Stronger, The Honest Guide to Healing and Rebuilding Bfter Pregnancy and Birth
Author: Megan Vickers
The idea for stronger grew after the birth of my second daughter. A friend, “Dr Jane”, planted the seed whilst we were around a camp fire on her farm. We were discussing births and the recent arrival of her new grandson when after several hours Jane said to me: “I’ve been a GP specialising in family planning for more than 40 years, I have never heard or thought of half the things we have discussed. You need to share this with women, they will want to hear it, you must write a book!”
And that was that, over the next few months the idea grew roots. I noticed that in clinic I was sharing similar advice to mothers with often the same response: “Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?”. I knew that the tools I was sharing was often for the very first time, and why should this only be available to those that could afford/have access to 1:1 specialist consultations? I started to understand that the best way to share this knowledge, tools and advice was in a book that could travel, be accessible and reach everyone. So I started putting my advice down on paper.
It wasn’t long after this that we were sitting with a chef friend, Joe, at his restaurant The Naughty Piglets, discussing book writing. Joe was in the process of pulling together ideas for his first book too, a selection of his favourite recipes. He asked “Do you have an agent yet?!” I hadn’t even thought of this, but now suddenly it seemed obvious. It I was going to be taken seriously by publishers I was going to need a team! So Joe put me in touch with his who seemed to know instantly the perfect person for the job.
And so I met Charlotte, who had recently established Bravo Blue agency. Over brunch we discussed the importance of care for mothers and how many forms this could take. We agreed about the void of awareness, promotion and treatment for women after they have had babies, when the focus turns to the new-born. I shared with her tools I use with mums in my clinic and Charlotte talked about her feelings regarding the imminent birth of her baby boy. If it was a date I would have been immediately texting after to arrange a second!
Charlotte encouraged me to start writing, to put it all down and build “the book” for her to review after her maternity leave. So I did. I took every Monday off work whilst my kids were at school and I wrote. I knew what I wanted to include and so the chapters came out quickly, polishing them took a lot longer! But after 4 months I had the bulk of the book done and plucked up the courage to share it with Charlotte. She helped me shape it into a marketable book, highlighted my over-use of exclamation marked and pulled me up where-ever I slipped into physio speak. But all in all she thought we had a good book to take to market. So we spent the next few months writing our book pitch and she expertly took this to publishers whilst I waited anxiously…
Almost a year to the day since the original idea was created, in May 2020, we got a book deal! Two in fact, but the one that resonated the most was from Bloomsbury. They wanted to change my proposed title from “Feel Stronger” to “Stronger”. Because it was “more impactful”, perfect! We celebrated.
Then the journey from there was new and novel to me but strange and surreal to everyone else thanks to the pandemic. I never actually met my publisher and editor although we communicated often, everything was done over teams and zoom.
I would send chapters at a time for comments before editing and bit by bit the book took shape. I learnt what was “physio-speak” and instead how to write in a friendly, open and understandable way. By October we had a manuscript that was ready to go for proof reading.
In the meantime our focus changed to illustrations and the cover. My dream was for women to feel proud of “Stronger”, and for it to make a perfect coffee table read or bed side mantle. And so the style and cover was important to me, to not be text book like but pleasing and beautiful. When Luisa Rivieras work was introduced to me I knew she would create the perfect cover. We have always been big fans in our house of the “Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls” series, and I sought out copies in bookstores to see Luisa’s work. She presented to us 4 beautiful illustrations which captured the importance of the mother perfectly. The connection with nature, outlines of female form and inclusivity of all women and all births made this one stand out over the others. I still love it and feel so proud that Luisa connected this art with my writing.
The illustrations were created from photographs I took at home performing the exercises. It makes me smile to notice how similar they still look to me!
Next the manuscript was transformed to a book and one Wednesday evening in April 2021 I arrived home to the first 20 copies on my doorstep. A real life book for mothers, with children of any age, with essential stuff for recovery, written by me and created by a team of awesome women. So proud.
Publication date 27th May 2021 and in all your book stores.