Making Finn – Susan Newham
I first came across Susan Newham on Parent 24 when I was pregnant with my first child. Like many first time moms-to-be I craved information from other moms who had already been there and done that. I valued the information from experience far more than the information in all those dozens of pregnancy and parenting books thrust at me from every direction.
Susan Newham relayed stories of her strange pregnancy cravings, her growing baby belly, her postpartum body (boobs) and going back to work (mommy guilt) – I was hooked. After my daughter was born I didn’t have much time for, well, anything really and that included reading and so I promptly forgot about the column. Despite some serious pregnancy brain when I was pregnant with my second daughter I somehow remembered Susan Newham’s column and went in search of all of her material that I had missed out on in the last year or so… I didn’t find any. What I did find was the announcement of an upcoming book coming out round about the same time as my daughter was due. So I put in a reminder and I waited.
Was it worth the wait, most definitely. In her casual and easy to read style Susan relays her story of trying to conceive her son Finn. Now, this is far from your run of the mill conception story as Susan is in fact gay and between her and her partner Roxy they had far too many girly parts and no important boy part to help them out.
She light-heartedly invites you to share her and Roxy’s journey through sourcing a sperm donor, flying her donation half way across the world and through South African customs (something most of us fear for regular parcels let alone our potential children) and the whole IVF process.
This book definitely gets a thumbs up from this mommy. It was easy to read and the fact that I could easily pick it up and put it down (whenever my children needed something) was a bonus.
Title: Making Finn
Author: Susan Newham-Blake
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780143530633
RRPrice: R190
Published: February 2013
Image courtesy Penguin Books
Dogapult Book Launch: Dogs vs Birds – Thurlow Moore & Karen Lilje
This wonderful book is about the antics of two dogs (and a group of crafty cats) who try to catch two purple Hadedas that have taken up residence in their garden. My 4 year old gets really cross in the morning when the hadedas in the garden wake her up and so she loved that this book involved those loud South African birds that we all love to hate. The rhyming story is easy to read and the bold, colourful illustrations kept my audience captivated until the very end. A fun book that your kid’s will love. (image courtesy http://dogapultbook.tumblr.com/)
Softcover
Publisher: Longshort Books (2013)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-620-58944-4
Image courtesy Dogapult