Alice Eve Cohen

When I decided to have children, I didn't do much soul searching, much questioning of whether I would be a good mother, what sorts of genetic or environmental issues I would be passing along to those as yet unborn. Of course, both my husband and I were young, educated, and healthy so we were a good risk for reproduction. The fact that I fell pregnant easily just seemed to reinforce our somewhat unthinking decision to form a larger family. But what if I had not been young? Or what if I show more couldn't get pregnant? What if, finally being pregnant, I was 44 and had been told I was infertile, I didn't discover my condition until I was 6 months pregnant, and my fiance and I were uninsured artists living without so that we could do that which fed our souls? That in essence is the situation in which Alice Eve Cohen found herself. This book is the searingly honest, revealing memoir of a 3 month pregnancy, the medical incompetence, the emotional struggle, the questioning, and the grace that characterized her pregnancy.

Cohen was told that due to a misshapen uterus she was infertile so she and her first husband adopted a lovely daughter. Years later at age 44, she is happy as the mother to her daughter; she feels fulfilled in her job teaching acting and performing her own plays; and she is thriving in her relationship with her fiance. But then niggling health concerns start popping up and doctors have no answers for her. It could be her age. It could be the hormones she's taking. Whatever it is, the answer isn't yielding to any of the tests she undergoes, until finally, a bombshell. She's pregnant. 6 months pregnant.

As Cohen cycles through disbelief to acceptance, she chronicles the emotional roller coaster as well. What choices does she have with this late term news? How does her lack of pre-natal care affect her decision about the outcome of her pregnancy? What kind of weight does fiance Michael's feelings on this unexpected pregnancy have? How can she possibly wrap her head around the place she finds herself? Fiercely honest about her reactions and her decisions, Cohen does not whitewash anything in order to show herself in a better light. This pregnancy is no wished for miracle. It is a catastrophe that could beget more catastrophe. Her decision to pursue a late term abortion or to carry the baby to term will have an irreversible and permanent impact on her life no matter which choice she makes.

Alongside her own complicated emotional state, Cohen also details the medical malpractice that left her in the dark for 6 months, submitting to tests and drugs that are harmful to fetuses. She examines the mistakes made and the probable outcome of those mistakes. She faces the plight of the self-insured, needing expensive, uncovered, out of network medical care and is turned down by doctor after doctor. She and her unborn baby are a walking liability to any and all doctors. As she navigates through the medical morass that the pregnancy becomes, she continually writes lists of what she knows to date. The repetitious nature of these lists, with additions and corrections as needed, throughout the memoir give them a sort of talismanic feeling. They serve to anchor Cohen to the facts as she thought she knew them. Pregnancy worry beads, if you will.

The writing here is gorgeous. There are times that Cohen seems emotionally inaccesible to the reader but she was so frozen herself that this reserve serves to reinforce the truth of her own feelings. Her internal debate is honest, agonizing, and unsparing and it's a privilege to be invited into something so personal and emotional. Her background as an actor is clear here, with each chapter its own contained act and scene. I highly recommend this deeply moving, intelligent, and thoughtful memoir. show less

Alice Eve Cohen writes beautiful, honest memoirs. Her first memoir, What I Thought I Knew was a searing portrait of her unexpected pregnancy and the complicated feelings around it. In this second memoir, Cohen looks at the mother daughter relationship through the lens of medical procedures, cancer, college, and memories of her own long dead mother.

One year filled with life changing events brings the memory of Cohen's mother back to her decades after her death. Cohen's sunny dispositioned show more youngest daughter, Eliana, is scheduled to have an excruciatingly painful surgery to lengthen one of her legs, a condition that can potentially be traced back to the tests and drugs that Cohen faced during her surprise pregnancy; Cohen's older daughter, Julia, prepares to leave for college and decides to search for and meet her birth mother; and Cohen receives a diagnosis of breast cancer, the disease that changed her own childhood forever. In the midst of this confluence of events, Cohen starts remembering her mother, her mother's own breast cancer diagnosis, and the resultant devastating change in their relationship as she imagines conversations with her mother.

Cohen's relationship with her mother was far from perfect and it only deteriorated when she hit puberty just as her mother underwent a radical mastectomy and treatment for breast cancer. Her memories of her mother are fraught and at least partially tied up with her perception of their contentious relationship. But as she undergoes her own cancer treatment, despite initial misgivings, Cohen invites the vision of her mother to speak to her, to offer her reassurance, and she starts to remember the real person behind all the hurt. In doing so, she comes to an understanding of her mother's frustrations with her life and finds that offering her mother's memory grace allows her to offer grace to herself as well. In accepting her mother's imperfect mothering, she finds some peace with her past. Forgiveness and remembrance honor the attempt and help her in her own struggle to stop feeling as if she's fallen short. In this magical and terrible year weaving her own childhood through with the events of her present, Cohen explores the complicated love between mothers and daughters and faces the bittersweet realization that more positive time with her mother was cut so short. She looks at the difficult decisions she must make in her own life as a mother and the ways that each of us are flawed. The memoir shines with honest emotion and raw hurt, but most of all, with love. The writing is eloquent and the story is moving. Cohen is forever both mother and daughter and her coming to grips with who she is in each iteration makes the story so vivid and touching. show less

While this moving memoir speaks quite explicitly to the mother/daughter dynamic, it also speaks to any close relationship where one of the people is gone. I generally don't like to give much detail away in a review, not to mention that many other reviews lay out the general events that form the heart of this work. What I would prefer to do is explain where this wonderful book took me while I was lost in the pages. This will be similar to what many others have experienced and, to a show more considerably smaller degree gives an idea of how this memoir works, and make no mistake, this memoir absolutely works.

My father passed away from cancer while I was in college, insisting I not put my education on hold. I went through the usual grief-like emotions upon getting the call from my mother he had died. For weeks, maybe months, I thought I grieved, and I guess I did but not nearly the way I did several years later. When I found myself in a situation that would always have made me call and talk to my father, I picked up the phone and called. It wasn't until my mother answered that I remembered he was not there any longer. While that hit me hard, and triggered what I took to be the true grief, it was the aftermath of that call that stayed with me to this day. My father did indeed help me through my difficult period. He spoke to me in my mind, through my dreams and walked me through it. In other words, he had so instilled how he thought and how he had always helped that I could "hear" him giving me advice and asking questions I would not likely have asked myself as myself.

Cohen's memoir has potentially traumatic situations through which her mother helps her, and is told in a tender yet strong manner sorely lacking in my little paragraph. But the result is the same, those we love, especially when the bond is a close one (even in spite of sometimes growing apart), will always be nearby ready to help when we are ready to accept that help. I am glad I read this book and especially thankful to have had those memories of mine rekindled.

Reviewed from an ARC made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

This book is amazing! When I looked at it in the bookstore, I thought, "This looks frivolous but I must buy it." Then I stayed up late into the night reading the whole thing.

It's the true story of a woman named Alice. She was 44 years old, infertile, and even if she could conceive a child she would not be able to carry it to term because of a deformed uterus. But all that is OK, because she has a child by adoption and an adoring boyfriend, and she is happy with her family and her life. Then show more she starts to feel tired and sick and her abdomen feels swollen. Her gynecologist examines her and tells her it is early menopause. Do you see where this story is going? Even if you do, you will never be able to predict the incredible things that happen next. You may not agree with all of Alice's decisions, but you will be riveted by her incredible story and you will root for her. It was like a thriller in that I couldn't put it down; I had to know what would happen next. show less