Expecting Adam

"He says you'll never be hurt as much by being open as you have been by remaining closed."

The
messenger is a school janitor with a master's in art history who claims
to be channeling "from both sides of the veil." "He" is Adam, a
three-year-old who has never spoken an intelligible word. And the
message is intended for Martha Beck, Adam's mother, who doesn't know
whether to make a mad dash for the door to escape a raving lunatic
(after all, how many conversations like this one can you have before you
stop getting dinner party invitations and start pushing a mop
yourself?) or accept another in a series of life lessons from an
impeccable but mysterious source.

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 the dream had
begun to disintegrate. Then, 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.

Expecting Adam is a poignant,
challenging, and achingly funny chronicle of the extraordinary nine
months of Martha's pregnancy. 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.

Martha's
riveting, beautifully written memoir captures the abject terror and
exhilarating freedom of facing impending parentdom, being forced to
question one's deepest beliefs, and rewriting life's rules. It is an
unforgettable celebration of the everyday magic that connects human
souls to each other.