Deana B. (ablotial) - reviewed on 9/19/2015 + 7 more book reviews

This review is crossposted from Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1248420813

If you are pregnant, I highly recommend NOT reading this book until you are almost done with your pregnancy. It will make everything sound awful, scare the crap out of you, and make you distrust everyone around you for a bunch of stuff that probably won't apply to your pregnancy.

3/4 of the way through this book, I was ready to give it a single star. Seriously. This woman's writing style was a total turnoff to me, and not only that she did her best to make pregnancy seem horrible and awful and that everyone is lying to you the entire time. This is not what I want to hear from my "girlfriends". I eventually started going through and sticky-noting all the passages that made me want to strangle the author.

Not only that but she YELLS AT YOU IN ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME. Every few pages there is a sentence that jumps out at you because it is in all caps; THIS IS OBVIOUSLY VERY IMPORTANT ADVICE SO MAKE SURE YOU READ IT. When someone compliments you when you are pregnant WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T BELIEVE THEM THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY LYING BECAUSE ALL PREGNANT WOMEN ARE FAT AND UGLY. She also says things like "It's my book and it's my opinion, so there!" And there are a lot of times where she basically says "I [don't] like XYZ, and if you disagree YOU ARE DUMB BECAUSE ALL MY GIRLFRIENDS AGREE WITH ME."

Also you should use a doctor rather than a midwife because doctors are on television more than midwives are and we all know that means they are better. Here is an actual quote from the book: "Remember, we are creatures of popular culture; we revere doctors as if they were the heroes and heroines we grew up watching on TV." She goes on to say that midwives didn't get get a series on HBO and were tried as witches in Salem. Um.

I could go on and on. I kept reading these ridiculous passages to my husband, and he says "why are you still reading this crap?" But I kept on.

The last few chapters actually redeemed it a little bit, bumped it up to two stars. The "what to take the hospital" section brought up a few ideas that I hadn't considered, and pointed out that a onesie can be uncomfortable for the baby's umbilical cord depending on how tight it is, so a shirt and pants that can allow it to breathe might be better.

She talked about the telephone list, and how it's a good idea to find out from family/friends which situations (if any) they want a 3am phone call for, and which they would prefer we waited until 7am when they will already be awake -- advice I quickly took and learned that there are wildly different preferences among family, so I'm glad we asked!

She talked about nesting and about the water breaking, both of which I had some misconceptions about, so that prompted me to do a little more research and that was interesting. Same with postpartum fears and misconceptions. So overall, the book wasn't a total waste.

But ... I am SOOOOOO glad I did not read this early in my pregnancy like I had intended to. It would have scared the shit out of me, and I'm convinced I would have had a much worse experience due to the expectations I would have gotten as a result.

ETA: After posting this review, a few people commented to me that the book is supposed to be funny and I need to get a sense of humor. Maybe this is true... but it would have been nice to know that before I started reading it...

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