Book: Expecting Adam by Martha Beck
Pages: 324
Finished: April 2008
Challenges:
** In Their Shoes Challenge
** Spring Reading Thing 2008
** Non Fiction Five

First Sentence: This happened when Adam was about three years old.

Last Sentence: I think he may be right.

Well, this book was to say the least, interesting. I started reading it and got hooked in right away, although something just didn't feel right about it. From the the review on amazon, I though this was going to be an inspiring memoir, of a spiritual sort:

Amazon.com
Expecting Adam is an autobiographical tale of an academically oriented Harvard couple who conceive a baby with Down's syndrome and decide to carry him to term. Despite everything Martha Beck and her husband John know about themselves and their belief system, when Martha gets accidentally pregnant and the fetus is discovered to have Down's syndrome, the Becks find they cannot even consider abortion. The presence of the fetus that they each, privately, believe is a familiar being named Adam is too strong. As Martha's terribly difficult pregnancy progresses, odd coincidences and paranormal experiences begin to occur for both Martha and John, though for months they don't share them with each other. Martha's pregnancy and Adam (once born) become the catalyst for tremendous life changes for the Becks.


I must be honest. if some of the odd things that happened to Martha during her pregnancy had occurred in my life, I would have no problem believing in angels--and not just paranormal angels, but angels from a loving, almighty God. Martha ends up embracing some new age spiritualism, which I can even accept, considering her scientific world view, acquired at Harvard. But, after finishing the book, which got quite bizarre towards the end, I did a little research on the author and her life since Adam and much of what she claimed seemed to be discredited. She has since divorced from her husband, and both of them are now in same sex relationships. She has also thrown her extended family in turmoil by allegations that her father, a high up leader in the mormon church, had molested her as a child. I don't know, all that extra information has left a bad taste in my mouth.