Two-Week Wait
an IVF story
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
An original graphic novel based on the IVF stories of its husband-and-wife authors and the 1-in-50 couples around the world like them.
Conrad and Joanne met in their final year of university and have been virtually inseparable since then. For a while, it felt like they had all the time in the world. Yet now, when they are finally ready to have kids, they find that getting pregnant isn’t always so easy.
Ahead of them lies a difficult, expensive, and emotional journey into the world of assisted fertility, where each ‘successful’ implantation is followed by a two-week wait to see if the pregnancy takes. Join Joanne and Conrad, their friends, their family, their coworkers, and a stream of expert medical practitioners as they experience the highs and the lows, the tears and the laughter in this sensitive but unflinching portrayal of the hope and heartbreak offered to so many by modern medicine.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Jacksons, married educators and parents of two, partner with artist Wild to tell a compassionate story about the struggle to conceive based on their own experiences and interviews with other couples who have dealt with fertility issues. After a year of trying and failing to get pregnant, the fictional Joanne and Conrad seek medical help, discover that Joanne has endometriosis, and begin the long, difficult process of IVF. There are funny moments, as when Conrad tries to figure out how to get a sperm sample into a tiny test tube ("At what possible angle...?"), but also grueling medical procedures and emotional strain that threatens to tear their marriage apart. "It makes me feel like I'm broken," Joanne confesses. They consider adoption and alternative medicine; spend time with children and think on how to be parents; and find that opening up to others helps them push through their isolation and frustration. Wild's loose, fluid, warmly colored pencil art perfectly complements the script; in swooping curves and simple shapes, she draws emotive characters in domestic settings that look lived-in. Gentle and empathetic, this enters a growing trying-to-conceive graphic medicine genre, recalling Sarah Glidden's and Lucy Knisley's work, and offers a touchstone for any reader dealing with IVF.
