Summary

A chance meeting with her former and most compassionate fertility doctor brought Wendy Wasserstein (at age 48, and after 8 years of effort) back to his fertility clinic. Two weeks later she got the news that she was pregnant, and six months after that, just as she was getting ready to tell her friends "that the twenty pounds I had gained were not the result of bad habits and anxiety," she developed preeclampsia and was hospitalized.

What follows in this ’Annals of Motherhood’ memoir is an account of her hospitalization; her subsequent delivery 16 days later of 1lb., 12oz. daughter, Lucy Jane (Lucy’s waving hand sonogram picture reminded Wasserstein of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds"); and her separation from Lucy, who spent two months in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Commentary

Wendy Wasserstein shows her playwright skills in this short memoir through the quick sketches of the "characters," their "in tune" dialogue, and the dramatic and comedic "scenes" they play out. The final scene has mom and daughter cozily at home watching an "I Love Lucy" rerun.

Primary Source

The New Yorker

Publisher

Condé Nast

Place Published

New York

Edition

February 21&28, 2000 , pp. 87-109

Page Count

11