Not Actually Knocked Up Abroad

No, it’s not that sort of announcement. I’m not expecting, but once upon a moonshine I was and hopefully you will soon be able read about the slightly less conventional road to parenthood that we traveled in Lagos, Nigeria in an actual book.

It’s A Book Baby

Following on from Lisa Ferland’s anthology Knocked up Abroad, a second book, Knocked up Abroad Again is in the imminent works and I’m excited to have contributed a chapter.

Winging it in West Africa

Winging it in West Africa is my account of being an expectant-and-then-new mother in Lagos. A phase of my life that involved trying to circumnavigate tropical diseases (a phase of shoe licking did nothing to quell my anxiety), field ‘helpful’ parenting tips from our steward Augustine (bless him, he was always ready with interesting advice) and assess the perils of being pregnant in a Lagos traffic jam, known there as go-slows, especially during monsoon season.

We survived shoe licking.

Augustine – bless him – was always ready with interesting parenting advice.

Any parent is bound to agree that first time parenthood is daunting enough, but hurl cultural conundrums, language barriers of life overseas (and in my case, the utter craziness that life in Lagos hurls at you on an hourly basis) and you can imagine that it was one heck of a ride. 

In this case a melting pot of 26 fascinating stories set in 25 different countries contributed by an interesting and resilient group of expat women. The stories cover both the cultural revelations and additional hurdles of pregnancy, birth, loss and early motherhood in a country that is not your own.

To find out more or buy a copy, click on the image below.

Update

You can now also find my work featured in Life on the Move, an anthology of stories from women living abroad. Find out more about this volume and how you can get hold of a copy here.