Surpise Child Review

A friend of mine has written a book on the topic of Unplanned Pregnancy, and I thought I would take a minute to talk a bit about it since I think it could be so very helpful to many of you in this situation.

The book is called Surprise Child. She has a website set up for it here. Her name is Leslie Leyland Fields, and the book is about her own struggles with discovering that she was pregnant (and then making that same discovery again later). Mixed in are examples of other women who were unexpectedly pregnant and not thrilled with the news. She discusses all the worries and concerns she and others have while experiencing an unplanned pregnancy, and she discusses various physical and emotional stages of pregnancy.

You can view the book here on Amazon. The cost is only $10.19, but the really cool thing is that she has audio available on her website. You can listen to a few chapters for free, and if you like what you hear, you can download the whole book for $10.

Here are several of the reviews on the book:

Pregnant and unprepared, scared, feeling trapped - if this describes you or someone you know, Surprise Child will powerfully speak to those needs. Author Leslie Leyland Fields, twice surprised in her forties, interweaves her stories with those of others - diverse women whose lives are radically interrupted, gradually transformed. I read it straight through today, could not put it down. With candor and warmth, Leslie talks us through pregnancy, page by page, month by month. She shares how she and the others weathered the fears, the guilt, the dreaded changes: in body and spirit, finances and family life, vocation and dreams and plans. Readers will find no judgments here, only hard-won insights, caring companions. Brief and compelling, Surprise Child features three sections, one for each trimester. Unfolding stories culminate in the epilogue. Unbelievable resources in the back offer more reasons to hope, more ways to cope. This is the book I needed years ago, the one I'll be giving to friends for, as Leslie says: "All of us are here in this book to say, yes, the tunnel winds and twists, but it does open into light."

This is a truly fantastic book for women in unplanned pregnancies.

Whether you consider yourself too young, too old, too poor, too sick, or too overburdened to welcome a child right now, or you have some other special circumstance (such as rape) that makes you doubt your ability to be a good mother, you will certainly find a story you can relate to in this book. It's one of the few resources I've found that encourages women to look at an unplanned pregnancy as an opportunity rather than as a problem to be solved.

Fields acknowledges how easily pregnancy can seem like an inconvenience, a stumbling block, or even a tragedy. She knows, from personal experience, the deep anguish women feel when they find themselves unexpectedly pregnant. And she understands the feeling of fear and depression that accompany unsupported pregnancies, or those that occur in less-than-ideal circumstances.
I only wish more people would acknowledge how common this type of pregnancy is. (According to the National Institutes of Health, about 60% of all pregnancies are unplanned--that's three million women a year.) We can safely assume that not all of those three million women were overjoyed to learn of their pregnancy. But that's not something we talk about much in our society, is it? That's why it's wonderful to hear Fields and the women profiled in this book being utterly and completely honest about how they were anything but happy to find out they were expecting.

Fields' main point is that what initially seems like a crisis and the worst thing in the world can ultimately transform into a blessing, as you come to realize you can handle what you have been given, and that you actually do want and love the child you are carrying. She believes that the transformation happens at different times and in different ways, but almost always happens. Sometimes the transformation means embracing parenthood, and other times it means choosing adoption (which is given a small amount of attention here--but the real emphasis is on parenting.) In both cases, the ambivalence felt early on begins to change as a woman struggles through the solitude and difficulty of the pregnancy. Eventually, it turns into an acceptance of motherhood and love for the unplanned baby.

Some readers with different beliefs may be a little uncomfortable with the Christian viewpoint espoused in the book ("the Maker of life doesn't make mistakes," etc.), but Fields is essentially gentle in her writing and doesn't force her faith on others.

I applaud this book for talking about a topic that we as women don't talk about enough.
We don't always get to choose the circumstances of our motherhood, but we can and should inspire each other to rise to the occasion. As Field notes, unplanned pregnancies can feel like a kind of death, but they have the possibility, and the probability, of changing into something joyful.

Leslie Leyland Fields did a wonderful job of getting to the heart of what women with unplanned pregnancies think about. I love the way that nothing was 'preached' in the book. Thoughts and negative feelings about unplanned pregnancies are normal, but yet, you're not 'supposed' to think that way, and it's unheard of to speak about. It's nice that this book sheds light on this and lets women know that it's okay.

Anyway, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is unexpectedly pregnant. Let me know what you think of it!