Look How Happy I'm Making You

A candid, ultimately buoyant debut story collection about the realities of the baby years, whether you're having one or not. In twelve thematically linked stories, Polly Rosenwaike offers a composite portrait of pregnancy and new motherhood, in all its anxiety and absurdity, darkness and wonder. The characters in these stories confront infertility, miscarriage and childbirth as well as the emotional upheaval of having a new baby in their lives. In Grow Your Eyelashes a woman struggling with infertility rails against false marketing slogans, even as she fantasizes about the impossibly perfect husband and child she sees on her daily bus commute. In The Dissembler's Guide to Pregnancy a woman nervous about her biological clock forgets to take her birth control when sleeping with a younger man and finds herself facing single parenthood. In White Carnations four motherless women who meet in a bar every Mother's Day face their losses and the possibility of becoming mothers themselves. And in Ten Warning Signs of Postpartum Depression a new mother finds comfort during her difficult postpartum period with a man who is not her husband. Look How Happy I'm Making You offers the rare, honest portrayal--witty, empathetic, and sharply observed--of how the prospect of motherhood and the experience of caring for a new baby deeply affect a woman's sense of self in a culture obsessed with her most intimate choices.