Advance copies of Precious Babies

This morning, my advance copy of Precious Babies arrived in the post!  It's always a magical moment, seeing a new book in print for the first time.  All those hours interviewing, researching and tapping away at the laptop in the early hours are finally concentrated in one neat package, and it's fascinating to see the idea that has been lurking in your head for years turned into a reality.

The book goes on sale on October 6 and covers all aspects of pregnancy, birth and parenting after infertility from the long-awaited positive result right through to the teenage years and beyond. 

When bonding takes time...

I've just read a very moving article from The Guardian written by the mother of a baby born prematurely after she developed pre-eclampsia explaining how it took time for her to relax and learn to love her daughter.  The link is here.  It's worth reading, especially for anyone who had a premature baby or who ever felt any uncertainty about the way they "bonded" with their own newborn.  We have come to expect that mothers should experience an almost mystical link with their babies at the moment of birth, but the reality is often far from that, particularly after a difficult birth or when a baby is born very early. Perhaps it's time to appreciate quite how far our rose-tinted ideals about motherhood can sometimes be from real women's experiences.

ACeBabes chatroom sessions

If you're not familiar with ACeBabes, you should be!  It's the only charity working to support those who are pregnant or have children after experiencing fertility problems and has an active community of members who offer peer support to one another.  The charity's website has a forum and chatroom, and from next month I'm going to be hosting monthly sessions in the chatroom to encourage members to come and talk to one another online.

I hope that everyone will feel able to join us for the chatroom sessions, from those who have just found out they are pregnant right through to those who are already parents - and you can find out more about the ACeBabes chatrooms at http://www.infertilitynetworkuk.com/acebabes/?id=13252

It's an area I feel quite passionate about, as I think the specific needs of those who conceive after trying for some time are often completely overlooked, and it's the subject of my book Precious Babies, which is due out in October.

Home pregnancy tests

Ok, be honest - how many did you do?  Finding out you are pregnant when you've been trying for a long time tends to be so unbelievable that many of us don't believe it.  The first reaction to a positive test is often an assumption that there must be something wrong with the testing kit and a trip to the shops to buy another, and then perhaps just one more to check.

In fact, home pregnancy testing kits are incredibly accurate.  It's possible to get a false negative which suggests you aren't pregnant if you test very early when your levels of the pregnancy hormone are still quite low, but otherwise a home test is unlikely to be wrong.  A false positive - a test result which says you're pregnant when in fact you aren't - is highly unlikely.  The only time you can get a positive result when you aren't pregnant is if you've been prescribed HCG injections instead of progesterone as part of fertility treatment.  This is not common, and your clinic would have told you and should have explained that it would make a urine test for pregnancy unreliable.

So, if you're sitting looking at a positive test and wondering whether it can possibly be accurate - the answer is yes, it can - yes, you are pregnancy - and, congratulations!

Comedy and Error

I've just been reading the memoirs of comedian Simon Day, best known for his role in 'The Fast Show'.  His book, Comedy and Error, is an interesting read from tales of his teenage days in borstal to the inside view he gives into the drug and drink fuelled celebrity lifestyle he embraced at the height of his TV success.  It's funny and well-written too, and if you enjoyed 'The Fast Show', you certainly ought to take a look.

By now, I am sure you're wondering how a celebrity's autobiography about fame and addiction could possibly be related to Precious Babies... Well,  you may be surprised to discover that Simon Day's two children were both IVF babies.  As he explains at the end of the book, it was his wife and children who rescued him from his endless addictions and who showed him the route to a calmer, more contented life.  He talks of the "sheer joy" his children bring, and explains how going through IVF and having children later in life has made him "more appreciative" of his luck.

His experience mirrors what every parent I interviewed for  Precious Babies had felt - that infertility makes you understand how fortunate you are to have your children, and ensures that you don't take them for granted.  For Simon Day, having a family wasn't just about ending the pain of infertility, but also helping to change a life of destructive addiction.

Precious Babies - the book

At last, the cover is ready and it's just a few months until the book will be here in October. Precious Babies is the book I desperately wanted to read when I was pregnant - and in the early days of parenthood.

When you've longed for a baby for years, you've had plenty of time to imagine how wonderful life would be the moment you got pregnant, but are unlikely to have allowed yourself to think about the realities and all the worries and concerns that come the moment you discover you are expecting a baby.

In the early days of being a parent, you are likely to have huge expectations of yourself which can be very hard to live up to - and you may find it hard to admit that life with a baby or small child is ever anything less than idyllic. For those of us who have conceived after fertility problems, there are many different issues that can arise - and yet they are generally unrecognised and unacknowledged.

I hope that Precious Babies will be a source of comfort and support to anyone who is expecting their own precious baby - or who is a new parent. It covers many aspects of parenting after fertility problems including miscarriage, multiple pregnancy and birth, donor families, trying for another baby and having an only child. It follows the journey from the moment of the positive pregnancy test to the teenage years and beyond, ending with the views of some grown-up precious babies themselves.

If you want to know more, Precious Babies is now available to pre-order on Amazon