Winner of a 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards Bronze Medal One size fits all does not apply to pregnancy and childbirth. Each one is different, unique, and comes with its share of pleasure and pain. But how does one prepare for an unexpected loss of a pregnancy or hoped-for baby? In How to Expect What You're Not Expecting, writers share their true stories of miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility, and other, related losses. This literary anthology picks up where some pregnancy books end and offers diverse, honest, and moving essays that can prepare and guide women and their families for when the unforeseen happens. Contributors include Chris Arthur, Kim Aubrey, Janet Baker, Yvonne Blomer, Jennifer Bowering Delisle, Kevin Bray, Erika Connor, Sadiqa de Meijer, Jessica Hiemstra, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Lisa Martin-DeMoor, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Susan Olding, Laura Rock, Gail Marlene Schwartz, Maureen Scott Harris, Carrie Snyder, Cathy Stonehouse, and Chris Tarry. The fourth book in a loosely linked series of anthologies about the twenty-first-century family, How to Expect What You're Not Expecting follows Somebody's Child, Nobody's Mother, and Nobody's Father, essay collections about adoption and childless adults. Together, these four books challenge readers to re-examine traditional definitions of the concept of "family."

Pregnancy.

What to expect. . . the first step. Answers to all your baby-making questions. Are there ways to improve our chances of having a girl (or boy)? Does stress affect fertility? Should we be having sex every day? Every other day? Three times a day? I’m 37. Does that mean I’ll have a harder time getting pregnant? How long should we keep trying to conceive before we get some help? What fertility treatments are available—and how will we be able to pay for them? Expecting to expect? Plan ahead. Here’s everything you need to know to help prepare for the healthiest possible pregnancy and the healthiest possible baby. Filled with practical tips, empathetic advice, and savvy strategies, all designed to help you get that baby of your dreams on board faster. How to get your body into the best baby-making shape. Which foods feed fertility. Which lifestyle habits to quit and which to cultivate. All about baby-making sex, from timing to positions to logistics—and how to keep it sexy. Figuring out your fertility (and his). When to seek fertility help, and the latest on tests, treatments, and reproductive technology. Expecting to become a dad? This book has you covered, too. Plus, all about the family-building options for single women and same-sex couples.

Look around you and think for a minute: Is America too crowded? For years, we have been warned about the looming danger of overpopulation: people jostling for space on a planet that’s busting at the seams and running out of oil and food and land and everything else. It’s all bunk. The “population bomb” never exploded. Instead, statistics from around the world make clear that since the 1970s, we’ve been facing exactly the opposite problem: people are having too few babies. Population growth has been slowing for two generations. The world’s population will peak, and then begin shrinking, within the next fifty years. In some countries, it’s already started. Japan, for instance, will be half its current size by the end of the century. In Italy, there are already more deaths than births every year. China’s One-Child Policy has left that country without enough women to marry its men, not enough young people to support the country’s elderly, and an impending population contraction that has the ruling class terrified. And all of this is coming to America, too. In fact, it’s already here. Middle-class Americans have their own, informal one-child policy these days. And an alarming number of upscale professionals don’t even go that far—they have dogs, not kids. In fact, if it weren’t for the wave of immigration we experienced over the last thirty years, the United States would be on the verge of shrinking, too. What happened? Everything about modern life—from Bugaboo strollers to insane college tuition to government regulations—has pushed Americans in a single direction, making it harder to have children. And making the people who do still want to have children feel like second-class citizens. What to Expect When No One’s Expecting explains why the population implosion happened and how it is remaking culture, the economy, and politics both at home and around the world. Because if America wants to continue to lead the world, we need to have more babies.

What if your pregnancy isn't the dream you always imagined and instead has turned into a living nightmare? What if instead of your doctor telling you these aches and pains are normal and there's nothing that can be done, you had a practitioner that not only listened to you but helped you? It is possible. Dr. Brandie Nemchenko, a pregnancy chiropractor with over fifteen-years of experience has developed a self-help run-through that has helped thousands of patients in her private practice near Philadelphia. In her "keeping it real" and humorous manner, Dr. Brandie not only gives you the tools and mechanics of what you can safely try, she also "gets it" and helps you find ways to cope and think differently in this "new but temporary normal." Breaking down the typical cases she sees in her office, she explains why these things happen and what you can STOP doing today to help you break the pain cycle so that you can do the things you need to do, even while pregnant. You'll also learn: - Your second pregnancy is often worse and comes with predictable pains and what you can do to ease the pain and better yet how to keep it from occurring. - How to think critically about the decisions you need to make for you and your unborn baby. - How you can ask and get the support you need. With dozens of case studies and personal insight Dr. Brandie can help radically change your pregnancy from one that is painful to one that is enjoyed. Pregnancy should be one of the most special times in your life and remembered for the joy not the pain. The goal of this book is to guide you to the best support team and practices to ensure you have the pregnancy of your dreams.

Thirty acclaimed writers share their personal birth stories—the extraordinary, the ordinary, the terrifying, the sublime, the profane It's an elemental, almost animalistic urge—the expectant mother's hunger for birth narratives. Bookstores are filled with month-by-month pregnancy manuals, but the shelves are virtually empty of artful, entertaining, unvarnished accounts of labor and delivery—the stories that new mothers need most. Here is a book that transcends the limits of how-to guides and honors the act of childbirth in the twenty-first century. Eleanor Henderson and Anna Solomon have gathered true birth stories by women who have made self-expression their business, including Cheryl Strayed, Julia Glass, Lauren Groff, Dani Shapiro, and many other luminaries. In Labor Day, you'll read about women determined to give birth naturally and others begging for epidurals; women who pushed for hours and women whose labors were over practically before they'd started; women giving birth to twins and to ten-pound babies. These women give birth in the hospital, at home, in bathtubs, and, yes, even in the car. Some revel in labor, some fear labor, some feel defeated by labor, some are fulfilled by it—and all are amazed by it. You will laugh, weep, squirm, perhaps groan in recognition, and undoubtedly gasp with surprise. And then you'll call every mother or mother-to-be that you know and say "You MUST read Labor Day." Contributors: Nuar Alsadir Amy Brill Susan Burton Sarah Shun-lien Bynum Lan Samantha Chang Phoebe Damrosch Claire Dederer Jennifer Gilmore Julia Glass Arielle Greenberg Lauren Groff Eleanor Henderson Cristina Henriquez Amy Herzog Ann Hood Sarah Jefferis Heidi Julavits Mary Beth Keane Marie Myung-Ok Lee Edan Lepucki Heidi Pitlor Joanna Rakoff Jane Roper Danzy Senna Dani Shapiro Anna Solomon Cheryl Strayed Sarah A. Strickley Rachel Jamison Webster Gina Zucker

Bailey Summers is very good at taking care of herself. So good, in fact, that she shuts others out with very little effort. But when her brother and his partner want a child, she pushes out of her comfort zone and offers to be their surrogate. It’s just nine months out of her life, right? Right. Because of course when she’s struggling with morning sickness, she encounters the hottest man she’s ever met. To make matters worse, he’s the new bartender at her popular bar. Rick Cassidy comes with his own complications. He’s a middle school teacher taking a summer job as a bartender to help out his brother’s family. His brother is in a rehab hospital after colliding with a drunk driver, and Rick is trying to help them make ends meet. He’s just out of a relationship himself, with a woman who couldn’t handle him spending so much time caring for his brother. So what’s he doing eyeballing his boss, the boss of a job he needs? But late nights, close quarters and second-trimester hormones overrule better judgement, and complications intertwine. This is definitely not what they were expecting. Keywords: workplace romance, pregnancy romance, steamy romance