Not the Glow I Expected: Prenatal Depression Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe depression during pregnancy, often beginning before anyone expected it — after years of trying, with an unplanned pregnancy in their forties, through months of hyperemesis, or as a known illness returning. Writers describe the hiding: crying in the bathroom, keeping it together at work, calling it just tiredness, and families where mental health was never discussed. There is the turning point, often a midwife, health visitor, friend or pharmacist who noticed, and then the decisions about treatment — talking therapy, antidepressants weighed against the baby, stopping tablets and regretting it, staying on them with care, and a first treatment that did not work. Contributors include fathers and partners, people pregnant far from home or in a second language, a nurse who missed the signs in herself, and a woman in recovery from addiction. Later chapters cover fear of birth, a gestational diabetes diagnosis as a tipping point, bed rest with twins, a deployed husband, money worries and rural isolation, a diagnosis that proved to be more than depression, peer support groups, and recoveries that were real but incomplete.

Who it's for

For anyone pregnant and struggling with low mood, partners who sense something is wrong, and midwives, GPs and health visitors who are often the first to ask.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 233 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.