I’m really glad that I wrote Alice and the Warden.
Since I’m expecting #6, I’ve been ravenously hungry for stories about pregnancy and babies. Heck, I even watched Bridget Jones’s Baby, even though I don’t remotely care for the subgenre.
Unfortunately, the majority of stories love to revolve around the “pregnancy is shameful and/or dangerous!” trope. Either female characters are moaning about how their life is over, or it literally comes close to ending because of some pregnancy related complication.
Aaaand it doesn’t stop there. After the baby is born, there’s the constant complaining about how a helpless human needs someone to care for it — as if being depended on is the worst thing that can happen. “Woe is me! I can’t be selfish all the time anymore!”
It’s so sickening.
Especially because I know women who are like that in real life.
Me? I’m the sort of person that wears jewelry that depicts pregnancy. I firmly believe in honoring the Divine Feminine, and rant about how our Christian-normative society demonizes the most powerful magic women possess: the ability to create new life. Not everyone thinks that the very existence of humanity is something shameful.
While the homebirthing community has plenty of women similar to me, none of them are writing novels. Too many of them have gone off-grid, I guess.
I’ve spent the last several months trying to find decent stories about pregnancy and babies, but now I’ve given up. I’m reading my own novel.
Alice is so sweet and loves her family so much, it’s like a breath of fresh air. Finally, a character who is full of hope and doesn’t hate everything about life.
In a very literal sense, I wrote that novel for myself.
By Autumn Rain 
Babies are an odd thing according to society. They’re like a status symbol, but then you’re supposed to go about your life pretending there’s no pregnancy and no child. We’re house hunting and went to some open houses over the weekend where there were a bunch of kids being either largely ignored or handled like sacks of bricks. Considering my husband and I take so much care and concern with our kids, it was kind of scary to watch. I’m not likely to ever have another child, but, if I do, I’ll probably want to read about Alice all over again. Beats watching What to Expect When You’re Expecting on repeat. I don’t remember either of my pregnancies ever being so dramatic.
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Oh gosh, people … I don’t know what else to say, except that there’s a reason why I limit how much exposure I get to people.
I’ve avoided What to Expect. Movies based on nonfiction books are always a train wreck, and I figured that one would be especially bad, lol.
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