The Early Birds: A Mother's Story for Our Times

by Jenny Minton

In the winter of 2002, Jenny Minton delivered twin boys. She was thirty-one weeks pregnant, and her boys, conceived through in vitro fertilization, were more than two months early. Both boys were placed on immediate life support, and for sixty-four days they hovered, critically ill, in the neonatal intensive care unit of a New York City hospital. The Early Birds is a record of their time there and the story of Minton's harrowing, triumphant quest to bring her sons home.

With impeccable restraint, in sharp, unforgettable scenes, Minton takes readers into the heart of an experience that is both singular and with a significant increase in twin births over the last twenty years, and a commensurate rise in premature births increasingly common. She reflects with piercing candor on her persistent, often heartbreaking reckoning with her own guilt, and the inadequacy she feels for not having carried her boys to term. She examines how little she knew, and how little information doctors provided, as she entered the largely unregulated realm of assisted reproduction. She confronts her decision not to go back to work, and the overwhelming sensation that life has swept her away. She offers moving interrogations of science and fate, and the role of providence in conception. And she describes the glorious triumphs of ordinary life, even as she wrestles with the unanswerable questions that remain.

A fiercely intelligent, closely observed, powerfully gripping narrative about conception and childbirth, and a poignant and provocative journey into motherhood in an age of modern medicine, told with precision and indelible grace.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2006

Reviews

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tugs the heart strings, it is definitely a best case scenerio out of a tough situation, that is much more common than I ever imagined. We praise the fact that premies are able to survive so much better now, which I agree is wonderful. But it raises the questions, do we have more premies born now? At what point are we creating more problems than we're solving? Are we playing God?
The main thing it really started me questioning is in vitro, I had not known the problems and risks associated with it at all.
I love the author's honest voice, and willingness to share her real feelings.

[Carey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in four days, it was very compelling. It's a story of a mother who gets pregnant via in-vitro and ends up having her twins at 31 weeks. Heart-wrenching memoir. However I did find a lot of it seemed as if the mother couldn't get past the trauma of the boys' birth and kept dwelling on their set-backs instead of focusing on the positive (which she is finally able to do in the end). good book.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story of IVF pregnancy and birth of the author's twins. As the mom of a preemie, I found the NICU experience interesting, but this book needed an editor. The author herself is an editor; maybe that's why no one else wanted to edit her text! She goes off into many different directions and comes across as privileged. But an interesting read nevertheless.

[Tate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am currently pregnant with twin boys, and this book is a true story about twin boys coming WAY too early. I enjoyed reading it for the potential educational value, and for the similarities in our lives, but DO NOT recommend reading this until after your twins having safely arrived. Now I am a wreck with worry!

[Sallyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good. A story about twins born prematurely but not terribly so. I think they were born at 31 weeks gestation, but they had more difficulties than one would expect for 31-weekers. The book was valuable mainly for the author's description of the difficulties and emotional challenges of having a child/children in the NICU for several months.

[Jennifer Novak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, but a bit too long.

[meeschka · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must read for anyone considering IVF - very informative, albeit subjective. but i loved the telling of the personal experience.

[Jessica Brazeal Slaven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really powerful and insightful look into the life of a mom with a premature baby.