Nine Months — 40-Week Pregnancy Journal & Record Book | 176 Pages, Start at Any Week

Everyone will have advice. This is where you keep your own.

From the day the news is out, everybody has something to tell you. Your mother, the neighbour, the family WhatsApp group, the lady at the shop. Most of it is kindly meant. None of it comes with a place to put it.

This book gives no advice at all. On every week it gives you two columns: the advice you got, and what you chose. “From anyone. The second column is the one that counts.”

A page or two a week, for forty weeks

• Weeks 1 to 12: a page a week. “Weeks one to twelve have a page each. Some people do not know yet. Some do not want to write much. A page is enough.”
• Weeks 13 to 40: two pages a week. “From here, every week is two pages. The left one is the record: dates, numbers, what the doctor wrote. The right one is yours.”
• Seven days, seven lines, on every right-hand page. “A line a day. Or not.”

Start where you are

“You do not need to be at week one. Find the week you are in, and begin there.” The weeks carry no printed dates. “Nothing here has to be filled in. A blank week is not a failure. It was a week.”

The part you will be asked for

Scans, reports and bills come from three different places, and the claim form wants all of them.

• Report index. “One line per paper. Then it is never lost again.”
• Questions for the doctor. “Write them as they come to you, during the week. Then the visit is not the only time you think of them.”
• Expenses and claims. “The claim form will ask. This page already knows.”
• Names and numbers. Your doctor, the hospital, three emergency contacts, the policy number.

And the part no chart has room for

• The day I found out, and who you told, in the order you told them.
• Godh Bharai, whatever your family calls it, with four pages for the guests to write a line each in their own hand, and a list of who gave what.
• What the elders said. The stories, not the advice.
• Three letters: to the one you are carrying, to yourself a year from now, to your mother.
• A page for him at the end of each part, in his own handwriting.
• Each month: room for a 4×6 photo, and the month in a line a week.

What it is not

It is not a medical book. “Every printed field in this book is a blank for a fact: a date, a number, a name. The book never says what the number should be, what to eat, or what a feeling means.” “If anything you read here seems to disagree with your doctor, your doctor is right.”

The timing of tests and vaccinations is not printed in it. Near the front there is a table for the dates your doctor gives you.

The book

• 176 pages, 17.6 × 25 cm (B5), soft cover, glued
• Printed in black on white paper, with the writing lines at least 8.5 mm apart
• In English
• Undated

Delivery

Delivered across India. Cash on delivery is available, and online payment carries a discount.

Please note — this book is being printed now. Dispatch is approximately 4 to 6 weeks from the date of your order.