nomadreader

The backstory: When I was pregnant, I found myself enjoying memoirs of pregnancy by great writers so much more than the traditional self-help pregnancy books. Several people recommended this one to me, and I opted to save it to read while on maternity leave. The basics: When Anne Lamott finds herself thirty-something and pregnant, she decides to have the baby. His father immediately exits the picture, and she must rely on her family and friends to serve as a support system for her single parenthood. My thoughts:  First of all, I'm so glad I waited until after Hawthorne was born to read this. Lamott's son Sam was horribly fussy, and knowing how bad it could be would have been awful for me to imagine while pregnant. My baby is blessedly not very fussy (he does have his days), and I often found myself feeling sorry for Lamott in the early weeks. I'm also fortunate to have a supportive partner. I cannot imagine Lamott's version of motherhood. While it does get better as...

The backstory: After enjoying Making Babies: Stumbling Into Motherhood , I set out to find more memoirs of pregnancy and motherhood by great women writers. I stumbled upon this one at the library, and the subtitle, "Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence" seemed to fit me perfectly. The basics: Rebecca Walker, known for her honest memoirs and her tumultuous relationship with her own mother, Alice Walker, shares her journey to motherhood in this memoir, written in journal format. My thoughts: I read this memoir in the early weeks of my pregnancy, and I loved that Walker tells her story chronologically through journal format. For me, pregnancy was much more psychologically and emotionally challenging than physically uncomfortable, and charting Walker's similar struggles was a lifeline. I spent much of life not wanting children. A few years into my relationship with Mr. Nomadreader, I realized our different ideas about parenthood could end our relation...

The basics: Making Babies  is Anne Enright's memoir of becoming a mother and the first two years of her two childrens' lives. Enright and her husband were together for 18 years before having children relatively late in life. My thoughts: I remember wanting to read this when it first came out, but I put it in my virtual "wait until I'm pregnant" pile. When it arrived in the mail a few days after telling one of my best friends I was pregnant, I was ecstatic, and I knew it was exactly what I needed at that moment. As excited as I was to finally  be pregnant, I was also somewhat ambivalent about it. I was nervous about all the changes pregnancy would bring, and Enright's words were reassuring in the best ways. She beautifully captures the joys, annoyances, and ambivalent moments of pregnancy and motherhood. Enright's irreverence, wisdom and humor shine through this memoir: "Humans give birth in pain so that they can’t run away afterward." Alth...

The backstory: After loving   Nine Months , Paula Bomer's first novel , I was so enchanted with her writing, I wanted to read her short stories (and y'all know short stories are not typically my thing. Except when they   are   awesome .) The basics: This collection of stories is somewhat thematic, but not entirely so. Many of the stories feature parents of young children and/or pregnant women. In some stories these attributes are the focus, but in others they aren't. My thoughts: One of the reasons I was curious about this collection was because I found Nine Months  so bold. When I do enjoy short stories, I like a boldness of story telling: use the medium for its benefits. Bomer did not disappoint. The first story in the collection, The Mother of His Children" is raw and bold, but it's also a beautiful exploration of love and humanity. As is often the case with collections (of short stories or essays), I enjoyed some more than others. What I loved about the...

I'm pregnant enough that a steady stream of colleagues stop by my office each day to see if I'm still at work. I imagine people are visiting this blog, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to see if posts are appearing. Yes: I'm still pregnant. Any day now the nomadbaby will be here. My due date is later this week, and my OB practice doesn't let patients go more than week past their due date. So, one way or another, sometime this week or next, the nomadbaby will be here. I'm definitely at "the sooner the better" stage. I am so excited to see his face, hold him in my arms, and see Mr. Nomadreader hold him. It's getting harder to enjoy the last few moments without him here. I've been having cramping and mild contractions since Thursday night, which adds to my general physical discomfort at being 39+ weeks pregnant. If labor weren't on the horizon, I'd be more inclined to call them painful, but imagining what's coming, I'm trying to kee...

The basics: Nine Months  is the story of Brooklyn wife and mom of two Sonia, who finds herself unintentionally and unhappily pregnant with number three. With frustration mounting, Sonia takes off on a cross-country trip alone--and does so many things pregnant women aren't supposed to do. My thoughts:  I've been saving  Nine Months  to read until I was very, very pregnant. I'm so glad I did because it was fun to live vicariously through Sonia. I'm happily pregnant, of course, but I also really dislike being pregnant. The thought of being pregnant again--ever--terrifies me. I can relate to Sonia's feeling of helplessness, but as real as it is, this novel is also escapist fun. It's fantasy that's firmly planted in reality: ""You’re pregnant. You’re doing a great job. I know it’s hard.” “You don’t know how hard it is. And I’m not doing a ‘great job.’ I haven’t done anything, except fuck you. This is happening to me, don’t you understand? I have not...

I confess: I am really hoping (and was really believing) the nomadbaby would make his appearance today. 27 is a special number in this family. Mr. Nomadreader and I were both born on the 27th (of September and August respectively.) We started dating on February (2/7). How perfect would it be for the nomadbaby to join us on the 27th? If the first half of my day is any indication: it would be too perfect to be true, despite my vigorous rubbing of key acupuncture points used to jump start labor. I strategically started around 4 p.m. yesterday, and all I have to show for it are some very sore pressure points. Alas, I am resigning myself to still being pregnant when this day is done (and yes, the nomadbaby isn't actually  due until next week, but a very pregnant lady sure can dream.) In the absence of having a baby today, I'm spending it reading, and I seemed to have once again found my reading groove. I started digging into the Booker longlist last week. This year I'm mak...

I'm in that uncomfortable state of pregnancy where I'm uncomfortable more than I'm not. I'm 38 weeks pregnant tomorrow, which is so very close to the end, but even with a daily nap and a good, long, overnight sleep (almost) every day, the days are long and tiring. Although there are still two weeks until the nomadbaby is due, and he could easily come as much as a week late, he could also legitimately come at any time. I've taken to calling these last few days and weeks as pregnancy limbo--because who knows how much longer I'll be pregnant? With pregnancy limbo comes reading limbo. I'm well aware life as I know it is about to change dramatically, and as reading is one of the most important things to me, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to prioritize my reading while pregnant and after the nomadbaby arrives. Pregnancy has been grueling for me, and I've found a way to relax and simply spend as much time reading as I can, while reading whate...

The backstory: I've been a fan of Emily Gould for years, and I've recently enjoyed her essays in Goodbye to All That  and MFA vs. NYC , both of which share themes with the characters in this novel. The basics: Friendship  is mostly the story of two young women in New York, Bev and Amy. The two share narration with Sally, an older more successful married woman trying to have a baby. My thoughts: I adored the first two chapters of this novel, as Bev and Amy each introduced the reader to their worlds. When the action shifts to Sally in chapter three, the book takes a different turn. It was easy to guess how Sally might fit into this novel, and I was along for the ride. Except Sally doesn't appear again for quite some time. The placement of the third chapter struck me as odd. Unfortunately, as much as I loved a lot of parts of this novel, I kept running into issues like the third chapter where I pondered why Gould made some of her choices. As a reader, I like to be trans...

The basics:  Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born  is a historical and anthropological look at childbirth. My thoughts:  Since I got pregnant (the nomadbaby is due August 9th), I've become more interested in books about pregnancy and birthing. As with many things in life, part of me is drawn to the natural way of doing things, while part of me is drawn to modern convenience. For example, I eat as much local and organic produce, meat, eggs and cheese as possible. But I have no desire to actually have my own garden, grow my own food, or kill the animals I eat. So I rely on local farmers and belong to a two CSAs, one for meat.With pregnancy and birth, these choices between natural and modern seem to have impossibly high stakes. For the first time in my life, my biology dictates many of my choices. As the one carrying this baby, I have responsibilities Mr. Nomadreader doesn't. How far those extend after birth is something I think about often, particularly as we...

One of the questions I get most frequently from people lately "what are you craving?" I am an eater (and a drinker), and I was curious how those habits would change when I got pregnant. I miss the ability to have more than one drink less than I thought I would (most nights). I really miss rare steak, blue cheese and goat cheese. I love the ability to eat gluten again (although still, not too much of it!) And I've developed an affinity for spicy food and chocolate much to the delight of Mr. Nomadreader, as those are two of his favorite good groups.) And, no, I haven't had the dreaded pregnancy heartburn (at least not yet), so I'm really enjoying my exploration of spicy foods and not-so-secretly hoping I won't lose the ability to enjoy spicy foods after the nomadbaby arrives. But what I've been most surprised about is a craving of a very different sort: classic literature. I anticipated spending my pregnancy days lounging on the couch or in the hammock (we...

Good morning! We're expecting a day of storms, so I've traded in hammock-lounging for porch couch lounging today. Plus, I have a ton of things I'd like to do around the house before celebrating Mother's Day with my mom, grandmother, and aunt tonight. Pregnancy It was a week of milestones: Friday marked three months until the nomadbaby's due date, and I hit 27 weeks yesterday, which means I've officially entered the third trimester. I feel like I'm in the home stretch now. Unlike most people, I keep feeling better the longer I'm pregnant. I struggled with pre-partum depression the first two trimesters, but I've been feeling more and more like myself in the past few weeks. I think I've finally reached an equilibrium, where August 9th seems close enough that my impatience is waning (I accept that there will be a baby...and relatively soon), which allows me to be both excited for the nomadbaby to arrive and excited to enjoy these last weeks as a f...

The basics: The subtitle of Expecting Better  really says it all: why the conventional pregnancy wisdom is wrong--and what you really need to know. Emily Oster is a health economist, and in this book she offers up her analysis of what the data behind the pregnancy rules (the good, bad and unnecessary). While she offers her decisions, she also leaves room for the reader to make her own informed decisions about her pregnancy. My thoughts: Expecting Better  made headlines when it came out last August. I vividly recall the NPR headline "Pregnant? It's okay to have a glass of wine*" with the asterisk indicating "according to an economist." Which is true, but also according to doctors across Western Europe and Australia, but I'm getting ahead of myself. In August, we were still in that very frustrating stage of trying to get pregnant, so I purchased the book for my Kindle and impatiently waited until I was actually pregnant, which blessedly finally happened i...

The basics: Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers , edited by Eleanor Henderson and Anna Solomon, brings together an impressive group of contemporary female writers from a variety of genres to share their experiences giving birth. The essays are as varied as the women who write them. My thoughts: Admittedly, before I got pregnant (and even early on in my pregnancy), I shied away from birth stories. Rarely do I favor ignorance, but in this case, I was scared of labor and childbirth, yet I knew I would be going through it, and I wasn't ready to deal with it. At some point in my pregnancy, I became eager for birth stories. I'm still frightened, of course, but I find comfort in imagining myself in a variety of different scenarios, both the positive and negative. I'll be honest: this collection of essays often veers to the negative and sad. There are some heart-breaking stories told in these pages. I shed many, many tears as I read, yet even the mo...

The basics: Linda Geddes, a British author and journalist, wrote the New Scientist  column entitled Bumpology . It now continues on her website . My thoughts: Since the moment I found out I was pregnant, I've eagerly explored the non-traditional pregnancy books. I'm more interested in the how and why than in the strict, traditional rules. I'm more interested in exploring the experiences of real pregnant women than the advice of the experts. I'm most interested in learning about pregnancy across the globe, so Bumpology  was right up my alley. I'm continuously startled at the differences between the pregnancy and birth experiences in the U.S. and Europe (and Australia): "Around 58 percent of U.S. women have an epidural, while in the UK, it is closer to 20 percent." Much of what I read in the early sections of Bumpology  I had already learned in Emily Oster's excellent Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong--and What You Real...