Julie Halpern

"The profane, profound and just plain funny story of a professional woman who thinks she's ready for a baby but her maternity leave proves otherwise. Thirty six year old Annie Schwartz-Jensen is a middle school teacher on maternity leave-a time she imagined as uninterrupted, blissful bonding with her baby. Instead she is dealing with her body leaking from every possible orifice, a baby who won't sleep, a husband who still wants to have sex with her...

When Anna returns from a three-week stay in a mental hospital she struggles to resume a normal life in the face of her parents' arguments and peers who are afraid to ask her what happened.

In a world where the name of one's "meant to be" mate appears on one's chest at age eighteen, Aggy must decide whether to trust the phenomenon or follow her heart.