ADRIFT

The world is not neatly divided into two camps of women, those who wanted to reproduce and did, and those who didn’t want to, and didn’t. So many of us are caught here, in between, neither one thing nor the other, drifting towards a receding horizon, in our own camp…When Miranda Ward and her husband decided they would like to have a baby, they were optimistic. They were both young, they were healthy – there was no reason not to be. Five years, three miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy later, Miranda finds herself still dealing with the ongoing aftermath of that decision: the waiting, the doubting, the despairing, the hoping and the not-knowing. ADRIFT is a memoir about the unique place of almost-motherhood. Some people pass through it without even noticing; some people never leave; some people languish there, for a little while, or a long while, held safe, held prisoner, by the walls of not-knowing – for as long as there is still a question mark, an open ending, there is hope, there is a chance of escape. In this searing, moving and timely book, Miranda explores what it is like to live in this space, how much control we have and don’t have over our own bodies, and how water has become a way for her to make sense of it all.]]>