Navel-Gazing: The Days and Nights of a Mother in the Making

"I'm pregnant. I found out yesterday. I took an eight-dollar pregnancy test, which involved sticking a plastic strip between my legs and peeing on it. The strip had two pink lines: pregnant. Just one pink line would have been a false alarm. But within the three minutes the test guaranteed, the second pink line appeared, darkening even as I prayed for it not to. I blinked and blinked, hoping for it to fade, but it didn't."

In Jennifer Matesa's atypical account of a typical pregnancy, the mother-to-be didn't start picking out names or knitting booties the moment she learned she was with child. Instead, Jennifer gives voice to the experience of many women, who often feel anxiety and doubt along with anticipation and excitement but, because of cultural pressure, they are reluctant to say so. Jennifer's honesty is made even more intimate by the pictures--taken weekly by a photographer friend--that offer a powerful glimpse of her developing body throughout this life-changing experience. _Navel-Gazing_ is a true and natural portrait of a pregnancy, its trials, its joys, and its beauty. The book's unique double view--from the inside and out--reveals how bearing a child can change you forever, emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. An empowering alternative and supportive companion for the expecting mother, _Navel-Gazing_ is a sensuous and perceptive expression of the essence of the pregnancy experience.