Keeping You Company: A companion for the fourth trimester

Three in the morning, and I got up to pump. All of it. On the floor. And then the baby woke up.What I thought was: I am failing at this.I wasn't. I was alone. What I didn't have wasn't information. It was somebody next to me saying that this happens, and that it will happen again in two hours.This is not a manual. There is no schedule, no method, and no plan for getting your body back. It is eight short chapters of company from a woman who has already been through it, and one small thing, in each of them, to do for yourself.What's inside- Eight chapters on the parts nobody warns you about: the night sweats, the question you are too embarrassed to ask, the week that had no hours, the thousand confident strangers with advice, the first time you trust yourself over all of them, and the recovery no one checks on.- A Village Note at the end of every chapter. One sentence, to keep.- A page to write on in each one, because week one erases itself.- Eight weeks of space for one small win, one question for the pediatrician, and one thing somebody did that you want to remember.- Every question you meant to ask and could not remember in the room, including the ones about your own body, which are the ones most likely to go unasked.- Where to find help, listed plainly, for feeding, for your mood, for anything at all.- Sources for every figure, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, ACOG and the CDC. Where the book gives an opinion, it says so.Made to be given as well as read: a page for who this book belongs to, who gave it and when, and a place at the back to keep the hospital bracelet and the first photograph.For the woman on the floor at three in the morning, who thinks she is failing, and is not.