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1 of 1 copy available
Kate Bowler's The Everything Happens Book Club Pick!
Award-winning writer Heather Lanier's memoir about raising a child with a rare syndrome, defying the tyranny of normal, and embracing parenthood as a spiritual practice that breaks us open in the best of ways.
Like many women of her generation, Heather Lanier did everything by the book when she was expecting her first child. She ate organic foods, recited affirmations, and drew up a birth plan for an unmedicated labor in the hopes that she could create a SuperBaby, an ultra-healthy human destined for a high-achieving future.
But her daughter Fiona challenged all of Lanier's preconceptions. Born with an ultra-rare syndrome known as Wolf-Hirschhorn, Fiona received a daunting prognosis: she would experience significant developmental delays and might not reach her second birthday. Not only had Lanier failed to produce a SuperBaby, she now fiercely loved a child that the world would sometimes reject. The diagnosis obliterated Lanier's perfectionist tendencies, along with her most closely held beliefs about certainty, vulnerability, God, and love.
With tiny bits of mozzarella cheese, a walker rolled to library story time, a talking iPad app, and a whole lot of pop and reggae, mother and daughter spend their days doing whatever it takes to give Fiona nourishment, movement, and language. They also confront society's attitudes toward disability and the often cruel assumptions made about Fiona's worth. Lanier realizes the biggest question is not, Will my daughter walk or talk? but, How can I best love my girl, just as she is?
Loving Fiona opens Lanier up to new understandings of what it means to be human, what it takes to be a mother, and above all, the aching joy and wonder that come from embracing the unique life of her rare girl.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
July 7, 2020 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593211083
- File size: 272097 KB
- Duration: 09:26:52
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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April 13, 2020
In this moving and insightful memoir, poet Lanier (The Story You Tell Yourself) shares her experiences as the mother of a child born with a rare chromosomal disorder. At the age of 32, Lanier becomes pregnant with her and her Episcopalian-priest-in-training husband’s first baby. She writes candidly of wanting to give birth to a “superbaby,” and during her pregnancy she strives to be healthy in order to produce a perfect child. But the baby, Fiona, is born weighing less than five pounds, and by her three-month checkup still resembles a newborn. She’s soon diagnosed with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, which can lead to intellectual disability and the inability to walk or speak. After the author’s husband gets a post at an Episcopal church and the family moves from Ohio to Vermont, Lanier spends her days working with Fiona and various therapists, seeking to find the best ways to meet Fiona’s needs and help her learn to communicate. Lanier struggles with the attitudes of physicians and others who regard her daughter as “damaged” and beautifully details her own acceptance as well as the development of her special needs child (in time, Fiona walks, speaks with the help of a communication device, and attends public school). This intimate, powerful memoir will resonate with parents, whether of “superbabies” or not.
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