“A wealthy couple obtained dozens of children through surrogates. Did they want a family, or something else?”
childbirth
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition: inside a cyberscam compound, behind bars but ahead of the times, up into the beyond, away from home, and under the night sky.
An I.V.F. Mix-Up, a Shocking Discovery and an Unbearable Choice
“Two couples in California discovered they were raising each other’s genetic children. Should they switch their girls?”
Final Girl, Terrible Place
I was expecting a handy theory. What I found was a way of seeing that would help me decode a script I’d been stuck in for much of my life.
How to Survive a Vivisection
After a traumatic experience with childbirth, Rachel Somerstein struggles to bond with her newborn daughter.
After Three Children, Reclaiming My Body and My Mind
In the wake of childbirth and postpartum complications affecting her mental health and her marriage, Ukamaka Olisakwe picks herself up and starts over — in grad school.
In a World Full of Cruelty and Injustice, Becoming a Mother Anyway
A visit to Auschwitz makes Eliza Margarita Bates only more determined to have a baby, despite her painful chronic illness.
Labor Pains: A Reading List
No one ever said expelling a tiny human our of your body would be easy — or if they did, they shouldn’t have.
A Birth Plan for Dying
Hanna Neuschwander grapples with ending a wanted pregnancy, and finds that “right” or “wrong” fail to describe the moral reckoning.
A Birth Plan for Dying
Hanna Neuschwander grapples with ending a wanted pregnancy, and finds that “right” or “wrong” fail to describe the moral reckoning.
