Genre: ‘Based on the author’s true life experiences, 336 Hours is a humorous and poignant diary about one woman’s quest to be a mother.’
Release Date: 13th February 2017
Publisher: SilverWood Books
The next 336 hours will be tough. No, the next 336 hours will be really tough…
I feel like an Olympian, waiting to see whether the years of hard work, sacrifice and dedication are finally going to pay off, or whether my body is about to fail me at the last hurdle and make me wonder why I ever hoped I could win.
My best friend is pregnant, my single friends are planning their pregnancies and, after five long years of tests and investigations, I’m coming to the end of my third – and supposedly final – IVF treatment. There are 336 hours to survive before I’ll know if I get to join the motherhood club. That’s 224 waking hours of pure psychological torture. 112 sleeping hours to stare at the ceiling and wonder, what the hell am I going to do with my life if it turns out I can’t have kids?
Based on the author’s true life experiences, 336 Hours is a humorous and poignant diary about one woman’s quest to be a mother.
My thoughts
The author has written a story, her story, in a humoured way but with an everyday struggling subject for most women. There were moments where I laughed out loud, had tears in my eyes… as I was one of those ‘lucky ones’ to get pregnant without going through the IVF system. Howevee I was tols that was the only way to conceive for me due to medical reasons so I could relate in ways a lot to her writing.
All the assumptions are there too – you are married 5 years… where are our grandkids… people expect so much and expect people to go through the norm it is unreal.
Rachel has captured all her insecurities during the book really well and real but with a healthy dose of humour. I think this is a must read for any woman who is trying to break from the norm about kids or who are struggling to do so.
I can highly recommend this book and I will mention this to many of my friends as a must read.
Extract
I can’t pretend to have a clue what she means, of course. I don’t know what it’s like to have little people shouting, ‘Mummy! Mummy! MUUMMEEE!’ all day long, to never be able to go for a wee on your own, to make spaghetti bolognese and then watch your dinner dates tip it straight over their heads, to stay up all night comforting a teething toddler, to spend hours coercing and pleading with very small people to put shoes and coats on so you can at last leave the fucking house.
But I want to know this life. Because that stuff gives you stories, first-hand experiences, and the right to exchange knowing smiles of solidarity with other frazzled parents as you all manoeuvre your wayward shopping trolleys around the aisles of Tesco.
And it comes with other stuff, too: the good stuff.
BUY LINK
AMAZON UK – AMAZON US – Silverwood Books
ABOUT RACHEL CATHAN
RACHEL CATHAN is a writer from Bedfordshire. In 2001, a mutual friend introduced her to a part-time pub DJ in Southend-on-Sea. A month later, they had moved in together, around seven years later they tied the knot, and a little while after that – just like so many couples before them – they made the exciting and terrifying decision to start a family. And then, like a growing number of couples today, well…not a lot happened.
Throughout the subsequent years of fertility investigations and failed treatments, Rachel kept a diary of her experiences, and it’s from these first- hand encounters in the world of infertility and IVF that her first book, 336 Hours has been adapted.
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D.C.J. WARDLE is the author of humorous novels ‘Trading Vincent Crow’ and ‘Vincent Crow: Export’. In January 2013 he was author of the month on 
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