Beware the birth bible
When I first realised I was pregnant, I waited about ten minutes before I got my first book. Stopping only to phone the father and chew all my colleagues’ rubber bands (I was at work when I did the test) I belted over to WH Smiths and grabbed the first pregnancy and birth bible I could find. They’re always called ‘bibles’. Probably because praying to, and cursing God, in equal measure, are going to be a big part of your life from now on.
I can’t entirely recommend this idea. During your first trimester (that’s the first three months, for those of you who haven’t got your birth and pregnancy bible yet) you may not be ready for some of this.
The book starts off promisingly enough; gentle pastel pictures of ladies in dungarees sporting discreet bumps, reclining in meadows with their partners massaging their shoulders. Like a timeshare salesman, it knows not to hit you with the full price until much, much later.
Then it’s the cross-section diagrams of a dissected woman in profile, gazing dreamily into space, as page by page her body swells and the baby grows inside. You read about cravings (if you haven’t already eaten that chapter) and then about morning sickness, feeling faint; the need to sit with your feet up a couple of times a day. You feel a bit special.
Then you get to the last quarter of the book. I was in Woolworths restaurant at this point, stuffing down a loaf’s worth of buttered toast in one go, having learned only half an hour ago that I was up the duff. I paused, mid-chew. Here the book sheds all pretence, soft focus and pastel diagrams. Instead it hits you head on with full colour, glossy photos of distended screaming women, fainting partners and grim-faced midwives.
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