Firstborn - A Memoir

A lapidary memoir of losing a child before she can be born, which the author began writing the day she came home from the hospital--an intimate story;about our most searing losses and brightest hopes “Some days I still think this is all just a sad story I’ll tell Simone one day.” Lauren Christensen is a thirtysomething editor in New York City when she meets her future husband, Gabe, a writer with whom she falls in love right away. Her beloved grandfather is dying, but the young couple is bringing new life into the family: Lauren and Gabe joyfully discover she is pregnant with their daughter, Simone. As Lauren faces the prospect of becoming a parent, she learns to let go of the fear of abandonment and need for control instilled in her by growing up with a largely absent father and a high-powered mother who was often away on business. Lauren and Gabe are incandescently happy in their exuberant, messy, beautiful shared world. But just weeks after their wedding, they learn that their worst nightmare has come true: Simone is dying in the womb. In fierce, tender, spellbinding prose, As she comes up against the brutal limits of maternal healthcare and the limitlessness of her love for her daughter, Lauren Christensen finds a key, generous and brave, in which to share her loss, a testimony whose diamond-like brilliance refracts a universal light.

Product details

• Authors: Lauren Christensen
• Publisher: Penguin Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 18.03.2025
• EAN: 9780593831816
• ISBN: 978-0-593-83181-6
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 147 mm x 218 mm x 23 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Guides > Self-help, everyday life > Lifestyle, personal development; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women, Autobiography: general, Memoirs, FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Death, Grief, Bereavement, Coping with death & bereavement, Gender studies: women, Gender studies: women and girls, Coping with / advice about death and bereavement, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs