First time co-author, full-time mother and Molson employee Shawna Kressler share’s the inspiration behind her first book a look into a parent’s Quarter to Five.

So Shawna, give us a bit of an introduction about yourself!

My name is Shawna Kressler and I've been working with Molson Coors for 10 years on the sponsorship and events team. I oversee our regional sales events and partnerships across Ontario. I am also a mom of a three-year-old little boy. He is almost four and he was really he was really he drove all of this, he is the story behind my chapter in this book, so if it wasn't for him, I would have no story to tell.

You recently co-authored a book called, WTF am I even doing? Can you tell us more about that?

The book I co-authored on is called WTF am I even doing? The purpose is really to help normalize those types of moments, mainly for women, where we often stop and go “What am I doing”. I want to help other women realize that when they often feel alone in those moments, they're not. There's many of us who have gone through those WTF moments, just in this book alone there are 20+ women telling their individual stories about WTF moments that they have encountered in their past.

You mentioned your son inspired you for this chapter, what was your story about?

So I knew from the get go what I wanted to write about my chapter. Specifically, I tell the story about how my son came two months early and what our experience in the NICU was.

I had an easy pregnancy and especially with it being my first one, I thought it was a walk in the park! Then, out of the blue. I just had a little bit of cramping, a little bit of spotting. I thought, OK, this isn't right. Sure enough, he had to be delivered two months early.

The NICU is somewhere that you would never want to go. You would never want your child there. You would never want to know a child in there. And when we were discharged 37 days later, we didn't want to leave. We did not want to walk out of that safe haven. We did not want to walk out of the four walls that became our home away from home for the last month and a half, and we were within a protected place. We knew our baby boy was safe. We knew that everybody in there would be able to care for him, given everything that he needed. And now all the responsibility was on us and that was really scary for us.

The chapter is about the irony of the hospital being this scary, awful place. And transforming into a place that is so symbolic and meaningful to us. We thankfully are one of the lucky ones.

What would you say is like a piece of advice you would give someone when they're experiencing one of these WTF moments?

In the simplest form, you are not alone. Many people go through moments thinking “How is this happening to me?”, or, “Am I the only one that is going through this?”, and the answer is you’re not. It doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter how far fetched it is guaranteed. There's somebody who has been in a similar situation. And that really was the driving force for me as to why I wanted to contribute to this book and write.

What would you say is your Quarter to Five?

The quarter to five of being a mom, is funny because that relaxation for us doesn't really come until our kids are asleep, and even then, it's still a bit of a question. Like, are they really asleep? So for me, there are really two Quarter to Five’s. The first is that transition from being a professional during the day to then flipping my switch and putting my mom hat on and getting ready for the storm to walk through the door. Then, after that I just want to be alone haha! I want a warm cup of tea. I want a book. I want reality TV.