Becoming parents is normally greeted with happiness and excitement. It is a time of rejoicing, of anticipation, and fulfillment. Even film stars, whose marriages are notorious for their brevity, sport their baby bumps as a badge of honor. Kate Middleton’s pregnancy had the Royal family smiling and the Media drooling over such a newsworthy event.

But Andrew and Penny Stanway conducted a study some years ago reported in their essay Choices on Childbirth that 40% of women have mixed feelings about their pregnancy and 10% are positively upset. 70% of mothers are indifferent to their babies at birth, and four out of five feel that the image of motherhood is romanticized.