Some women become mothers unexpectedly because motherhood was not part of their plan. But even when you plan to become a mother, once you actually hold that baby in your arms so much of motherhood is unexpected.

No matter how motherhood comes to you, the unexpected happens because life is messy, and it’s hard, and it’s beautiful. And there is a God who loves us and a God who is good, even when life seems to unravel, even as we face the unexpected of motherhood.

This is what the novel Motherhood Unexpected is about.

My friend Deanna Smith wrote a novel that I could relate to. I saw myself in the characters of her story. It was me wrestling with God, trying to understand His plan for me, for my family, for my baby who was born with Down syndrome. Sometimes you pick up a book and you sigh a sigh of relief knowing you’re not alone, that someone else understands, that someone else has wrestled with similar thoughts, feelings, and questions. And as you close the book you see God’s goodness shinning not just at the characters in the book, but at your own life too.

So I asked Deanna why she wrote Motherhood Unexpected, and this is what she said,

My daughter Addison is now five years old and I hold no fault with her diagnosis of Down syndrome. I love her dearly, and I love our little family just the way it is. But something bothered me whenever I heard or read things like:

“The scan revealed no abnormalities. God is good!”

“We prayed for him to be born healthy, and he was. God is so good to us!”

“The doctors thought something might be wrong, but they were wrong! Isn’t God just so good?”

These type of comments cut deep inside my heart, and for a while I couldn’t figure out why.

I realized the health of these other babies had absolutely nothing to do with me or my babies, but my mind jumped into a dangerous place before I could stop it. And it hurt. I wondered, did this mean that if the outcome was different, that God wasn’t good? Would “God is so good to us!” still be tacked onto an announcement if a scan had abnormalities? And did this mean that when well-meaning people looked at Addison they honestly thought that God would have been MORE good if He had allowed her to be born without Down syndrome? If he had “cured” her? If our prayers had been answered in the way that we wanted?

I couldn’t sort this out in my heart. The answers seemed simple, but my heart wouldn’t accept them.

So I started on this crazy project called “Motherhood Unexpected” during the wee hours of 2014. I needed to write through my thoughts and feelings in a deeper way than a short blog post could tackle. I needed to dive into these feelings and write through them. I needed to find peace so that when I saw these announcements, I didn’t feel hurt– so that I could separate my emotions from this in a healthy way because I had a deeper understanding of God’s goodness to me in giving me a child with Down syndrome. Not as a mistake or a lesser choice– but as GOOD.

All Claire wants is to be a mother, but her perfectly planned birth ends with a surprise. Forced to question everything that she has ever believed, she struggles through new motherhood. How can God still be good when nothing about this is even remotely good?

Meanwhile, Claire’s teenage sister Felicity goes too far with the wrong kind of guy. Faced with a life-altering decision, she can’t help but wonder, “why me?”

Julie counsels her daughters as they deal with the complications of sex, disability, broken expectations, and jealousy. However, a deeply buried secret won’t leave her alone, causing her to have her own doubts.

Three women face circumstances that leave them broken and desperate. Will they find peace with the unexpected before it’s too late?