"Abby from the Womb" is the story of a girl's journey from conception to birth. In this adventure, Abby expresses surprise and humor as she grows day by day and prepares for birth.
For any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain, or endometriosis comes an inspiring memoir advocating for recognition of women's health issues In the fall of 2010, Abby Norman's strong dancer's body dropped forty pounds and gray hairs began to sprout from her temples. She was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but the doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Norman dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. It wasn't until she took matters into her own hands -- securing a job in a hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library -- that she found an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis. In Ask Me About My Uterus, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed, to be told it was all in her head, only to be taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. Putting her own trials into a broader historical, sociocultural, and political context, Norman shows that women's bodies have long been the battleground of a never-ending war for power, control, medical knowledge, and truth. It's time to refute the belief that being a woman is a preexisting condition.
Mama of ten Abbie Halberstadt helps women humbly and gracefully rise to the high calling of motherhood without settling for mediocrity or losing their minds in the process. Motherhood is a challenge. Unfortunately, our worldly culture offers moms little in the way of real help. Mamas only connect to celebrate surviving another day and to share in their misery rather than rejoice in what God has done and to build each other up in hard times. There has a be a better way, a biblical way, for mamas to grow and thrive. As a daughter of Christ, you have been called to be more than an average mama. Attaining excellence doesn’t have to be unsettling but it will take committed focus and a desire to parent well according to God’s grace and for His glory. M is for Mama offers advice, encouragement, and scripturally sound strategies seasoned with a little bit of humor to help you embrace the challenge of biblical motherhood and raise your children with love and wisdom. Mama, you are worthy of the awesome responsibility God has given you. Now it’s time to start believing you can live up to it.
Through information, her own experience, and client stories, Geneva Montano presents birthing people with the opportunity to create a pregnancy and birth where their babies are heard and trusted, where they are invited to tap into the innate knowing within their wombs and the opportunity to exit the popular birth narrative that is mired in fear, blame, and doubt. Her compassionately connected approach offers comfort in the midst of the challenges that new parents face. It anchors them in the ancient wisdom of spirit and body to address common fears and choices that arise for many birthing families. Wisdom from the Womb delivers empowerment through the art of storytelling and humor, the evidence of science and anecdote, the practices of peaceful stillness and aligned movement, and the ability we all have to listen to and trust ourselves and our babies. Proceeds from this book will be donated to Colorado Community Birth, a non-profit organization that offers volunteer birth services to people who would not otherwise be able to access them and mentorship to people who want to guide birthing people through the process as midwives and doulas. "Geneva's compelling stories will take you on a journey of understanding the importance of MotherBaby love and connection that begins in the womb and that will guide you to claim your power in birth and parenthood. This is a midwife's tale of transformation that will support you in connecting to your baby and your body and will open you to the miracles of birth in new ways. Birth is a day that impacts and sets the foundation for your baby and your relationships. There is no greater investment than in preparing for birth with love and connection. Geneva gives you a treasure of knowledge that will engage and inspire you and your baby to a lifelong relationship of trust and love." -Debra Pascali-Bonaro, author, Orgasmic Birth "In an experience that feels like there are countless decisions to be made, Geneva carves an intuitive path to bringing your baby smoothly and calmly into the world with her beautiful words and wisdom. Her book gently reminds you that, no matter your experience in pregnancy or birth, the answers you seek are within your womb." -Ricki Lake & Abby Epstein, filmmakers, The Business of Being Born Geneva Montano is a Colorado native and mother of four. She has been a birth worker since 2003 and has attended over 650 births in homes, birth centers, and hospitals. Geneva has had a lifelong passion for spirituality, art, and self-exploration. She believes that each birth teaches her and her clients the life lessons they have been seeking. Geneva is a Registered and Certified Professional Midwife, Certified Doula, Registered Yoga teacher, prenatal and postnatal yoga teacher, CPR instructor, body and energy worker, doula trainer, author, artist, and activist. She is certified in womb massage, holistic healing of the pregnant and postpartum bodies, NLP, quantum transformation, and more. She loves teaching, listening to people's stories with her ears, heart, and hands, and being a vessel for transmitting divine healing to bodies and spirits. Midwife. Doula. Spirit Medicine. www.GenevaMontano.com
In Jesus in Our Wombs, Rebecca J. Lester takes us behind the walls of a Roman Catholic convent in central Mexico to explore the lives, training, and experiences of a group of postulants--young women in the first stage of religious training as nuns. Lester, who conducted eighteen months of fieldwork in the convent, provides a rich ethnography of these young women's journeys as they wrestle with doubts, fears, ambitions, and setbacks in their struggle to follow what they believe to be the will of God. Gracefully written, finely textured, and theoretically rigorous, this book considers how these aspiring nuns learn to experience God by cultivating an altered experience of their own female bodies, a transformation they view as a political stance against modernity. Lester explains that the Postulants work toward what they see as an "authentic" femininity--one that has been eclipsed by the values of modern society. The outcome of this process has political as well as personal consequences. The Sisters learn to understand their very intimate experiences of "the Call"--and their choices in answering it--as politically relevant declarations of self. Readers become intimately acquainted with the personalities, family backgrounds, friendships, and aspirations of the Postulants as Lester relates the practices and experiences of their daily lives. Combining compassionate, engaged ethnography with an incisive and provocative theoretical analysis of embodied selves, Jesus in Our Wombs delivers a profound analysis of what Lester calls the convent's "technology of embodiment" on multiple levels--from the phenomenological to the political.
