Shawn A. Tassone - Spiritual Pregnancy: Develop, Nurture & Embrace the Journey to Motherhood

About the Authors

Shawn A. Tassone and Kathryn M. Landherr are board-certified obstetrician gynecologists practicing in Austin, Texas. As a unique team of married physicians, they bring a rare perspective to the topic of womens health. Kathryn is a graduate of the University of Texas and completed her medical training at Texas A&M Scott and White Hospital. Shawn attended Regis College and completed his medical training at the Creighton University School of Medicine. They both finished residency at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Visit them online at http://aaobgyn.com.

They have worked with medical luminaries Andrew Weil, Jon Kabat-Zinn, James Gordon, and Larry Dossey, and are considered international experts in mind-body medicine, integrative medicine, and spirituality in health. They have lectured internationally on topics of menopause and bioidentical hormones, spirituality and pregnancy, indigenous healing practices, mind-body medicine and womens health, and integrative medicine, and they are the first scholars to bring the work of Joseph Campbell and the heros journey and superimpose it over pregnancy, the ultimate heros journey.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Spiritual Pregnancy: Develop, Nurture & Embrace the Journey to Motherhood 2014 by Shawn A. Tassone, MD, and Kathryn M. Landherr, MD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the authors copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition 2013

E-book ISBN: 9780738738703

Author and yoga pose photos by Anne Daiva Photography

Cover design by Gavin Duffy

Cover photo: iStockphoto.com/Aldo Murillo

Interior lotus glyph from Fleurons of Hope font

Interior journaling cue image from 1167 Decorative Cuts CD-ROM and Book (Dover, 2007)

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publishers website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

To our parents,
where our spiritual journeys began.

To our children,
where our spiritual journeys were renewed.

Medical Note

Please note that the information in this book is not meant to diagnose, treat, prescribe, or substitute consultation with a licensed healthcare professional. Both the authors and the publisher recommend that you consult your medical practitioner before attempting the techniques outlined in this book.

Contents

List of

List of

by Gabrielle Pelicci

First Trimester

: The Birth of a Mother

: Bonding Before Birth

Second Trimester

: Initiation to Motherhood

: Entering the Stage of Bliss

Third Trimester

: The Path of Expansion

: The Journeys Crowning

Birth

: Birth as Spiritual Awakening

: Surgery as a Spiritual Ritual

Beyond Birth

: Life after Birth

: After Birth Recall

: Pregnancy Heals Your Spirit by Pandora Peoples

: A Journey of Firsts by Barbara Barnett

: Kabbalah and Creation by Nina Amir

: The Sukkah of Your Pregnancy by Barbara Barnett

: The Christian Mother by Phoebe Collins

Journeywork Exercises

Yoga Poses

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is akin to giving birth. This book gestated for close to two years and would not have been born without the tenacity of our agent and midwife Katharine Sands of the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency. We thank Katharine for her faith in us and for her vision for our books and writing in the future. Katharine is a true champion. We would like to thank Llewellyn Worldwide Publications and Angela Wix for believing in this project and the mysticism of pregnancy; we hope to have a long and happy relationship with you.

To Toni Robino and Doug Wagner of Windword Literary Services: thank you for literally being our heroes. Were amazed by how you magically spun straw into gold and wove it together to create the book we envisioned. You are true professionals, and its been a joy to work with you.

To Lauren Summers: thank you for vetting our spiritual and cultural material, smoothing out some of our raw material, and blessing us with your support. Thank you to Barbara Barnett, Pandora Peoples, Nina Amir, and Phoebe Collins for your spiritual and cultural contributions to this book. As talented writers who understand the heros journey through a unique connection to spirit, your words speak volumes to the hearts of our readers. To Barbara, thank you also for your generous contribution to the Life after Birth chapter. Thank you to Gretchen Kelly for adding ideas and content from your world travels.

Our deepest gratitude goes to Jennifer (Wolfe) More, the prenatal yoga teacher and doula who brought the powerful influence of yoga to this project. Jennifer has many DVDs on Prenatal Vinyasa Yoga, and she tours the world training yoga teachers and doulas and teaching women how to care for their babies through the power of yoga. All of the pictures and explanations of yoga postures are from Ms. More.

Finally, we want to thank our patients. Accompanying these women warriors on their heros journey of pregnancy is what inspired us to write this book. Mothers are the true warriors of our race; without them, we would not only cease to be, we also would lose all connection to the sacred.

Foreword

If you have picked up this book, you are probably about to embark on one of the most transformative journeys of your life: the journey of becoming a parent. And luckily for you, you have stumbled onto two of the most knowledgeable guides who exist in this field: Shawn Tassone and Kathryn Landherr. With their combined experience of more than thirty years of serving mothers-to-be as ob-gyns, they offer a vast amount of medical expertise and first-hand experience that will support you in making a safe passage on this journey.