Скачать или смотреть Rebecca N. Thompson, MD & Kimmery Martin, MD - Held Together

Seventeen years ago, when family medicine and public health physician Rebecca Thompson, MD endured a string of life-threatening pregnancy losses and rare medical conditions, her training didn’t protect her from feeling isolated and overwhelmed. What she longed for was a community of women—or even one encouraging story—to reassure her that she wasn’t alone.

Deciding to create the community she couldn’t find in her own time of need, Thompson reached out to friends, patients, and medical colleagues and asked them to share the stories of their personal journeys to parenthood, as well as stories of how their families grew and changed and thrived as they faced challenges beyond those early years. Her new book, "Held Together: A Shared Memoir of Motherhood, Medicine, and Imperfect Love," explores the intersections of these brave, resilient women’s lives with Thompson’s own as they encounter a vast range of unexpected turns and obstacles, including fertility issues, adoption, fostering, surrogacy, multiples, abortion, stepparenthood, chronic disease, mental illness, the death of a child, the death of a spouse, and so many moments where grief may threaten to consume us—until joy sometimes surprises us.

The extraordinary stories of ordinary women reveal that, while our individual circumstances may be unique, our experiences are universal in so many ways: we are creating life, raising children, and sustaining families, even as we search for reassurance that we are not alone in our struggles. "Held Together" offers a place of healing that welcomes every kind of family, a refuge where we make meaning out of our stories and embrace the belief that life can be beautiful despite—and often because of—all its complexities and imperfections. Our foundations may not always be strong, but together, we are.

Thompson will be in conversation with Kimmery Martin, MD, an emergency medicine doctor and author of multiple works of medical fiction. Martin holds a faculty appointment at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, where she teaches Narrative Medicine.