An
Intimate
journey that navigates today's most pressing women's issues.
When the
Baby Is NOT OK:
Hopes and
Genes
by Jennifer
J. Brown
Genre:
Nonfiction Memoir
What if the baby is
not OK?
Out of nearly four million who get newborn screening each year, about 12,000
babies are diagnosed with a "rare disease" in the US alone. Jennifer
J. Brown's daughters were two of them. It was in their genes.
As a student who thought about being a scientist first, and becoming a mother
second, the news changed her life forever. This intimate memoir of pregnancy,
childbirth and raising special kids revises the story of what to expect with
hope. By turns heartbreaking and horrifying, educational and inspiring, here is
a raw and remarkable journey of triumph and acceptance.
"Brown regales readers with raw vulnerability, sharing her heartbreaks,
setbacks, and triumphs as she navigates unknown waters with two young ones in
tow....Inspirational story that marries motherhood and science." -
Booklife by
Publisher's Weekly review.
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GUEST POST
Fun Facts and Little Secrets: About the Author
From my early childhood days up until now, I’ve relished being a storyteller and had a deep love of animals and the natural world. In the rural area at the foothills of New York’s Catskill Mountains where I grew up, I was outside a lot on my own or with my sister. Mother Nature provided most of our “toys”. We made up stories together and enacted them privately all the time. My mom was super-busy working and caring for the family, and so I attempted to get her attention by being entertaining at home, or when that failed, horrifying. She was quite emotional and I usually got some kind of response, which was all I really wanted.
I guess when you’re a kid, they call spinning tales “telling lies” but in adult life, it’s “writing fiction”. I quickly learned truth was stranger than fiction, and began to love nonfiction as well. As I matured, I also tried to be inspiring through my writing. To find the ray of hope after a storm; to discover the silver lining in any disaster.
I had an early start with writing. By sixth grade I was making up short stories. My teacher that year read one of these aloud to our class, but stopped quite suddenly only halfway through. He said it obviously couldn’t have been written by a child, and discarded it. John Steinbeck was my favorite author at that time, so I’d picked up a style that was a bit dark. This setback stopped me for a while, but by 10th grade I had a whole folder of new stories and also some essays and poems. I submitted these at school without keeping copies, and a few weeks later my English teacher told me he’d lost them all. So that was a second delay. I didn’t get going again until I was about 25, a few years after graduating college with a science degree.
The strangest thing that ever happened to me was later that year. I’d been writing poetry nights, and at an in-person workshop I took in West Philadelphia taught by renowned poet and South African activist, Dennis Brutus, author James Baldwin walked in halfway through the class as a guest. The small, older man was attractive, sensitive and soft spoken with great warmth. After he’d shaken hands with each of us and left, I asked, “Who’s James Baldwin?” That I didn’t know of the iconic writer’s novels and essays or about his huge influence on other US authors horrified my classmates. I soon read all Baldwin’s novels and essays, which deeply affected me. And then I was hooked on the idea of transforming stories into activism. Much of my writing addresses social issues of our time in one way or another.
A little-known, odd fact about me is that I prefer fruits and vegetables over all kinds of other foods simply because the sight of meat disturbs me. This began in childhood after seeing beloved chickens disappear from the backyard and appear as a dish at the table the following day. I love all kinds of animals, and currently have two sweet rabbits at home adopted from a local New York City animal shelter. A close friend once asked me what animal I would choose as my likeness, hinting slyly that this could reveal more of my inner life to him. When I replied “fox,” then added “or maybe lion,” he was shocked, but he erupted in hysterical laughter shortly afterwards. He’d expected me to say some kind of gentle bird that ate only plants, he explained. And I get it. At the time, I kept a cage-free pet cockatiel and a fruit-eating lorikeet as companions at home. But who and what we care for, aren’t necessarily the same things as who we are.
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