I Wrote A Book About Pregnancy And I’m So Excited To Tell You About It!

It’s probably cliche to say I gave birth to another baby today when what I really mean is my first book is available for pre-sale on Amazon. (Edited to add: Available now via Amazon and Barnes & Noble!)

That’s what everyone says, right? Yeah, well, there’s something to it. The sleepless nights, the nerves, the anticipation, the excitement, the poor eating habits… it was certainly a labor of love.

In August last year, I got an email that I nearly deleted, figuring it was spam. The person in the email said they represented a publisher and they had a book idea in mind and they wanted to know if I’d consider writing it.

OKAY, RUSSIAN TROLL. YOU CAN’T FOOL ME. Nobody gets book deals that casually pop up in their inbox. At least, I knew I wouldn’t. That’s not how any of this is supposed to work. I’d spent years working on other book ideas and pitching agents, only to be told the mommy blogger book niche was saturated and not worth the effort (and they probably inferred that my book ideas were pretty crummy, which I will own). There was a process, not a lucky email that pings your phone after 2 glasses of wine at a rehearsal dinner.

Here’s what’s really bananas- when I first started BabyRabies.com nearly 11 years ago, I thought maybe someone would find my blog and ask me to write a book. I would get butterflies when I checked my email (after I finally got it set up and figured out), wondering if there would be someone offering me a book deal there in my unread messages.

THAT IS RIDICULOUS. It’s ok to laugh at that. Please laugh. That’s absurd.

via GIPHY

So when that ACTUALLY happened just about 10 years after I finally figured out that email thing, I was looking over my shoulder, wondering who was pranking me.

It was totally legit, though! (Or these Russian trolls are suuuuuuuper committed.) Many phone calls, deadlines, and 7 months later, I gestated and gave birth to a book about gestating and planning to give birth.

The timing of all of this was the worst and best and the very same time. I started writing right when our house went on the market and turned in my final chapters a week before we closed and had to move out. If you’ve noticed it’s been very very quiet here since, oh, last September, I’m sorry. I had to let a lot of balls drop to keep this one super awesome life goal ball in the air. (And also balance turning our life upside down to take our family on the road for a year.)

Even though I knew I had some stressful months ahead of me before I agreed to write the book, and that this would add exponentially more, you don’t just tell someone, “Nah… sorry. Gotta pass on writing this book, which I’ve always dreamed of doing. Moving my family into an RV.”

The Callisto team, especially my incredibly patient editor Stacy, has been a dream to work with. It’s bonkers how fast they move, but the pace has it’s rewards, the biggest being not having to wait very long (and relive more days of anxiety and imposter syndrome) before the book is released to the world.

So here she is! 50 Things to Do Before You Deliver: The First Time Moms Pregnancy Guide. It is my sincere hope that this is a feel-good, feel-in control, feel-normal, feel-supported kind of pregnancy book. It is everything I’ve ever needed someone to say to me while gestating and everything I’ve learned on my own and from my own incredible support system. It is stuffed full of knowledgeable contributors with credible and influential voices.

It is the book I wanted when I was a first-time pregnant mom.

It is the book I want to give every friend who is pregnant for the first time.

It is a book I hope passes hands from friends, sisters, moms and dads to countless women who are pregnant when they want to celebrate with them, comfort them, or help ease their fear of the unknown.

Presale is a pretty big deal, so I’m making a big ask. If you think this is a book you’d like to purchase at some point, and if you have the means to, a presale purchase now would be a HUGE way to support me and I would be so incredibly grateful. If you have friends who may love it or need it or want to give it to someone else in their life, I would love if you’d share the link with them.

Since this is on Amazon, it’s really easy to make your own affiliate link to share with your own blog readers or Instagram followers. Here’s how you can do that.

Thank you so much to all of YOU, the people who have been reading this blog for nearly 11 years and the ones who just found me after Googling “Why is my baby crying?” 2 weeks ago and stuck around to read some more. YOU and your incredibly thoughtful and supportive conversations here and Facebook and Instagram helped Callisto take note of my platform, and you’ve all helped me set the tone for this book- a little funny, not too serious, not too alarming, some real talk, lots of support, lots of love, lots of embracing imperfection.

I really, really hope you love it.