A well-researched, informative, and positive account of a very long journey to motherhood.
A chronicle of the great lengths one woman went through to conceive and birth two children.
Denver-based lawyer Katkin was sure she wanted children. Like many women, she assumed it was much harder to avoid pregnancy than to become pregnant. However, after her first miscarriage, she began to realize that becoming a mother wasn’t as easy as she originally thought—but she wasn’t going to give up. As the years progressed—years filled with more miscarriages, hormone injections, in vitro fertilizations, and so many doctors’ appointments that she lost track—her determination to have children only grew stronger. In her debut memoir, the author shares the various methods she and her husband used to finally have two healthy children in their lives. She thoroughly examines the medical side of her treatments, giving readers an in-depth accounting of hormone shots, the way the female body functions pre/during/and post pregnancy, the role a healthy uterus plays in keeping an embryo viable, and the effectiveness of acupuncture and Chinese medicine alongside IVF. Katkin discusses the inadequacies found in the United States when it comes to helping women deal with infertility issues and how patients become consumers, “shopping” for the best clinic when there are few standards, lax regulations, and almost no data on success rates to help patients make informed decisions. She shows how other countries around the world have far better information and rates of success than the U.S., which will lead some readers to question if they should look outside the U.S. for help with similar matters. Katkin also incorporates the stories of other couples, giving a wide-angle look at the pros and cons of medical intervention, the use of surrogate mothers, and the extreme measures many will go to in order to have a baby.
A well-researched, informative, and positive account of a very long journey to motherhood.Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-4236-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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