Now we have books

The downside of telling people about the forthcoming birth is that we now have like 30,000 books on dealing with pregnancy. Every time we visit someone they give us more books. It does not matter if they're helpful. They'll smile, say I found this useless and hand over a small stack of books.

I, of course, always nod, smile back and graciously accept it.

In the mix of inane and informative, I finally found a book which contains practical advice for partners. It's not quite a Useful Things a Partner Can Do During Gestation book, but it does have a section on How to Deal with an Emergency Birth. That strikes me as something that would be quite helpful for a partner to know: what to do when a baby comes out and there's no one medically trained around. How to get the baby out, draining fluids the lungs, how to dispose of the placenta, etc, etc.

It also has a few tips for during the pregnancy that actually make sense. Like try to start getting along with your in-laws and let your partner sleep late. This is such a welcome change from the keep it quiet that you actually wanted a boy and stop sleeping with other women comments in books I've been getting used to seeing.