You're Not Crazy And You're Not Alone


Stacey Robbins - 2013
     Stacey explores the common areas that women with Hashi's struggle: like perfectionism and self-rejection -- and common past experiences -- like abuse or injury. Stacey inspires women to look at their lives, and Hashimoto's differently, and to use this diagnosis as an opportunity for inner healing, greater happiness, and loving themselves.

It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita


Heather B. Armstrong - 2009
    The eighteen months that followed were filled with anxiety, constipation, nacho cheese Doritos, and an unconditional love that threatened to make her heart explode. Still, as baby Leta grew and her husband, Jon, returned to work, Heather faced lonely days, sleepless nights, and endless screaming that sometimes made her wish she'd never become a mother. Just as she was poised to throw another gallon of milk at her husband's head, she committed herself for a short stay in a mental hospital -- the best decision she ever made for her family.To the dedicated millions who can't get enough of Heather's unforgettably unique style and hilarious stories on her hugely popular blog, there's little she won't share about her daily life as a recovering Mormon, liberal daughter of Republicans, wife of a charming geek, lover of television that exceeds at being really awful, and stay-at-home mom to five-year-old Leta and two willful dogs.In It Sucked and Then I Cried, Heather tells, with trademark wit, the heartfelt, unrelentingly honest story of her battle with postpartum depression and all the other minor details of pregnancy and motherhood that no one cares to mention. Like how boring it can be to care for someone whose primary means of communication is through her bowels. And how long it can possibly take to reconvene the procedure that got you into this whole parenthood mess in the first place. And how you sometimes think you can't possibly go five more minutes without breathing in that utterly irresistible and totally redeemable fresh baby smell.It Sucked and Then I Cried is a brave cautionary tale about crossing over that invisible line to the other side (the parenting side), where everything changes and it only gets worse. But most of all, it's a celebration of a love so big it can break your heart into a million pieces.

The Belly Book: A Nine-Month Journal for You and Your Growing Belly


Amy Krouse Rosenthal - 2006
    The first pregnancy journal devoted 100% to you and your belly, The Belly Book is organized by trimester and includes pages for “time-lapse” belly photos and ultrasound images, as well as prompts for writing about morning sickness, food cravings, maternity clothes you never want to see again, and much more.96 two-color pages (guided), 8 x 9 inches, with a concealed wire-O binding

Funny Little Pregnant Things: The Good, the Bad and the Just Plain Gross Things about Pregnancy That Other Books Aren't Going to Tell You.


Emily Doherty - 2014
    Is there any practical value in knowing that your child resembles produce? And where's the good stuff, the useful details, like beware of the baby registry and all the crap you will never use, or be prepared to get breast milk all over everything you own? Hilarious, candid, and easy to read, Funny Little Pregnant Things is full of helpful information about all the stuff people don t tell you about pregnancy the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Love Works Like This: Moving from One Kind of Life to Another


Lauren Slater - 2002
    Slater, career-oriented and willfully autonomous, charts her own personal journey and decision-making process, starting with a list of the pros and cons, about having a child. The cons are many, the pros only one: “learning a new kind of love.” But what will that love look like? How does one reconcile the needs of the self with the demands of others? How do couples go from the dyad that is a marriage to the triad that is a family? And how can Slater adjust to losing precious control of her own carefully developed life?Slater’s complex biological and psychological history also lies at the core of this unique and yet strikingly universal story. One of the first people ever to take Prozac, she chronicles the impossibly conflicting advice regarding pregnancy and antidepressants, and explains the rationale behind her eventual decision to stop taking the medication during her first trimester. This is Slater’s first encounter with self-sacrifice, and for her a crossroad at which modern medicine and basic human love meet. Love Works Like This is a richly written book by “an enormously poetic and ebullient writer” (Elle magazine), an author who writes with “beauty and bravery” (Los Angeles Times Book Review) about falling in love, about growing into the ability to put someone else’s life ahead of your own, and about the rich rewards we can draw from the courage to exchange one kind of happy life for another.

ER DOC: Defining Moments of a Career in Emergency Medicine


Reggie Duling - 2021
    

GUTS


Janet Buttenwieser - 2018
    But within a year she’d developed an intestinal illness so rare she wound up in a medical journal. Janet navigated misdiagnosis, multiple surgeries, and life with a permanent colostomy. Like many female patients her concerns were glossed over by doctors. She was young and insecure, major liabilities in her life as a patient. How would she advocate for low-income people when she couldn’t even advocate for herself? Janet’s model for assertiveness was her friend Beth. She was the kind of friend who’d accompany you to the doctor when you got dysentery in Ecuador, nonchalantly translating the graphic details of your symptoms into Spanish. Throughout Janet’s illness Beth took care of her; then she developed brain cancer and their roles reversed. Eventually Janet recovered, but Beth’s condition worsened. At the age of 38, Beth died. To cope, Janet competed in endurance events, becoming a triathlete with a colostomy pouch. With themes that echo Susannah Cahalan’s 'Brain on Fire' and Gail Caldwell’s 'Let’s Take the Long Way Home', GUTS is a story of resilience for the millions of Americans who manage to thrive while living with a chronic condition, as well as the many who’ve lost a loved one at a young age.

