*****
Great Expections- Pregnancy and Childbirth
Sandy Jones, Marcie Jones, With Claire Westdahl, With Peter S. Bernstein
My first 3mester, Perze bought this for me and from then on, i was a pregnancy junkie when it came to reading up on my pregnancy and my baby’s development.

This is a great book because it’s warm and personal, as if a woman’s talking you through it, and because as i read it from week to week, it seems consistent to what i’m feeling, and what i should be concerned about at that stage in my pregnancy. It was a way to influence my thinking and planning without sounding too much like a textbook, but more like a guiding voice, knowing that i’m 1 out of millions of women in the world going through the same thing. It reassured me that what i was feeling wasn’t alien or wrong, but common and ok.

The book is great because it is so comprehensive when it comes to every concern, whether it’s talking to your OB/GyN, what types of vitamins and how much you should be taking, what not to take, what to avoid, how to plan for a shower, consumer reports on baby gear, breastfeeding, and even lists of birth defects or diseases to watch for. It covers the types of tests you need to take, and it may be overwhelming, but more education is always more reassurance.

I’ve learned that pregnancy can be a scary time, but the more you read, the more you’ll know, and the more you know, the more you know what to do, what not to do, which gives tons of comfort as opposed to knowing nothing at all…