How to Expect What You're Not Expecting: Stories of Pregnancy, Parenthood, and Loss
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How to Expect What You're Not Expecting: Stories of Pregnancy, Parenthood, and Loss

How to Expect What You're Not Expecting: Stories of Pregnancy, Parenthood, and Loss

Overview

Winner of a 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards Bronze Medal

One size fits all does not apply to pregnancy and childbirth. Each one is different, unique, and comes with its share of pleasure and pain. But how does one prepare for an unexpected loss of a pregnancy or hoped-for baby? In How to Expect What You’re Not Expecting, writers share their true stories of miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility, and other, related losses. This literary anthology picks up where some pregnancy books end and offers diverse, honest, and moving essays that can prepare and guide women and their families for when the unforeseen happens.

Contributors include Chris Arthur, Kim Aubrey, Janet Baker, Yvonne Blomer, Jennifer Bowering Delisle, Kevin Bray, Erika Connor, Sadiqa de Meijer, Jessica Hiemstra, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Lisa Martin-DeMoor, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Susan Olding, Laura Rock, Gail Marlene Schwartz, Maureen Scott Harris, Carrie Snyder, Cathy Stonehouse, and Chris Tarry.

The fourth book in a loosely linked series of anthologies about the twenty-first-century family, How to Expect What You’re Not Expecting follows Somebody’s Child, Nobody’s Mother, and Nobody’s Father, essay collections about adoption and childless adults. Together, these four books challenge readers to re-examine traditional definitions of the concept of “family.”

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781771510226
Publisher: TouchWood Editions
Publication date: 09/17/2013
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: NOOK Book
Pages: 256
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Jessica Hiemstra is an author and poet who is widely published in literary journals. She was the winner of the Malahat Review’s 2010 Open Season Award for Non-Fiction, a finalist for the 2010 Winston Collins/Descant Prize for Best Canadian Poem, and the winner of the 2009 Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival poetry award. No stranger to collaboration, Jessica is currently writing a novel with her mother and working on a collaborative poetry project with other Canadian poets called Translating Horses.


Lisa Martin-DeMoor is an award-winning writer, poet, and editor. Her work has appeared in a broad range of literary journals and has been broadcast on US and Canadian radio. She has won and been shortlisted for literary prizes and awards for poetry, creative non-fiction, and fiction. These days she teaches creative writing at Concordia University College in Edmonton, as well as edits fiction. She is currently at work on a novel and a second, full-length manuscript of poetry. She blogs at writerinresidence.ca.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Navigating Loss Kim Jernigan 1

How to expect

What You Have Is What Happened

Largo, Lento, Grave Chris Tarry 11

Stork Bite Sadiqa De Meijer 23

The Red River Erika Connor 36

Missing Data Laura Rock 45

In This Kitchen Jennifer Bowering Delisle 59

The Wounded Past Cannot Deny the Beautiful Future

The Fragmentary Blue of a Butterfly Kevin Bray 69

Female Troubles Susan Olding 77

Invisible Mending Fiona Tinwei Lam 90

Thresholds Lorri Neilsen Glenn 102

Going East Through Yvonne Blomer 109

what you're not expecting

The Desire to Understand

A Container of Light Lisa Martin-Demoor 125

Opening the Griefcase Maureen Scott Harris 135

Fall and Spring Kim Aubrey 149

Dead Baby, Imperfect Baby: A Meditation with Dolls Cathy Stonehouse 171

The Possibility of Love

Swan Song Chris Arthur 189

Loving Benjamin Gail Marlene Schwartz 208

Story: On the Order of Things or What I Really Want to Say Janet Baker 215

How to Bury a Yellow Toque Jessica Hiemstra 227

Delivery Carrie Snyder 235

Acknowledgments 245

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