Expecting Adam

Originally published in 1999, Expecting Adam is the autobiographical work of life coach, sociologist, and author Martha Beck. In it, Beck tells the story of her marriage and her intense drive for success in the world of academia, both of which are rocked by an unexpected pregnancy. During this pregnancy, Martha’s unborn son is diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome, leading to major questions about the path Beck’s life will take if she and her husband choose to keep the child.

Expecting Adam is a New York Times Bestseller, and Beck has also worked as a columnist for O, Oprah Winfrey’s Magazine. The events of Expecting Adam are merely one chapter in what is, by most accounts, an incredible life. Raised Mormon, Beck went on to study and eventually teach social sciences at Harvard University. It was there that she connected with her husband John, also raised Mormon. The pair left the Church of the Latter-Day Saints in the early 1990s, after the church excommunicated several other LDS members for their controversial academic work. In the early 2000s, both Martha and John came out as gay, and subsequently divorced.

Early in the memoir, Martha learns she is pregnant with her second child. She and John have just returned from Tokyo, where he was working on his dissertation. Beck explains how she and John were essentially raised by the Harvard educational system, and at this point have been students at Harvard for nearly a third of their lives, always striving for the next degree and the next success. Harvard is their world. They are both working on PhD’s, as well as raising an infant daughter. John has just accepted a new job, which will require him to commute from New England to Southeast Asia every two weeks for a year.



Martha tells the reader that she is not sure at exactly which moment everything in her life “went to hell,” but that there are two options. One is when the baby was conceived, shortly after the Beck’s returned from Tokyo. The second is a little later, still before Martha knows she is pregnant, when she and John get into a car accident. Both are fine, but Beck writes that at this moment she somehow simply knows she is pregnant. Despite all the strenuous circumstances of the Becks’ lives, John and Martha decide to keep the baby.

From the very beginning of the pregnancy, Martha suffers from extreme illness and discomfort. The first time John travels to Asia, Martha is so sick she can barely eat or get out of bed. She also begins to have strange dreams about a man named Adam, who she immediately recognizes as her future son. He tells her the baby will be born with something wrong, but that it will all be okay.

During the pregnancy, one of Martha’s blood tests comes back abnormal, indicating a chance that she is carrying a Down’s Syndrome fetus. Further testing and an ultrasound confirm this fact: Martha and John’s child has Down’s Syndrome. Martha is adamantly pro-choice, and yet feels certain that she needs to keep this baby.



As Adam grows, Martha continues to be visited by what she believes to be a guardian angel, and has several semi-magical experiences. When a fire breaks out in her apartment building, Martha feels a hand guiding her out, despite no one else being there. A psychic tells Martha that her son lives on both sides of the “veil” and is sending her a message that everything will be alright. Martha herself is entirely skeptical of this kind of phenomenon but accepts what she sees. When she sees her baby on the ultrasound, she knows he is Adam and feels that she’s known him forever.

Almost as soon as the baby has been diagnosed, Martha begins to feel a specific kind of judgement from most of the people in her life. The Harvard community clearly does not support Martha’s choice to keep the baby - not one doctor sides with Martha’s decision. She feels that even the doctors caring for her and the not-yet-born baby think she has made the wrong decision. She is ostracized from her community and experiences a complete lack of support. Beck writes at one point about how her husband was chewed out in class for missing a lecture in order to attend the birth of his first child. With Adam, the judgement from the Harvard community is even worse. She says at one point, “I had to unlearn virtually everything Harvard taught me about what is precious and what is garbage” (page 331).

Even in the face of so much judgement and such a lack of support, Martha and John persevere. Martha’s labor while giving birth to Adam is lengthy and challenging, but does give way to a happy ending. Adam is born, and the family moves Southwest, away from all the demands and expectations of Harvard. Martha and John know when they meet their son that they will never regret their choice.