An empty lap

In her late thirties, journalist Jill Smolowe was realizing the life she had always envisioned for herself. Her career at a national magazine was on track. Her husband, Joe, was still her most trusted confidante and best friend. And now that she and Joe had decided finally to have a child, Jill assumed the pregnancy that had come so easily to all the women in her family would be her own next chapter. But nature had a different script in mind. Instead of decorating the nursery, Jill was soon racing to appointments with a vial of Joe's sperm in hand: instead of losing her waistline, she was losing her sense of direction, her humor and everything she liked best about herself. As the quest for a child swerved from the roller coaster of infertility procedures toward the baffling maze of adoption options, Jill's desperation deepened - while Joe's resistance to children only hardened. In the fog of depression, disappointments and dead ends, their marriage began to founder. As they set off to travel halfway around the world for a baby, Jill was certain she knew what was coming next. Instead, in Yangzhou, China, she encountered a future she'd never imagined might be hers.