Reader’s Digest UK – July 2019

BOOKS

W

hen the novelist

Francesca Segal became

pregnant with identical

twin girls, everything went so well

for a while that she achieved the

desired state of being “smug and

unbearable”. But then, during the

30th week, she woke in the night

bleeding heavily. Given the dangers

that premature babies face (and

Segal provides a hair-raisingly

comprehensive list) the hospital

where she was taken tried hard to

save her pregnancy. The following

day, though, the doctors had no

choice but to deliver her daughters,

who weighed in at around two

pounds each. Suddenly Segal found

herself “pulled far from the current

of normal motherhood”, her babies’

fate in the hands of advanced

medicine instead of hers and her

husband Gabe’s.

In this riveting book she writes

beautifully about what happened

over the next couple of months when

all ordinary life was suspended, to be

replaced by an exhausting cycle of

hope and fear. Particularly moving

are the friendships she developed

with the other mothers in the same

situation. In what the hospital calls

“the expressing room”—but that the

women refer to as “the milking

shed”—vital information is

exchanged, mutual support

Labour Pains

RD’S RECOMMENDED READ

This month’s recommended read reckons with the beauty and tragedy of one

mother’s experience with prematue birth and the debt we all owe to the NHS

Mother Ship

by Francesca Segal

is published by

Chatto & Windus

at £14.99

124 • JULY 2019

WENN RIGHTS LTD / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO