thanate | On the subject of things I keep forgetting to ask about... (Reply)

Contemplating books (or failing that, obtainable short stories) with a pregnant major character-- fantasy preferred, though SF, historical, and not too obnoxiously contemporary are all ok too. What I want is something that at least touches on the experience, preferably in a more individualistic manner than David Eddings-esque "oh, you're being 'seasick' in the mornings, too, huh?" (seriously, that's one of about six scenes I remember out of the Belgariad etc, and even at twelve-or-so I wasn't much impressed.) Bonus points for female POV and avoiding the "all historical women died in childbirth" sorts of tropes, but mainly I'm curious what's out there that doesn't skip over pregnancy as a sort of uninteresting limbo.

So far, my mental list consists entirely of Bujold (Cordelia/Alys, younger Ista, & Fawn), Pamela Dean's Tam Lin (which is more focused on situation than experience), and a half-remembered short story out of a Sword & Sorceress antho that was actually about some lady who'd just given birth & had to come to terms with wanting the infant. (the latter is on my shelf somewhere, but I have yet to fall into the black hole of flipping through 20-ish anthologies in search of it.)

Thoughts? (tangentially, early parenthood narratives are also worth mentioning if you think of any.)

ETA: ongoing list of suggestions from twitter, where the question was phrased as spec fic only:
*McCaffrey's Dragonsdawn
*L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet
*end of the Twilight saga... That's Breaking Dawn, yes? Not really on my tbr list, but it counts.
*Justine Larbalestier's Magic's Child
*Tanya Huff Sing the Four Quarters (I have No Quarter as a hand-me-down paperback, but never got to looking up the rest of the series. Hm...)
*Jay Lake's Endurance (Only made it 2/3 of the way through Green b/c things kept annoying me. Maybe worth trying again later... I think the third might involve infants, too?)
*Timothy Zahn's 1st post-movie Star Wars book/series, apparently? (has someone got titles on this?)
*Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber which I totally should have remembered & Brown Girl in the Ring has an infant
*Mary Robinette Kowal's Glamor in Glass (thought the first was ok but hadn't gotten to the second yet)
*Gail Carriger's Heartless (book #4)
*Also,

Rural_Fantasy points out that I missed Learned Hallana from Bujold's The Hallowed Hunt (who honestly I'd entirely forgotten existed--not main but major character) and while we're recapping, there's also the pregnancy/newborn bit in Falling Free.
*Guy Gavriel Kaye's Fionavar Tapestry trilogy.
*Doris Egan's Guilt-Edged Ivory (book 3 of a trilogy)
*Very end of the Wheel of Time series (last book or two? ...probably not worth starting if this is your only reason for reading it. And if it's not, you may already know this.)
*Somebody suggested possibly one of the Sorcery & Cecelia sequels? This would have to be The Mislaid Magician, which is *right over there* and I'll check it sometime after this cat gets off my lap...