Pregnancy is natural, healthy and fun, right? Sure it is, if you're lucky. For others, it's an adventure in physical discomfort, unachievable ideals, kooky classes and meddling experts.
When Monica Dux, a Melbourne writer and procreator, found herself pregnant with her first child, she was dismayed to find she belonged firmly in the second category. For her, pregnancy could only be described as 'a medium-level catastrophe'. So, three years later and about to birth her second child, Monica went on a quest: to try to figure out what's really going on when we incubate.
Blending humorous memoir with sharp critique of the way we do pregnancy today, Things We Don't Expect is one woman's journey to make sense of the absurdities, the harsh realities, the myths and the downright lies about making babies.
With prose sharper than an obstetrician's scalpel (and a lot funnier), Monica explores the aspects of baby-making that we all want to talk about, but which are usually too embarrassing, unsettling or downright confronting. She also looks at the powerful forces that shape women's experiences of being pregnant in the West, the industries that exploit us, and the medical and physical realities behind it all. Along the way, she fends off sadistic maternal health nurses, attempts to expand then contract her vagina, and struggles to keep her baby's placenta off her hippy brother's lunch menu.
