Imagine that your favorite aunt just happened to be a talented midwife, and that your other favorite aunt happens to be a respected obstetrician. Whenever you want, throughout your pregnancy, you can ask them questions.
What should be happening at my prenatal checks? Why does my doctor want to order this or that test? Why don’t my clothes fit even though there’s no cute belly bulge? What should I expect when labor starts? What should I be eating?
Instead of getting narrow, somewhat paranoid answers, “You should be following our restrictive and totally unrealistic diet to insure the health of your unborn child,” (My own summary, since I junked the unnamed book) you would get warm comforting answers: “ . . . digesting all the worries about eating right may be more difficult than digesting all the food. While you should give some thought to what you eat, it’s not realistic to scrutinize every morsel that passes your lips” (The Pregnancy Book, Sears and Sears, pg 87).
The Pregnancy Book offers a month-by-month chronicle of what really to expect, from your changing shape, to work etiquette to labor, to the first month after birth. Delicate issues including miscarriage and your sex life are addressed with honesty, and practical advice and humor is offered for coping with discomforts common during pregnancy.
Most importantly, The Pregnancy Book avoids a formulaic to-do list and starts new parents off by teaching them to trust themselves, a lesson essential for the parenting road ahead.