American Parent: My Strange and Surprising Adventures in Modern Babyland


Sam Apple - 2009
    As Sam Apple embarks on his own journey into parenthood, he decides to put his background in journalism to good use by talking to a wide range of experts. Along the way, Apple visits with the mohel who circumcised him, enters a trance with a childbirth hypnotist, goes on a stakeout with a nanny spy, and attends a lecture on Botox for new mothers. Apple is full of questions, and none is left unexplored: Is the Lamaze method a Stalinist plot? (Yes.) Are newborns really fetuses that are born too soon? (Sort of.) Is there a universal theory that can explain the origins of circumcision in many diverse cultures? (Maybe.) Does it sting when you pour baby shampoo into your own eyes? (Big-time!) And yet for all the unusual twists in this story–at one point Apple fantasizes about a father losing his mind and refusing to remove his BabyBjörn–the strangest twist of all might be that at its core American Parent is a deeply serious and personal book about the way emotionally vulnerable and confused new parents can get lost in the increasingly complex labyrinth of baby products, classes, and fads. Parenthood is the oldest subject of all. In American Parent, Sam Apple makes it feel entirely new.

The Essential C-Section Guide: Pain Control, Healing at Home, Getting Your Body Back, and Everything Else You Need to Know About a Cesarean Birth


Maureen Connolly - 2004
    Despite the fact that roughly one in four babies in the United States is delivered by c-section, very little information about the experience is included in typical pregnancy books and physicians and childbirth educators often gloss over the details.The Essential C-Section Guide is written not only for women to read in preparation for a scheduled c-section and for those considered “high risk” who know that a c-section may become necessary but also for women recovering from an unexpected surgical delivery. This book provides answers to important questions about what the surgery entails, what a woman can expect as she recovers, and what considerations should be made for future pregnancies and deliveries.With frank discussions about the physical and emotional aspects surrounding a c-section, the authors share comforting wisdom about early bonding, pain control, breastfeeding, infant care, healing from surgery, postpartum exercise, partner involvement, and much more, in detail not available anywhere else.Written by authors who have firsthand knowledge of birth by c-section, The Essential C-Section Guide is well-researched and addresses its unique concerns with intelligence and compassion.www.broadwaybooks.com

Family Medical History: Unknown/Adopted: How One Inquiry Led to Many Unexpected Discoveries


Nancy Kacirek Feldman - 2014
    They would ask her about her family’s health history, and she would hear the doctor’s familiar sigh after she answered, “I don’t know, I’m adopted.”Being perfectly happy with the loving family she had, Feldman never took an interest in finding her biological parents until diagnosed with a disease that she passed on to her son. Suddenly, Nancy’s lack of family history was affecting someone else.Writing to the Nebraska Children’s Home Society for help, the adoption agency assigned Nancy’s case to Rebecca Crofoot. This began a 17-year journey between the two women who were determined to find information about a family that might not know, or want to know, Nancy existed.Family Medical History: Unknown/Adopted is a heart-warming story of personal, medical, genealogical and emotional discovery.

It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters


Andrea J. BuchananMiriam Peskowitz - 2006
    Some people were happy for her; visions of flouncy pink dresses and promises of mother-daughter bonding were the predictable responses. Other people, though, were concerned: "Is your husband OK with that?" "You can try again." "Girls are tough." This mixed message led her to explore the issue herself, with help from her fellow writers and moms, many of whom had had the same experience. As she did in It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons, Buchanan and her contributors take on what it's really like to raise a child-in this case, a girl-from babyhood to adulthood.It's a Girl, is a wide-ranging, often humorous, and honest collection of essays about the experience of the mother-daughter bond, taking on topics like "princess power" ("Shining, Shimmering, Splendid"), adding a girl to a brood of boys ("Confessions of a Tomboy Mom"), dealing with a daughter's eating disorder ("The Food Rules"), and mothering "hardcore mini-feminists" ("Tough Girls").

God and Mr. Gomez


Jack Clifford Smith - 1974
    The joys and travails of building a home in Baja California.

EMT: Beyond the Lights and Sirens


Pat Ivey - 1990
    You'll experience the rush of adrenaline and the pain of loss. You'll go beyond the lights and sirens to witness the instinct of intelligence, the courage and commitment that makes the EMT an unsung hero in one of the most vital and compelling medical dramas of our time.

The Moms on Call Guide to Basic Baby Care: The First 6 Months, Instructional DVD Included


Laura Hunter - 2007
    Authored by two pediatric nurses, this straightforward guide to feeding, bedtime routines, and medical issues includes an instructional DVD with step-by-step demonstrations of how to care for a newborn to a 6-month-old child.

Smoking Cigarettes, Eating Glass: A Psychologist’s Memoir


Annita Perez Sawyer - 2015
    Discharged in 1966, after finally receiving proper psychiatric care, Sawyer kept her past secret and moved on to graduate from Yale University, raise two children, and become a respected psychotherapist. That is, until 2001, when she reviewed her hospital records and began to remember a broken childhood and the even more broken mental health system of the 1950s and 1960s.