NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A candid and moving memoir of how one
woman's pregnancy forced her to confront her definition of how to live a
successful life
"Slyly ironic, frequently hilarious, [Martha] Beck's memoir charts
the journey from being smart to becoming wise."--Time
This edition includes a new afterword about Adam.
From the moment Martha and her husband, John, accidentally conceived
their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed
with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less
driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for
more. They'd plotted out a future in the most vaunted ivory tower of
academe.
But when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome,
doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them that
if they decided to keep the baby, they would lose all hope of achieving
their carefully crafted goals.
Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. By the time Adam was born,
Martha and John were propelled into a world in which they were forced to
redefine everything of value to them, put all their faith in miracles,
and trust that they could fly without a net. And it worked.
Expecting Adam captures the abject terror and exhilarating freedom of
facing impending parenthood, being forced to question one's deepest
beliefs, and rewriting life's rules.
