Preparing to be a mother might be a bit more than mangaka Ayami Kazama can handle as she details in her autobiographical manga I Don’t Know How To Give Birth!.

Author Ayami Kazama is a mangaka who recently got married and decided to start trying for a child. Unfortunately for her, Kazama doesn’t exactly know all that much about the entire process of pregnancy. With this in mind, she visited her doctor to educate herself about both the process and her body. During this visit, she discovered that she was not ovulating. From here, Kazama begins down the road of becoming pregnant and caring for her soon-to-be child. With her fellow mangaka husband Azure Konno, the two struggle with all of the ins and outs that come with pregnancy, such as morning sickness, finding the right maternity-wear, and the birth plan for when the baby is about to arrive! Throughout her autobiographical manga essay, our arrow-headed heroine struggles with embarrassment, crippling self-doubt, and of course, childbirth itself.

Mangaka Kazama is mostly well-known for her romance manga (The World I Create, With Hitorimi Haduki-san) and her contributions to other series (Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, Puella Magi Madoka Magica). Throughout the manga, Kazama takes the reader through very private scenes in her process of becoming pregnant, such as meeting with their doctor about treating infertility or talking with her husband about “doing the deed”. After she shakes off her initial embarrassment, Kazama starts to ask a few serious questions such as why she wants a child or if she will even be a good mother. Fortunately for her, she has her fellow mangaka husband, Azure Konno (Koe de Oshigoto!, Nobunaga-sensei no Osanazuma), there to help her through it all as well as provide his own little bonus pages at the end of each chapter. The experience the two soon-to-be parents share is a humorous one that many readers might connect with on one level or another. However, Kazama’s concerns and worries about both her unborn child and herself are relatable to any reader who may pick up the manga.

I Don’t Know How To Give Birth! is available from Yen Press, which has recently been nominated for the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Memoir. Kazama’s work contribution to the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid series, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: Elma’s Office Lady Diary, is available from Seven Seas Entertainment with four volumes.