This book has been developed to help raise money for research in the effort to find a cure for breast cancer, simply because Breast cancer is the most common cancer among Australian women. One in 11 women will be diagnosed with the disease by the age of 75. If we can find a cure for that, in turn we may be able to find a cure for other cancers, cancers like the one that took my mother away from me.

My mother was only 62 when she was diagnosed with AngioSarcoma a rare and fatal type of cancer that begins in the lining of blood vessels. This type of tumor tends to be aggressive, recur locally and spread widely.

She underwent operation after operation to remove tumors, repair bowels, she had radiation treatment and chemotherapy in an effort to fight this horrible disease.  She declined rapidly and within 7 months of intense treatments and unbearable pain for her and the family she lost her battle.

From my perspective, what can I say, no 27 year old woman or anyone should ever have to go through seeing their mother suffer in that way. Sitting by her bed explaining to a woman, who had spent her life dedicated to her children, that she had four kids, two boys two girls, their ages and that the young girl telling her all about her children was in fact the youngest of them.

If that wasn't hard enough, it couldn?t have been more than a couple of weeks after saying good-bye to our mother, we received word that my sister-in-laws mother had been diagnosed with cancer.  The cancer attacked rapidly and we lost yet another young dedicated mother to another terrible disease.  So within 5 weeks of each other we had lost two  wonderful, beautiful mothers and amazing grandmothers to  horrible diseases.

While preparing the journal my sister-in-law had gven me when my son was born to hand on to my other sister-in-law who was newly pregnant, It got me thinking. Maybe there are more women out there who are raising children without the wisdom of their mothers' to help guide them, so I  thought this journal would be a great way for women and mothers to share their real life experiences and advice and pass it on to future generations.                          

Along with helping new mothers if we can help raise funds to assist with Breast Cancer Research  aswell  then maybe a cure or prevention can be developed, which will help prevent these types  tragedies from happening to other families.  By just doing a little bit to help we can achieve great results.

I originally started the concept of the "Mother's Best Advice Book" as a way to fill in time at the baby shower of my first child... I hate those games that tend to be played at these functions.

Then two years later my sister-in-law was pregnant and far away in a foreign country. In an effort to give her the feeling of family and as a way to share the advice her mother and my mother and all my girlfriends had given me I put the first book together and sent it to her. She then passed this book to her sister.

Then we lost our mothers to the most horrendous word you'll ever hear. "Cancer" My Mother-in-law was a brave woman who fought long and hard to beat this horrible disease but she wasn't able to do that and unfortunately died when my second child was five days old. Two days later my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. The support and information provided to my mum gave her strength and an understanding of the disease and what she would have to face in regards to treatment. I can only thank the breast cancer council for the comfort their info pack gave her.

In the end the breast cancer was in fact a secondary. The primary cancer was actually a large cell adrenal cancer which was extremely rare. If not for the regular breast screening we wouldn't of had a clue there was anything wrong. My mother didn't get to have any treatment, she actually died the day after her diagnosis was finally made. My daughter was then 5 weeks old and without the love of a grandmother to turn to.

It was at this time that my sister-in-law decided this book would make a great gift for other pregnant women and could help raise funds to find a cure. That's the reason for the book.

I hope that you can find the joy and wisdom of our mothers within its pages then add your own parental advice and that of your mothers' and pass this journal on to your own children.