Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic (Paperback)

by Martha Beck (Author) "This happened when Adam was about three years old..." (more)
Key Phrases: stress mat, gender seminar, kway teow, Martha Beck, University Health Services, Seeing Thing (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
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.

Focusing primarily on the pregnancy but floating back and forth between the present and recent and distant past, Martha Beck's well-written, down-to-earth, funny, heart-rending, and tender book transcends the cloying tone of much spiritual literature. Beck is trained as a methodical academician. Because of her step-by-step explanation of her own progress from doubt to belief, she feels like a reliable witness, and even the most skeptical readers may begin to doubt their senses. When she describes an out-of-body experience, we, too, feel ourselves transported to a pungent, noisy hawker center in Singapore. We, too, feel calming, invisible, supporting hands when she falls. Yet, whether or not readers believe in Beck's experiences is ultimately a moot point. There is no doubt that Adam--a boy who sees the world as a series of connections between people who love each other--is a tremendous gift to Beck, her family, and all who have the honor of knowing him. --Ericka Lutz --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
Wickedly funny and wrenchingly sad memoirs of a young mother awaiting the birth of a Down syndrome baby while simultaneously pursuing a doctorate at Harvard. Sociologist Beck, now a columnist for Mademoiselle and a regular on the television show Good Day Arizona, became pregnant with her second child in September 1987, a time she and her husband now refer to as ``the month It All Went To Hell.'' To put it mildly, the unexpected pregnancy complicated their busy lives and academic careers. At the time, Beck kept a voluminous and detailed journal of her thoughts, conversations, and experiences, which provided the basis for these memoirs. Early in the pregnancy, Beck began having paranormal experiences that took auditory, visual, and tactile form. In what she refers to as ``the Seeing Thing,'' she would see brief, vivid images of where her husband was on his frequent trips to Asia. Calming voices spoke to her (and to her husband) in times of stress, and invisible helpers rescued her and her young daughter from a burning building. A Mormon turned atheist, Beck cannot explain the presence of comforting spiritual beings during her pregnancy, but she accepts them as real. Once Adam was delivered, she no longer felt ``like the focus of all that magic.'' Adam himself became the source of magic in her life, teaching her values unlike those she had learned at Harvard. In her son she sees wisdom, beauty, and a way of looking at the world that is astonishing and joyous. Besides a sense of humor that pokes as much fun at herself as anyone, Beck has both a sharp eye and a sharp tongue. Her portraits of Harvard academics, omniscient doctors, and uptight in-laws are priceless. Even skeptics will find magic in this story, and parents of a Down syndrome child will cherish it. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade (August 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425174484
• ISBN-13: 978-0425174487
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (200 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #18,510 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should have some of those Bunraku puppeteers..., November 17, 1999

By	Nancy McNamara (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic (Hardcover)

Expecting Adam is not the story of a child with Down syndrome. It is the heart-felt confession of one woman's personal journey from fear to grace. As the mother of an eight year old boy with an autistic disorder, I fought and wrangled with her story for about the first half of the book, and found myself saying "Come on, Martha, tell me something I don't know." Having conceived my second child while my husband was completing his doctorate, I found eerie similarities to my own experience, from questioning mysticism and other-worldly phenonoma, to being in complete awe of our son when he does what we call his "God Thing." Even so I felt she was exaggerating her own experience,and taking liberties with the academic environment in which she lived. Since most readers won't have an insider's understanding of what it is like be the parents of a "non-perfect" baby in the halls of academia, I felt that I would qualify any recommendation that I made by saying, "Take in all the parts except Harvard - she went a bit overboard there."

