John and Geraldine Gleeson, teenage sweethearts in Carlow, had only one
wish in life after they got married: to have a child. Promises to Keep
is John Gleeon's heartrending account of this couple's quest to
conceive, of the serious physical damage Geraldine suffered as a result
of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), and of her tragic death in the National
Maternity Hospital in 1993, which led to the hospital's historic
admission of negligence in the High Court. It also tells of how the
experience of losing Geraldine, and of feeling abandoned by the medical
profession, drove John Gleeson to an emotional breakdown from which he
is still recovering. Promises to Keep is the story of one couple's
medical nightmare. It makes for bracing, absorbing reading at a time in
Ireland when such nightmares are all too common.