Expecting the Unexpected by Harpreet Kaur

Expecting the Unexpected by Harpreet Kaur

In that moment, Harps' life transformed from the bliss of new motherhood to a living nightmare. She descended into a dark depression as she allowed her mind to become clouded with judgement as a wave of deep sadness washed over on receiving the shocking news that her newborn son has Down's syndrome. She quickly became consumed by grief for the child she thought she was carrying, and fear for the son she had brought into the world.

Raw, heart-breaking, but hopeful, Expecting the Unexpected is one mother's inspirational journey from the chaos of grief to the calm of inner peace and unshakable love. We follow Harps as she navigates cultural hurdles as a British-born South Asian wife and mother, battles postnatal depression (PND), and embraces the reality of raising a disabled child.

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'Harps has always been a beacon of hope for so many, and reading this book has been like sitting down with a mate and discovering all the little pieces that have made her the woman she is today. Her honesty, her openness and her heart bounce off every page.'

- Giovanna Fletcher>

Jessica Ann Diehl (Editor) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore where she teaches geodesign and a community design studio addressing issues of urban food security in the Master of Landscape Architecture Programme. Research interests include place-based investigation of social networks, health equity, and alternative food systems. She holds a PhD in Health and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Colorado Denver, USA where she was a National Science Foundation (NSF) IGERT PhD Fellow in Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Systems and a 2013-2014 Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellow affiliated with the School of Human Ecology at Ambedkar University Delhi, India. She holds a BLA/MLA in landscape architecture from The Pennsylvania State University, and a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College.

Harpreet Kaur (Editor) Harpreet Kaur's research interest focuses on taking an ecological approach towards understanding functions and drivers within agroecosystems and applying this knowledge towards sustainable management of farming systems. At Agroparistech, she investigated the effects of agriculture on biogeochemical cycles at local and national scales. By quantifying how nutrients flow across various components of agricultural production, she seeks to evaluate the factors that lead to nutrient surpluses or losses. Her previous research work mainly focused on high altitude agriculture in the Indian Cold Desert. She holds a M.Phil in Environmental Sciences from the Jawarharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, where she was a Senior Research Fellow funded by University Grants Commission, India.