Plot:

Combining medical and historical information with real life accounts of ordinary women, this book is an essential guide to the facts, feelings and emotions experienced during pregnancy and birth. It takes you week by week, from the decision to conceive, through to first impressions of life with your baby, offering invaluable information.

Topics include: Conception – If and When; Feelings for Your Growing Baby; Your Career and Financial Position; Fear that Something May Go Wrong; Changing Relationships with Family and Friends; Choosing Where and How to Give Birth; How Others Felt – Women Relate their Experiences; The First Few Days with Your Baby

Review:

Reading this novel after I have recently became a mother (yes, it’s still odd to have that word next to my name, seeing it on my daughter’s birth certificate), I felt more prepared to read it and more confident than if I did during the time when I was pregnant.

“It made me determined to be me, and not to give everything up for my children”

Understanding what mothers actually go through compared to being on the outside gave me a fresh perspective and I feel as if I’m having more empathy each day as I learn something new on this new phase of life. I appreciate the research that has went into this novel and gathering so many women’s point of views from all sorts of situations including the scientific research as I begin to understand and feel reassured at some of the areas in this novel. I have found it to be a very interesting read from the beginning.

“Though her decision appears fraught with conflict, adaptive choice enables the woman to reach balanced decisions that take account both of her feelings and her common sense.”

From being a person that had no interest in children at all – as with many women and this is commented on within this novel to subconsciously have one and understanding how that has even happened when you do not realise it is interesting to read within this novel.

Overall, great researched type of book for all things pregnancy.

3/5 Stars