Before

Author: Tori Bowman Johnson

Before there is AFTERWARDS, there must be BEFORE …

Pregnancy should be peppered with beautiful growth & innocent bliss as you patiently wait to cradle your darling bundle. With every minute that passes, your heart deepens into immeasurable depths. It's sensational as you witness your body take such natural lead. 

While delving into the sweetness, we should also appreciate the more peculiar and somewhat uncomfortable aspects of pregnancy life, should we not? Chubby ankles, niggling nausea, ferocious fatigue ... and a few unwelcome toots. 

In a frank, sincere and unfiltered tone, BEFORE sets off to explore the pregnancy terrain! Understanding the plethora of scans & the medical lingo, to learning about safe exercise, sex, sleep, nutrition, mental health + all of the taboo aspects women may associate with an 'ick' factor ... despite the fact we are all probably wondering, '...what's up with the swollen hoo-hoo?"

A cast of brilliant professionals in the pre and postnatal space have joined the pages of BEFORE, as well as a collection of mothers who have written letters to their pregnant selves offering true understanding & light. Women carrying twins! Women in same-sex relationships! Step mums carrying their first little wonder, and women who become spectacular mothers after suffering previous loss, long hauls with fertility, IVF and stillbirth. 

This book is a palmful of love & solace for every woman who reads.

Pregnancy; Woman To Woman

The Beauty, The Bliss, The Bothers

CHAPTERS 

1. INTRODUCTION
2. EXPECTING 
3. EXERCISE with a Women’’s Health Physio
4. NUTRITION with a Nutritionist 
5. AVOIDING HAEMORROIDS 
6. DIABETES 
7. THE DARLING DOULA with a Doula
8. SEX with a Sexologist 
9. SLEEP with a Sleep Consultant 
10. MENTAL HEALTH with a therapist 
11. GETTING TO KNOW COMMON BIRTH TERMS with a midwife/birth expert 
12. PRE-NATAL MASSAGE THERAPY with a remedial massage therapist 
13. PREGNANCY SCANS with a sonographer 
14. PREPARING FOR THE NEWBORN CRY with a health & wellness expert 
15. TAMING THE TABOO with a midwife/birth expert
16. PLANNING FOR POSTPARTUM 
17. SIGNS OF LABOUR with a midwife/birth expert

LETTERS TO SELF 

1. PREGNANCY AFTER MISCARRIAGE 
2. PREGNANCY AFTER STILLBIRTH
3. PREGNANCY WITH MULTIPLES
4. PREGNANCY VIA IVF
5. PREGNANCY - SAME SEX COUPLE 
6. PREGNANCY - EXPECTING NUMBER ONE!

OTHER

1. THE LIFE ADMIN CHECK LIST
2. GRIEF TIPS (SUPPORTING THOSE WHO EXPERIENCE THE TRAUMA OF STILLBIRTH) 
3. SURVIVING GESTATIONAL DIABETES

ABOUT

♻ Printed Using Recycled Material

Full Colour, 232 pages

Illustrated by Catherine Malady

Cover Art by Jacqui Porter

Designer - Northwood Green

Printer - Mark Print