of oatmeal with blueberries and brown sugar. Most Amy’s eaten in 4 days out of sheer nervousness.
7 a.m. — Harpo stretch limo picks us up, with Andrea & Christina in tow. We are nervous, excited, it all seems extremely surreal. 20 minutes later we stop at HARPO Studios. Is this really happening??
We enter, and immediately feel the warmth of everyone—an incredible, calming, wonderful energy.
Around 7:30 a.m. — we pick out our clothing. Trish chooses a seafoam green flowy shirt and Amy really wants to wear her short sleeve turtleneck, and we go with those. Our makeup gets done—airbrushed foundation, (to try to shave maybe a year off of our ages) and slightly smoky eyes. Then, it was time! We are led to the stage, gripping each others’ hands (white knuckles!) and sit down, next to Oprah. Every audience member is a mom—and it’s an incredible feeling. Here we go!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I just wanted to take time to say “Thank Goodness!” What an awesome way to reach out to moms! I don’t know why this didn’t happen sooner! I have called all of my mom friends and told them to watch!!! I laughed,agreed and enjoyed the “sisterhood of motherhood” the whole show!!!!! Thank you!!!
I am so glad I caught the last half of the show and I wish that I had seen it from the beginning!
It’s amazing… you put into words exactly what I have been thinking and feeling over the last 3 years of my life as a mother. I want to thank you for that. And I truly appreciate how you emphasize how important it is for women to stick together and refrain from judging each other. It is insane what is going on in our culture right now… the way we point fingers at each other as parents rather than supporting each other.
Many people today do not live near their families the way our parent’s generation did and so this support from other parents is crucial. So, enough with this so called “Mommy War” (which I agree, is an internal one.) Thank you, again, for articulating this.
Thank you so much for reaching out to us. My husband taped the show for me. I am 37 yrs old and have a beautiful 6 mo baby. We had tried for 3 yrs to get pregnant with no results when this past year we got our miracle. I had no idea what i was in for. How can something i have been longing for all these years bring so much pain and confusion. Now i know what I’m going through is normal!! No more feelings of guilt!!! Thank you so much for giving me back part of my life.
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