Hatching: Experiments in Motherhood and Technology

New York University writing professor Quilter (New York School Painters and Poets: Neon in Daylight) traces the socioeconomic history of reproduction technology alongside her own experience with IVF in this profound memoir. She explores the inequalities the treatment is built on, including James Sims’s gynecological experiments on enslaved Black women in the American South; the profit-driven nature of the fertility industry, which puts it out of reach for all but the wealthiest (“Those who had money had the right and ability to challenge their infertility, and those who didn’t, couldn’t,” she notes); and why cisgender heteronormativity is the standard for IVF patients, concluding that reproductive technologies limit rather than extend the idea of family. As well, Quilter chronicles her visit in 2016 with Willem Ombelet, a South African gynecologist who created a low-cost IVF option but has been unable to secure the funding needed to build clinics in developing countries. Quilter compares her own IVF experience (which resulted in the birth of her daughter) with society’s complicated attitudes toward motherhood, sorting through her wish to be a parent while maintaining a career. It’s fraught terrain, but Quilter navigates it with with aplomb as she turns over the question of whether women are “guinea pigs or moral pioneers” when it comes to fertility treatments. This is a must-read for anyone considering IVF. Agent: Don Fehr, Trident Media Group. (Dec.)