Swollen Ankles & Blowfish Kisses

About the Book

Being a parent is not easy and certainly not without tears or pain, but to love and be loved while sharing life with that new person in your life is a fantastic feeling and words fall short in description.

This book is a celebration of the miracle of birth in so far as it brings together a wide range of birth stories by various women from different walks of life. They show how these women, from their own points of view, experienced the various stages of pregnancy, the pain of birth, the joy of birth, but also, in very few cases, how they came to terms with the sad loss of the child. The work is a valuable source of comfort, reassurance, and pertinent medical information. The book will be treasured especially by the new mother who will be reassured that she is not alone in her experience, however unique that experience will prove to be.

About the Author

Maria Emami was born and raised in South Africa until she was 14, except for a frozen year spent in Stockholm, Sweden with her family. In 1983, her family arrived in Phoenix, Arizona where she graduated from high school. After moving yet again with her family to Northern California in 1987, she settled and made her home there. Now sharing her life is her wonderful husband, Max and beautiful son, Malek.
She grew up on a farm in South Africa where she practiced being ?a mother? on her sister, Nicole who is three years her junior. Thus, becoming a mother in reality was her destiny?. The book was born out of her epiphany that although a supposedly common even ordinary event, childbirth was in fact a startlingly unique and life altering experience.