Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I like to eat brown rice and tofu, I am comfortable with alternative family structures including families with more than 2 parents, I live in the Bay Area, I plan on having a home birth, I drink herbal tea, I occasionally I even do yoga. Yes, it's true, I'm almost a hippie.
Yet this book was way too touchy-feely and anti-western medicine even for ME!
For better or worse, this is THE MOST INFORMATIVE BOOK on donor insemination and queer womens' pregnancy issues that is available. It is full of information from the perspective of experienced midwives who have multiple children - A source far more trustworthy than the author of "The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians" (a recent first-time mom).
I personally believe home births are far safer for most low-risk pregnancies than hospital births. And I think lesbian conception is over-medicalized by a very male-centered Western medical system. However, I part ways with the authors there. Because unfortunately, as another reviewer says, they "throw the baby out with the bathwater." They have this supposedly "non-judgmental" attitude yet their opinions come across VERY strongly in this book. Those opinions include unmedicated home birth, "natural" conception and midwife-led pre-natal care being better than other options. This may inspire some women to consider this approach - But it may also alienate many women who need this book.
My greatest wishes are that this book covered some issues specific to people of color, talked more explicitly about parenting roles in butch/femme relationships, discussed disabled and chronically ill womens' pregnancy experiences, and more specifically addressed issues of sexual abuse survivors and pregnancy. These are major omissions, in my view. The book is definitely geared towards middle class moms with very
I appreciated the books' inclusion of bisexual women and the few mentions of pregnancy issues for butch women. I also think their approach towards conception is much smarter and more well-informed than that of many "fertility specialists" and OB-GYN's as well as conventional wisdom.
This book left me feeling totally alarmed and paranoid about the many things that could go wrong with my pregnancy or keep me from getting pregnant in the first place (Oh my God! We use chlorine bleach when we wash our clothes! I'm going to have a miscarriage!)But I will be using much of the information to help conceive my first child.
Read this book. It's full of very valuable information that respects our identities, lives and families as queer women. But take it with a grain of salt and don't regard it as The Bible of Lesbian Conception & Pregnancy. Because there's no such thing. Each woman is different and there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
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Product Description:
The first book of its kind, The Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth is a step-by-step guide to the physical and emotional aspects of conception through delivery, providing easy-to-understand charts and illustrations, checklists, groundbreaking fertility information, and personal exercises geared specifically toward lesbians. Reflecting the unique experience of lesbian mothers, this is a comprehensive and indispensable book, practical and inspirational, and will serve as a literary midwife to the growing number of lesbian mothers.
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