But then, somewhere in the middle of the book, it was as if Martha was right there whispering in my ear, "open your heart..." And so, I did. The next morning, after finishing the book, I was shouting orders to my four children, doing my best Captain von Trapp imitation, and getting nowhere fast in readying them for school. There was spilled juice, slopped cereal, and a screaming baby. My "disabled" son, sensing my mounting frustration, asked just at the wrong moment to have his shoes tied. I threw down the kitchen towel in exasperation and left the room for a few minutes to collect myself. I then sheepishly returned to the rallying cry of, "Lets all be chickens!" And there he was, my son, making the others laugh and smile, clearing away the mess, collecting backpacks, and all the while flapping his arms like wings and making his best chicken sounds. We all piled into the car, slightly late, but smiling, and as he got out he gave me a wet, sloppy kiss. He took me by the shoulders and said, "Mommy, if I ever lose you, my heart will not feel so good." He walked away, doing his best imitation of a man walk, and I drove back home, crying and laughing at the same time.

And then I felt them. Martha's Bunraku puppeteers. Or at least, my own version of them. Because at that moment I have never been happier to be parent, let alone the parent of a child with very special needs. All my fears for his future (and mine) were obliterated by a wonderfully calm place in my heart, something I have felt many times before, but could never have expressed as beautifully and honestly as Martha Beck. Thank you, Martha, for putting into words so many of the feelings that I have, but have been too fearful to admit and put down on paper. I hope that I become more graceful in time with my own journey, as you have shown the world that you are with yours.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Emotionally rich, haunting, and fascinating, October 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic (Hardcover)

I was surprised by the review describing Martha Beck as a whiner. I read this book yesterday (yes, in one day--I was mesmerized) and can't remember any whining. It was the opposite--a description of her joy, wonderment, and surprise that life could hold what it began to hold for her when she was expecting her son, Adam. I can't get this book out of my mind; I am still processing it. Although I am not a skeptic about supernatural things, her experiences don't exactly fit into my worldview and I'm trying to figure out what they might mean. Meanwhile, however, the book changed my perceptions of what it might be like to have a child with Down Syndrome (something I've contemplated and even researched before, when a friend got suspicious test results during her pregnancy). And I thought the descriptions of her life at Harvard were equally as fascinating as anything else in the book. As the wife of a former academic, I was both amused and amazed by her encounters with people at Harvard and her own ivory tower naivete, and as a southwesterner I had a bit of a culture shock reading about people who would just step over a pregnant woman who had fainted rather than stop to help her. This book is very well written and full of incredible insights and experiences (I read many passages aloud to my husband). I think parts of the story will resonate with anyone who has been struck by the incredible, unbelievable gift of a baby, as I have been with my own son. I imagine that those who are suspicious of anything they can't see will find much to narrow their eyes at while reading this book, yet it seems to me that only those who have never known what it's like to love a child could truly dislike it.

51 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you've ever loved an exceptional child, read this book., March 20, 2002

By	Liane Gentry Skye, "www.writersgonewild.blogs... (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

Maya Angelou once said that "there is no greater agony than holding an untold story inside of you." This piece of work represents Martha Beck's luminous journey towards choosing to mother Adam, her son who was prenatally diagnosed with Down's Syndrome.

Like many mothers of exceptional children I've known, Martha has touched on the one theme most of us feel reluctant to talk about--that our lives are peppered with unexplainable, prescient experiences that served to pave our way towards accepting a child that a highly educated world often believes is less than worthy of a chance at life.

Because Ms. Beck's Harvard Education and academic's resume brings the reader into a metaphycial journey towards coming to accept Adam through a skeptics eyes, her story seems more credible than that of the average person who sits down to write a book that says "oh, but my child is so much more than what he seems."

Martha's tale is as convincing as it is spellbinding. Her range as a writer is vast--she is both a comedian and an accomplished dramatist.

Expecting Adam hits its intended mark. It reminds us that every child comes into this world for reasons that often lay beyond the realm of human reckoning. It offers proof that all lives have purpose, meaning and dignity. On top of all this, Expecting Adam offers the reader the benefit of an excellent writer.

As the mother of two boys with autism, one who "came back" and one who "didn't", I commend this writer for sharing her story.

Ms. Beck's experiences felt universal to me, and true in a way I can't begin to put into words.

When I look into my children's eyes, I understand without reservation that nothing is left to chance. Like Ms. Beck, I feel both humbled and awed by the opportunity to mother children like mine.

It is impossible to read "Expecting Adam", and fail to see that every life has meaning and dignity.

For all things, there is a season...