Working moms: You can do it all!

In a time when many women are opting out of successful careers to raise their children, Carol Evans, CEO and president of Working Mother magazine, writes about women who “do it all.” In her book, “This Is How We Do It: The Working Mothers’ Manifesto,” she gives firsthand accounts of working mothers who reveal their innovative solutions to successfully balancing their careers and their families. Evans was invited on “Today” to discuss her book. Here’s an excerpt:

Introduction
“But We Are Doing It!”
Fifteen years ago, I was lying in the starkly lit delivery room at New York University Hospital, supposedly ready to give birth to my second child. But as push came to shove, I felt about as ready as a kindergartener taking the SATs. It was like a first birth for me because my son, Robert, had arrived three years before in the blur of an emergency C-section, without a single contraction to prepare me for his arrival six weeks early.

This time, my new OB — the well-known and very strict Dr. Livia Wan — had promised she would get me safely to my due date. She had delivered more than three thousand babies throughout her career, and felt I could deliver this one full term and without surgery. I wanted to believe her, and as my tummy grew to the size of a state fair blue ribbon pumpkin, I grew ever more confident in her judgment.

It was mid-December, and I was two days from my due date — perfect timing — when the contractions started at midnight. We dropped three-year-old Robert off at our friends' house and drove in a light, swirling snowfall to New York City, an hour away from our home in Chappaqua, New York.

NBC VIDEO How women balance careers and children May 8: The "Today" show's Ann Curry talks with Carol Evans of Working Mother magazine about her new book, "This is How We Do It: The Working Mothers’ Manifesto." Today Show Entertainment

At the hospital, I spent seven hours sleeping between contractions, when suddenly a tidal wave of pain hit, causing me to flail my arms, tear an IV from its mooring in my hand, and send the early-morning shift into a whirl of action. I remember hearing a young intern urgently calling Dr. Wan to the scene, warning her that I had achieved full dilation in one Olympian sprint.

The fear that gripped me increased as Dr. Wan entered the delivery room and a hush descended. She was ordering the nurses about in her staccato voice when a brilliant idea suddenly struck me. Instead of struggling with the fear and pain of impending delivery — what if I just went home?!

In that moment of panic and confusion this seemed like an entirely rational request. So I summoned my powers of persuasion, honed by years in sales, to get Dr. Wan to agree to my plan. In between pushes that grew increasingly intense, I used my remaining breath to shout, "I can't do it, Dr. Wan ... I want to go home ... I really can't do this!" I truly believed I could convince the stern-faced doctor to let me quit pushing and leave the hospital. "Let me go home," I yelled. "I can't do it!!"

Dr. Wan immediately stopped her work and looked directly into my eyes. "But Carol," she said with a big, cheerful grin, "you are doing it."

Of course she was right. I was doing it. In fact, I had done it. "Push!" she barked, and I did. That last effort was no more difficult than the rest of the journey, and Julia Rose, my eight-pound two-ounce black-haired beauty was born moments after my crisis of confidence.

Dr. Wan placed the baby on my chest and said, "See? You were doing it."

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