Adrift: On Fertility, Uncertainty and the Wilderness of the Body

Author: Miranda Ward

Number of Pages: 304

‘What would it mean to name this place I’m in, to map it? To say: this is the landscape. It looks like this, smells like this, at night these are the sounds that carry on the wind. Almost-motherhood . . .’ When Miranda Ward and her husband decided to have a baby, they were young and optimistic. But five years, three miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy later, she is still dealing with the ongoing aftermath of that decision, and the shadow it’s cast over her relationship to her partner, her body and her future. In this searing, lyrical and radically honest memoir, Ward charts her journey through the uncertain landscape of almost-motherhood, asking questions of geography on the most intimate scale. How can we learn to be at home in our own bodies, even when we feel adrift from them? What language do we have for the spaces in between, the periods of wanting and waiting? And how do we maintain hope as we navigate towards an unknown future?