If you are a veteran of the blogosphere and a mom, chances are you have read or at least heard of Dooce. Heather Armstrong is the creator of Dooce. She started her blog when she was single and working in 2002. She was eventually fired because of comments that she made about her employer and her workplace on her blog. This notorious event ultimately launched a new phrase to describe such employment terminations, “getting Dooced.”

She eventually married her husband Jon and they settled in Utah, Heather’s home state, despite her status as a recovering Mormon. Continuing to write Dooce, Heather became one of the most famous bloggers, winning awards and even having her blog named as one of Time Magazine’s “Top 50 Coolest Websites."

Laying her heart and her life open for the world to read, Heather chronicled her pregnancy, childbirth and parenting efforts on her blog. When she opens a post up for comments, she gets everything from rabid adulation to assertions that she should never have been allowed to procreate. Now, Heather has published a book focusing on her experiences as a first-time mother to her daughter Leta (now 5). You should probably know that Anne Lamott’s "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year" has long been at the top of my list of favorite books about parenting.

Sorry, Heather, but that’s not going to change. However, Heather Armstrong’s "It Sucked and then I Cried: How I had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita" will now occupy a close second place on my list.

Heather openly shares aspects of pregnancy and parenthood that many of us experience, but are too intimidated by fairy tale illusions of the glory of motherhood to talk about or even acknowledge. Between the constipation of pregnancy and the excessive poop of infancy, she addresses taboo subjects and is just as wide open in her book as she is in her blog. A caution to those with more prim sensibilities, Heather uses language that would cause a movie to be R-rated. This doesn’t bother me, but I feel the responsibility to let you know so that you don’t buy the book only to be offended by the language.

If you have been a reader here, you probably already know that I suffer from clinical depression and am an advocate for being open about this debilitating illness. Inexplicably, I did NOT suffer from postpartum depression, but Heather had a serious bout with it and eventually checked herself into a hospital for treatment. Every pregnant or new mom should read something about postpartum depression since around 13 percent of women will experience some form of it. Find links to local resources here.

If you have bought into the romanticized image of mother-child serenity and suddenly experience postpartum depression’s horrible symptoms, you might think there is something wrong with you, that you are a bad mother or that you are losing your mind. Reading about Heather’s experiences might just prepare you for the possibility and make you more likely to talk about it and seek treatment before you reach rock bottom.

After Heather sought treatment, her world became much more manageable. Her blog and this book recount the day-to-day beauty, frustration, pride and heartbreak of being a mom. Each month she published a letter to Leta on her blog, a collection that Leta will one day read and know what it was like each month as she grew from infant to toddler to kid. Leta is now 5 and Heather is due to have her second child within the next month or so.

If you are pregnant or have a friend who is, "It Sucked and then I Cried" would be a great purchase…even though Heather Armstrong is NO Anne Lamott.

Diane appears Wednesdays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Diane on her blog Live and Let Di.