Conceiving Histories: Trying for Pregnancy, Past and Present

by Isabel Davis, Anna Burel (illustrator)

A fascinating and beautifully illustrated account of trying to conceive in both the past and the present.

Inspired by the author’s own experience, Conceiving Histories brings together history, personal memoir, and illustration to investigate the culturally hidden experience of trying to conceive. In elegant, engaging prose, Isabel Davis explores the combination of myth, fantasy, science, and pseudo-science that the (un)reproductive body encounters in pursuit of a viable pregnancy. The book chronicles the trying-to-conceive lifecycle arc from sex education at school, through the desire to be a parent, into the specifics of trying and struggling to conceive. It also looks back at conception throughout history to open a new vista on what we live with today.

A central argument of Davis’s is that historical people lived with the unknown just like we do but were more explicitly able to acknowledge it. In an age of assistive reproductive technologies, the act of embracing uncertainty seems difficult. Although the topic of not conceiving is potentially painful, this is not a grim book; more than grief, it is motivated by curiosity, wonder, compassion, and even humor. With 108 full-color illustrations, Conceiving Histories is also a beautiful material object, an intentionally playful antidote and supplement to Google—the resort of so many embroiled in fertility challenges.

Genres: Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

Published March 4, 2025

Reviews

[Nadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for my dissertation research, and it's probably one of my favorite more 'academic' books I've read thus far. Davis goes through so many examples regarding how people imagined and navigated the am-I-aren't-I time of conception from history into the present day. And largely argues that the uncertainty that we think might be a thing of the past due to technological 'progress' is still a constant in trying to conceive, the only difference being that the past was more okay with uncertainty. There were a couple historical tangents that I didn't think needed as much detail as Davis provided, but I felt like all tangents came back to focus by the end of each chapter.

[Susie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an interesting book. So many great stories and it made me think quite differently. The illustrations were thought provoking too. Highly recommend.