Shanicia Boswell - Oh Sis, Youre Pregnant!: The Ultimate Guide to Black Pregnancy & Motherhood (Gift For New Moms)

Praise for Oh Sis, Youre Pregnant!

Finally! This gem of a book answers our questions about pregnancy and childbirth AND is culturally sensitive and socially aware. Everyone needs a Sis like Shanicia Boswell. She is a fun, energetic, knowledgeable, and loving guide who takes the specific needs and concerns of Black parents seriously. I wish Oh Sis, Youre Pregnant! was available during my pregnancies.

Tatyana Ali, wife, mother, actress, singer, and filmmaker

Black Pregnancy is a soul-filled journey to unveil some of creations best work. This is a book that we all should have and a journey that birthed us all. I Love It.

Anthony Hamilton, Grammy Award-winning singer, song writer, producer, actor, author, and father

This book stands as the modern-day guide to birthing while Black. Women of color are in need of a book to help navigate the medical system as well as understanding how to take control of their pregnancy, overall health, and familys health. This book can be used as a nice compliment for any provider caring for birthing families of color.

Angelina Ruffin-Alexander, certified nurse midwife and owner of Touch of Osun Midwifery Services

Shanicia has written a book that focuses on what pregnancy is like for a Black woman. Pregnancy is more than what happens to our bodies during the nine months. Pregnancy is learning proper nutrition that benefits mom and baby. Its knowing healthy foods to eat while breastfeeding. Pregnancy for Black women is knowing what diseases we are more prone to develop based on the food we take into our bodies. This information will benefit mothers for generations to come.

Chef Ahki Taylor, celebrity chef, wellness guru, and author

OH SIS,

You re
Pregnant!

The Ultimate Guide to Black Pregnancy & Childbirth

Shanicia Boswell

Coral Gables

Copyright 2021 Shanicia Boswell

Cover and Interior Layout Design: Jermaine Lau

Published by Mango Publishing, a division of Mango Media Inc.

Mango is an active supporter of authors rights to free speech and artistic expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society. Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book without prior permission is theft of the authors intellectual property. Please honor the authors work as you would your own. Thank you in advance for respecting our authors rights.

For permission requests, please contact the publisher at:

Mango Publishing Group
2850 Douglas Road, 2nd Floor
Coral Gables, FL 33134 USA

For special orders, quantity sales, course adoptions and corporate sales, please email the publisher at or +1.800.509.4887.

Oh Sis Youre Pregnant! The Ultimate Guide to Black Pregnancy & Motherhood

ISBN: (p) 978-1-64250-498-9 (e) 978-1-64250-499-6

BISAC: HEA041000, HEALTH & FITNESS / Pregnancy & Childbirth

LCCN: Requested from the Library of Congress

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

The author is not a medical provider. Please discuss your birth options with your OB, midwife, or doula.

Artwork by Alexandre Keto

Table of Contents

A Conversation with Tracie Collins, Founder of the
National Black Doulas Association

A Pregnant Hormonal Woman Has Taken Over My Life.
I Am Sis. Sis Is Me.

Focusing on the Bag, Part II: Packing the Essentials
for D-Day

A Dedicated View into Pregnancy and Parenting for
Our Black Fathers; featuring Anthony Hamilton

Forty Things Women Wish They Would Have Known
before Childbirth

A Conversation with Krystal Milky Mama Founder,
Krystal Duhaney

A Postpartum Conversation with Midwife
Aiyana Davison

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

Maya Angelou

Becoming pregnant at twenty-two years old felt like accidently getting knocked up at sixteen in high school. Instead of walking the long hallways, bypassing judgmental eyes of my few hundred peers, I was trying to find creative ways to post on social media to hide my ever-growing baby bump. I was not ready to share with the world that I, someone that had not even fully broken down the doors of adulthood, was about to be somebodys mama. At twenty-two years old I had landed a successful job as the assistant to a person who was a lot more accomplished than me. At least I had my own office. I rented a hipster studio apartment in the middle of the city. Maybe because of my concern for the environment or because of the small paycheck that just barely allowed me to make student loan payment deadlines, I was economical and took the train instead of driving a car.

So, there I was, sitting on the toilet on Valentines Day. It just so happened on the day of love that my breasts were unusually tender, and my period was not where it was supposed to bein my underwear. As a responsible, sexually active woman, I always kept a few pregnancy tests under my bathroom sink. At this moment, I decided to take a test just to be sure. I did not think I was pregnant. I just needed the confirmation of that one little line to tell me to be patient and wait a few more days. Aunt Flo probably had plans of arriving unannounced in middle of the most painfully awkward situation. I peed confidently. I hummed a little tune as my fluids splashed onto the pregnancy test, and as I lifted that white stick from between my legs, I nearly rolled my eyes and yawned. Why did I waste a perfectly good pregnancy test to find out what I already knew?

There is this feeling you have when something catches you completely off guard, and you have no idea that there is even an inkling of a possibility that this could happen to you. You would think that I was the Virgin Mary sitting there taking a pregnancy test, and even she got pregnant. Those two faint blue lines popped up faster than I could blink. What happened to waiting two minutes? Those two minutes are extremely crucial: at least those discretionary minutes allow you the time to process this possibility of actually having a baby, since I clearly had not done this before. Regardless, there I was, sitting on the toilet naked, with a positive pregnancy test in my hand.

Shit.

And like any twenty-two-year-old, I called my best friend and screamed SHIT! so loud into the phone she probably still has nightmares about it. Lucky for me, my best friend lived only a few floors above in the same building. I put on my clothes, grabbed the pissy pregnancy test, and walked up to her apartment. Here is your first lesson: dont let anyone talk you into wrapping your pee-drenched pregnancy test in purple and pink tissue paper to hand to your boyfriend, who will probably freak out right along with you.

I will be honest; I was not too confident about what was ahead of me. Being a young Black millennial, I had not even accomplished my first goal of finishing college. I was currently on a sabbatical to figure out life. This was one of things I realized early on in my twentiesI had a certain privilege. Even as a Black woman, I had privilege. I had the privilege to take time off from college to find myself. And I had been working on it. I took a two-week trip to Egypt to connect with my ancestors. I got rid of my phone for three months, dyed my afro a weird combination of purple, orange, and red, and even converted to a religion. I had become the poster child for Black, privileged youth, squandering opportunities that my elders had fought so hard for me to have. Even I knew I had maybe gone too far left and had started to reel it back in. I dyed my hair back black, made the decision to loc it up, and landed a job in corporate America. I was looking for the American Dream before even realizing what my own dream was. I was trying to be my ancestors wildest dreams without proper context. Did my ancestors really want me filing papers for eight hours a day? Probably not. They also did not want me pregnant at twenty-two either but here we were.