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Editorial Review Product Description
Pregnancy books on the market have one of two audiences- the teen with an unplanned pregnancy or the adult with a planned and chosen one. Nowhere is there a book for the almost 3 million adult women facing surprise pregnancy every year. Surprise Motherhood is aimed directly at that gap, telling the stories of Ophelia and other women who have faced unplanned pregnancy as adult, professional women. With extensive information about options, paternity, career issues, postpartum depression, finances, and more, Surprise Motherhood is the only reference of its kind, and is sure to be an invaluable reader resource. ... Read more Customer Reviews (6) 
Funny, differnt view point. I needed this!
I really enjoyed reading this book. As the author points out, it is hard to find books for adult women who are not so thrilled about their pregnancy. Every book I found at the bookstore was about the joys of pregnancy and motherhood. Well, my pregnancy was unexpected and not quite a joy at first. I felt very alone, so it was nice to find reading material that pertained to the way I feel. Ophelia added a humerous touch to my circumstance, and it was nice to be able to laugh out loud a few times.
Smaple version of : Surprise Motherhood
I just ordered this book (but I haven't gotten it yet) and I went back to simply look at the online/sample version to remind myself as to why I ordered it.At the time I was seriously contemplating my options to carry or not etc.Looking back, the information in the sample version seemed perfectly fitting. However, I realize now it only focuses on abortion options.I really hope that the rest of the book is (more) balanced but would like to suggest that even for the sample version...they choose some additional pages so it doesn't look like they are advocating only that option. I realize they aren't and it probably has more to do with the number of pages you can scan and etc. but there are some fanatics out there that miss out on what I look forward to being a very helpful book.
Not really applicable to most pregnancies, planned or otherwise
I really like the premise of this book. Not all pregnancies are planned, and not all unplanned pregnancies are the sort of thing that happen to teenagers in the back seat of a car. Sometimes the pill fails, or the condom breaks, and people who never intended to be pregnant suddenly have a whole lot of decisions to make.
I also really like that the first section of the book is an open and blunt discussion of the first decision: to keep the baby or not. If you're staunchly pro-life, it may be useless, but for the rest of us who don't have that unwavering moral imperative, a little guidance from an unbiased source can go a long way.
Beyond those two points, though, the book is of questionable utility.
The chapters on financial concerns and friend loss are incredibly valuable. If you didn't mean to be an expectant parent, you probably haven't done the budgeting to accommodate the vast expense of pregnancy and parenting. And if you're pregnant while all of your friends are still leading their independent and child-free lives, you'll suddenly find yourself with a lot more free time (which you'll probably spend sleeping anyway, but that's not the point). What To Expect and its ilk, while so very useful, don't cover these concerns.
Then there are the chapters that cover the author's own experiences with symptoms or complications that are extremely rare. The digression regarding what i'll rename in this venue to 'raccoon posterior' was functionally useless. The chapter on Diastasis Symphysis Pubis would only be relevant to the 1 in 30,000 women who suffer through it while pregnant (a statistic she provides in the book). Reading about the author's trials and tribulations has its value, but i'd rather she'd spent the words and pages on more common problems that would apply to more of her readers.
(And if you're the sort who doesn't want to read about urinary or fecal incontinence, you should probably just skip the book, but you're going to have a hard reality to face later in your pregnancy.)
There's also an issue with the book itself. Flipping open to the first page of the introduction, it was clear that this had not been produced by a major publishing house. The margins are too small, the font too big, the spacing too wide, and the formatting questionable. It's not that i need insets and pictures, but it can be a little hard to take a book seriously when the text practically runs off the pages sometimes. Also, a spell-check would have been a good idea ('fourtenn', for example, should be picked up by even the most basic checkers), and a quick proof-reading for grammar and punctuation would have improved things.
So, all in all, i don't feel that i wasted my money buying this book, nor that i wasted my time reading it, i just don't feel like i got much from it except some consolation that i'm not the only person in the world dealing with an unplanned adult pregnancy.
Entertaining & Useful
I'm a mom of two kids in my mid-thirties. I picked up this book during my second pregnancy, which was a surprise. I thought I had a pretty good handle on stuff, since I'd already had a child, but Surprise Motherhood had a *lot* of great information that I wished I'd had the first time around.
The section on the FMLA and maternity leave really helped. Every other book gives you the same standard stuff- contact HR, tell your boss, be flexible, etc. Surprise Motherhood told me about the laws in my state, how to keep good boundaries while I was off work, and how to tactfully and professionally deal with my pushy boss. It was great knowing exactly what I was entitled to, and how to get it without seeming rude.
The postpartum depression part was also really helpful for me. I'd struggled after my older child was born and had been worried about having issues again. This book taught me the difference between normal mood swings and actual postpartum depression, and gave me a lot of info about postpartum OCD, which I'd never heard of before. I passed it on to my husband, which helped him understand.
The other great section was the birth control, which you wouldn't expect from a pregnancy book. My God, I never knew I had so many options. It was a great help because I was sick of the pill but wasn't sure about alternatives beyond condoms. Now I know about a huge number of choices, and I eventually went with the cervical cap (which I like).
Overall, this book is really helpful, both in regards to a sudden pregnancy and general girly issues like sex and birth control. Even if your pregnancy was planned, this is probably still a good book for those reasons alone.
An honest and useful guide to surprise pregnancy
I am a twenty-something woman, hoping to be a parent someday but with no kids on the horizon just yet.I knew Ophelia in passing in college, and when she became pregnant with her first child, I read her website eagerly, squirreling away her insights on pregnancy for the future.She told the truth about pregnancy, even when it wasn't pretty (no more taking bladder control for granted!).When I found out she was writing a whole book about pregnancy, I was eager to read it.
This book was just what I was hoping for.It's written informally, with humorous anecdotes and useful information about pregnancy and motherhood.I appreciate Ophelia's honesty; she isn't afraid to talk about things that many pregnancy-related publications gloss over, like postpartum depression.The book touches on a range of topics (including alarming and unexpected physical changes that occur during pregnancy, how to deal with your employer during and after pregnancy, and which baby products are essential) with references provided for more in-depth information.
Should I ever become pregnant, in addition to reading the traditional baby tomes, I'll keep this book on hand for a frank and informative look at pregnancy and motherhood.
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