Sunday May 13, 2018, is Mother’s Day in the USA. Mother’s Day, originally established after the Civil War to honor mothers who had lost their sons in the war, brings me #allthefeels, particularly in the last 4 years. As moms, we are constantly weighing all the pros and cons of every situation. We have to try to see into the future and anticipate it, for all the problems and things that might happen. It’s our job when we are responsible for keeping tiny humans alive, and that takes up a lot of space in our heads, hearts, and lives.

As a result, we sometimes forget about self-care or to deal with our own junk. Mother’s Day comes, and then all of that comes crashing together. Hence, #allthefeels.

Our first birth experience was a long, natural, hospital delivery of our rainbow baby, Claire. It was amazing, hard, and beautiful. Before becoming pregnant with Claire, we suffered a miscarriage at 10 weeks. I was devastated by that experience, so when we got pregnant again, I was grateful but extremely anxious. All pregnancy loss is sad, but there’s something especially tragic about losing your first because it forever taints your experience. When your only frame of reference up to that point is a loss, even a healthy pregnancy has an extra layer of fear and anxiety.

Three years later, I can still remember the most vivid details of this eventful day. Things like what songs I sang, what I ate for dinner, and where we parked at the hospital.

One of the aspects of pregnancy that lots of people talk about is creating a birth plan, but it gets put off until the very end for so many women. I was only able to find one sample birth plan that I liked. I wished my OB had provided some samples for me to work off of, but they didn’t talk about it with me at all. The one I based mine off of I ended up finding in the back of a book at one of the hospital classes we attended toward the end of our pregnancy with Claire.

When I made mine and showed it to my doctor, she said “Sure we can add that to your chart,” which I took to mean no one was going to read it and look it over to see what I might’ve missed, let alone help me stick to it. I took that opportunity to do tons more research, memorize my plan, talk it over with and share it with my husband, so that we could let nurses know what we wanted.

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When I first got pregnant, I read a ton of books (including the usual What to Expect When You’re Expecting), and got a few more as gifts. I appreciated the knowledge I gleaned from each one, so I now recommend them to new moms on a regular basis.

These books make great shower gifts for the expecting or first-time mom, gifts for second- or third-time moms who don’t need anything, gifts for the mom who didn’t register or already has everything, or last minute gifts for really any mom!