Expecting Adam PDF
Preview Expecting Adam
EXPECTING ADAM A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic by Martha Beck Published by: Times Books, Random House, New York, New York. Further reproduction or distribution in other than a specialized format is prohibited. Copyright 1999 by Martha N. Beck, Ph.d. BOOK JACKET INFORMATION “A wonderful book, funny, unbelievably tender, and smart. It shimmers.” —Anne Lamott, author of Operating Instructions “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 IQ’S 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 one another. “Expecting Adam is Martha Beck’s meticulously written, uplifting, and compassionate account of being gifted with a retarded son who opens her heart to the deep intuitions that love can bring.” —Judith Orloff, M.d., author of Second Sight Martha Beck is the “Quality of Life” columnist for Mademoiselle, a career counselor for Life Design Enterprises, and the author of Breaking Point: Why Women Fall Apart and How They Can Re-create Their Lives. She also hosts a weekly TV spot, “Ask Martha,” on Good Day Arizona. She lives in Phoenix with her husband, three children, and best friend, Karen. Advance praise for Expecting Adam “Set half in Harvard and half in heaven, Expecting Adam is a tough-minded yet tender-hearted book of spiritual discovery—a rueful, riveting, piercingly funny, thoroughly modern and deeply old-fashioned memoir. In short, a book to be reckoned with.”—Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way “I can’t believe I almost didn’t read this book. The thing is, I thought it was about a lady who had a baby with Down syndrome. This is like saying Anna Karenina is a book about a lady who commits suicide. In fact, this book is about matters so important and yet so totally way-out that I would accept no one but a comic genius with seven years at Harvard under her belt telling me about them. That’s Martha Beck: funny, companionable, razor-sharp, down-to-earth, and onto the Big Secrets of Life Itself. Anyone considering having a child should have to read this book. It has changed some of my thinking about pregnancy and about children with disabilities, and I don’t think it’s too much to say it could change my life.” —Marion Winik, author of First Comes Love and The Lunchbox Chronicles “Expecting Adam is not one of those grit-your-teeth, lemons-into-lemonade sagas that leave the reader feeling more besieged and guilty than the writer. It is a long hymn, from a practical woman caught flatfooted by amazing grace. Martha Beck is a celebrant skeptics can trust.” —Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Most Wanted and The Deep End of the
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