What To Expect Before You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff

[lightreads]

What to Expect Before You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I didn’t totally hate this, even with all the mealy-mouthed cutesy bullshit (I say this solemnly and with purpose: if any of you ever
catch me unironically using the phrase “baby dancing” instead of just saying sex, do us all a favor and insert bullet into brain post haste, please and thank you). I didn’t even hate her complete aversion to showing her work and, you know, citing like a fucking professional. I
didn’t even hate the entire 50 words she devoted to noticing that,
ohmygosh, there are people planning to get pregnant who aren’t
heterosexual, monogamous, and married! Or even how thirty of those fifty words were misleading as to law and facts. (They didn’t even get in the same zip code as my circumstances, let alone the same ballpark, but go figure.)



Really though. If you’re writing a book to educate people about
pre-conception health, and I come stumbling along, fresh and blinking
and largely uneducated from a life of avowed childfreedom with all my
childfree friends, and your book on pre-conception health only manages to teach me four things I didn’t already know? You’re doing it wrong.






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Comments

[rivkat]

What to Expect When You're Expecting is terrible. Before you reach for that candy bar, think: are you really allocating those calories in a way that's best for your baby? To which I say: I am really throwing this book across the room in a way that's best for my baby.

All of which is to say: not surprised.

[cahn]

Ha! Yes, this! (Throwing that book across the room probably is the best thing for one's baby.)

Fortunately I was warned beforehand, so I just laughed at those parts. And ate the candy bar. I only had the book because my ob/gyn gave it to me free; it was probably a remaindered copy that no one else wanted...

[lightreads]

Was there any book you did like?

Actually, you know what, I should just make a post and ask everyone at once. This is getting silly.

[cahn]

No. I didn't read much at all about pregnancy when I was pregnant, being (to my surprise and chagrin) one of those people who actually doesn't want to know too much about what can go wrong (I mean, I read the basics, but I didn't want to go into gory detail).

However, I FINALLY got around to asking my best friend (who is much more like you in this respect) the books she found helpful:

The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy (primarily a medical book)

The Birth Partner (presumed audience is, well, the partner ("Dads, Doulas, and All Other Labor Companions"); my friend is married het so she may not have been reading for non-married-het compliance, so that's something you might want to check before looking too closely at it)

[lightreads]

Oh, good, thanks, I have that one somewhere...

[lightreads]

Oh yeah, there was a lot of that in this one, too. But compared to some of the things I had stumbled into accidentaly reading on the internet, it was almost sane. Hint: do not ever construct a google query containing the words "conception" and "diet." Did you know that consuming any form of refined sugar anytime for a year before you even think of trying to conceive means your uterin lining will be composed of barbed wire and your baby -- should you manage to ever get one -- will have two heads? Now you do!

[rivkat]

That explains why the sweaters I buy my kids never fit! Thanks, internet!

[ecaterin]

If you’re writing a book to educate people about
pre-conception health, and I come stumbling along, fresh and blinking
and largely uneducated from a life of avowed childfreedom with all my
childfree friends, and your book on pre-conception health only manages to teach me four things I didn’t already know? You’re doing it wrong.

ROFLMAO!!!! Too true :D

Yeah, the "What to expect..." books are pretty darned insipid ;P