This inclusive guide to how every family begins is an honest, cheerful tool for conversations between parents and their young ones. To make a baby you need one egg, one sperm, and one womb. But every family starts in its own special way. This book answers the "Where did I come from?" question no matter who the reader is and how their life began. From all different kinds of conception through pregnancy to the birth itself, this candid and cozy guide is just right for the first conversations that parents will have with their children about how babies are made.
Based on her inspiring, viral 2018 commencement speech to Barnard College’s graduates in New York City, New York Times bestselling author, two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA World Cup champion Abby Wambach delivers her empowering rally cry for women to unleash their individual power, unite with their pack, and emerge victorious together. Abby Wambach became a champion because of her incredible talent as a soccer player. She became an icon because of her remarkable wisdom as a leader. As the co-captain of the 2015 Women’s World Cup Champion Team, she created a culture not just of excellence, but of honor, commitment, resilience, and sisterhood. She helped transform a group of individual women into one of the most successful, powerful and united Wolfpacks of all time. In her retirement, Abby’s ready to do the same for her new team: All Women Everywhere. In Wolfpack, Abby’s message to women is: We have never been Little Red Riding Hood. We Are the Wolves. We must wander off the path and blaze a new one: together. She insists that women must let go of old rules of leadership that neither include or serve them. She’s created a new set of Wolfpack rules to help women unleash their individual power, unite with their Wolfpack, and change the landscape of their lives and world: from the family room to the board room to the White House. · Make failure your fuel: Transform failure to wisdom and power. · Lead from the bench: Lead from wherever you are. · Champion each other: Claim each woman’s victory as your own. · Demand the effing ball: Don’t ask permission: take what you’ve earned. In Abby’s vision, we are not Little Red Riding Hoods, staying on the path because we’re told to. We are the wolves, fighting for a better tomorrow for ourselves, our pack, and all the future wolves who will come after us.
This is the perfect book for introducing a young child to the concept of how babies grow. Every month the life-size drawings give parent and child a fantastic opportunity to explore how big the baby is in comparison to everyday objects, along with providing information about the umbilical cord, the womb, and the baby's developments each month. The flexible paperback binding allows for the book to fold gently across a mother's growing tummy, helping to show a young child where the new baby really is. The final spread uses a giant fold-down flap to reveal the fully grown baby ready to be born and greet the world. A wonderful book to help everyone prepare for a new addition to the family.
While their husbands are out making money, making deals, and making . . . whatever, the trophy wives of New Falls are slipping not so quietly into middle age. Lauren, Bridget, Dana, and Caroline pretend to each other that their only problems are parties, plastic surgery, and which Mikimotos to buy. But behind the closed doors of their gracious homes there are broken hearts and broken promises . . . the stuff that gossip is made of. And the newest dish du jour is a whopper! The husband of one of their oldest friends, who dumped his wife for a newer model—a sexier, flashier, sleeker hairdresser—is found dead, his ex-wife, Kitty, standing over him . . . holding the smoking gun. Kitty claims she's innocent, and there are plenty of women around town who might want the rat dead. Now it's up to the women to discover where in their high-priced suburb a killer is hiding, and which good little wife has done something very, very wicked.