Headlines about birth injuries and women being allowed to give birth in the car have become more the rule than the exception in reporting on BB. Midwife and author Jennifer Berglund wanted to partly nuance that image with her new feelgood novel.
"I think it's really important that it's not just the horror examples that are constantly being brought forward, but that you can also get a different picture. What we see are often ordinary births where everything goes really well," she says.
But even so, the real-life problems of canceled vacations, understaffing and downsizing have carried over into the world of the novel.
- I think the feelgood genre gets a little misunderstood sometimes. Feelgood often brings up very heavy and dark and serious topics, but you have as a contract with the reader that it should end, not always happily, but at least hopeful.
Wants to highlight both sides
In "My Time Is You," 37-year-old Klara is the lead character. She struggles with a desire to find someone to start a family with herself and with her own introverted personality standing in the way of her career.
At the same time, her thoughts are diverted by both incoming alarms from highly pregnant or newly delivered women and by the flirtatious pediatrician Rikard.
"I want to entertain people, I want them to think it's a good story that gives a bit of a escape from reality hopefully. But then I also want to highlight BB care. Both how amazing it can be, but I also wanted to show that it's not always amazing and babysitting all the time," says Jennifer Berglund.
Would you say BB is a great place for romance?
- I certainly wouldn't say BB is a good place for romance, it was actually one of the hardest things in the book, I think, writing about romance. Precisely because we don't have time, no one would get the hang of flirting at work.