The Lost Season: A Memoir of Infertility, Motherhood, and the Worry and Work Demanded of Women

by Stacey May Fowles

The bestselling author of Baseball Life Advice, Stacey May Fowles returns with the honesty, humour, and heart that readers love in a memoir exploring infertility, motherhood, mental health, and the work demanded of women.

After years of struggling with the pain of infertility, Stacey May Fowles had her beautiful daughter. But while motherhood brought with it many joys, it also meant losing so much of what had gotten her through those years of wanting. With her characteristic introspection, Stacey May explores what it means to create life with a traumatized body, the sometimes uncomfortable fit of wearing both motherhood and ambition, and the ways in which our ideas of how a mother moves through the world limit and hurt us—and often sever our connections to one another. 

The follow up to Baseball Life Advice, a Globe and Mail and National Post best book, The Lost Season is a raw, powerful exploration of undoing and becoming.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

204 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 9, 2026

About the author

Stacey May Fowles is is an award-winning novelist, journalist, and essayist. She has written for the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, Torontoist, the National Post, Deadspin, Hazlitt, and Vice Sports, among others. Her most recent book, Baseball Life Advice, was published in spring 2017. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Reviews

[Shannon]

A heartfelt, raw and relatable memoir of infertility, loss, depression and anxiety as Fowles shares her struggles getting pregnant and balancing her life as a writer and mother. I found lots of nuggets in her stories of early motherhood and really connected with this one. I especially liked the chapters about learning to give yourself grace and trying to enjoy the season you're in. Good on audio and perfect for fans of books like Honest motherhood by Libby Ward. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

CW: early miscarriage, infidelity, depression, disordered eating, anxiety, agoraphobia, intrusive thoughts, traumatic birth

[siobhan]

“Because…we get better” is a sentence that this book reminded me of, and I am thankful for it. As someone who has been recovering from a brain injury for over a year and who disappeared in many senses of the word, I found the last 1/3 of this book very good and validating and encouraging.

[Robyn]

I adored Stacey May Fowles baseball writing back in the day and certainly wondered "what happened to her" (a nod to the last chapter). I loved so much about this book and it articulated so many feelings and experiences I've had incredibly well. There is such a universal inevitably about motherhood that we all fight for as long as we can and I'll surely think about this book a lot.

My only "complaint" if one can even call it that is that it's really more of an essay collection than a memoir and I didn't realize that until I was partway through and saw that many of the chapters had previously been published elsewhere, so in that sense it sometimes felt repetitive or made me slightly confused about timelines.

As someone who was such a fan of Stacey's writing a decade ago, I'm so happy to read that she's doing well ❤️

[Lauren]

This book gave me permission to feel everything that I was feeling about infertility, pregnancy and beyond.

[Latoya Harrigan]

Wow, I wish I found this book earlier!
So relatable with her infertility and mental health journey and truly a great read.

[Chenoa Matthews]

As someone going through infertility, I picked up this book expecting it to be a lot more about that phase of her life. For folks like me: prepare for a beautiful story but one that primarily centres a woman’s postpartum journey. She—deliberately or otherwise—says relatively little about that time of infertility (which, at 4 years in her late 30s, is not insignificant). I felt this absence to be a bit of a shame. But, again, as someone going through it, I can sense the author protecting that part of herself; as she alludes to, it was a much harder and sadder time in her life than postpartum in many ways, despite new motherhood’s own unique challenges. All that said, it was a wonderful read and I honestly hope everyone, including (especially!) men, reads this. I still felt seen in the parts of her infertility journey that she does discuss, and I can see my friends who are mothers in other aspects of the book. I can see ALL of us in her discussions about identity, labour, and societal expectations of women.

[Alexis]

A powerful book about infertility, early motherhood and the work and worry of motherhood. I like Stacey May's writing because it is always open, honest and true. This personal story will resonate with many women (even those like me who don't have children). This book gave me a lot of food for thought. Even as a woman who has never tried to have children, I could relate to the depression and anxiety, rebuilding your life, dealing with trauma, and being forever changed after.

The writer's drought part also resonated with me.

I hope a lot of people read this.

[Jenn Tracy]

A brutally honest, raw and real experience of infertility, early motherhood through the pandemic, the ebbs and flows of being a working mom and all that encompasses parenthood. This all-too relatable book brought great comfort in knowing the emotions and experiences I faced as a new mom was “normal”; I wish I knew about it years ago.

I have grappled with the devastation of infertility while also being somewhat grateful for our ability to fully care for our only child; this book made me feel less of a monster.

[Jenna Salsedo]

I went into The Lost Season expecting a story centered on infertility, but found something much richer. It offers an honest, nuanced look at the journey into motherhood—from trying to conceive to pregnancy and beyond—focusing less on the day-to-day realities of raising children and more on the evolving sense of identity, loss, and rediscovery. As someone who isn’t a mother yet, I found it to be a thoughtful and illuminating glimpse into a stage of life I haven’t experienced.

[Dre Tremblay]

I enjoyed this one! Not my usual style of book as I prefer fiction but this one captured my attention. I personally connected to this book because some of our experiences were similar and this book allowed me to reflect on my own journey through birth and post-partum.

[Lottie C]

4.5⭐️

Short, but definitely packed an emotional punch

[Mila Lesechko]

I had shared a traumatic experience and this book helped me to think about it one more time.