REVIEW: What to Expect When You're Expecting

This book is perhaps purchased mostly on impulse by first time expecting parents based solely upon it's title.    It's appearance in popular culture in TV and movies including the popular film "Knocked Up" with Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl has also brought it to the attention of those that are possibly soon to be parents, and haven't ever considered taking a trip down this section of the bookstore.

When impulse buying anything, you can be in for a shock when you discover that the product doesn't live up to your preconceived expectations.  Luckily in this case, the majority of buyers are going to be in for a delightful surprise.

The Lowdown: If you are considering buying this book, stop considering, and buy it now.  If you want to get only one baby book, this is the only one you will need.

The authors have done an amazing job of presenting a ton of information in one extremely easy to digest and easy to read book.  The writing style is very casual, and is fun to read as well.  Facts and figures and medical jargon does not confuse the reader, there is only straightforward and sometimes amusing information.


At first, the book appears to be daunting.  At 615+ pages, it is a large book, and each page is filled with information that you are going to to need to know, because it will be happening very soon, and sometimes sooner than you think.

The book is laid out month by month, with a summary at the beginning of what kind of things you should expect to happen this month.  If you read a few pages each night of either this month, or the upcoming month, you will be able to read the entire thing no problem.  I would read a few pages aloud to my wife each night before we went to bed.  This made it an activity that we could do together while getting ready for our coming baby.

Additionally, there is an index at the back for quick and easy reference to what you (or more likely, your wife) is experiencing.  This way, you can skip around to anything that you may be wondering, and read the relevant sections.

In our personal experience, we had Braxton-Hicks contractions occur sooner than when the book began discussing them.  In fact, the book says that they may start occurring in the 20th week (or the 4th month), but this is not even mentioned until the chapter on the 8th month! We found out what these pains she was experiencing by asking our OB, and were shocked that the book we had relied on seems to have missed out on alerting it's readers to this one important piece of information early: The pain you are experiencing in your belly is normal, and going to continue occurring.

If you do not know what Braxton-Hicks contractions are, Let me Google that for ya...

Aside from this one flaw, this book is perfect.  All in all, I would highly recommend this book to anyone.