An Empty Lap

Joe and I had been forthright about children. I was pretty sure I wanted them Joe was pretty sure he didnt. Since we each perceived in the other some room for movement the difference didnt worry us. Then priorities shifted needs changed.... In her late thirties journalist Jill Smolowes life and career at Time magazine was on track. Her husband Joe was still her most trusted confidante and best friend. And now that she and Joe had decided finally to have a child Jill assumed the pregnancy that had come so easily to all the women in her family would be her own next chapter. But nature had a different script in mind. As her quest for a child swerved from the roller coaster of infertility procedures toward the baffling maze of adoption options Jills desperation deepened -- while Joes resistance to children only hardened. In the fog of depression disappointments and dead ends their marriage began to founder. Then halfway around the world in Yangzhou China she encountered a future shed never imagined might be hers. Honest and intimate An Empty Lap is as much a window on a marriage as on a high-stakes baby chase. Compelling beautifully told and as insightful as a novel its filled with emotions that anyone who has yearned for a child will recognize.