This Lovely Life

ISBN: 0547232756

Author: Forman, Vicki

Condition: New

Vicki Forman gave birth to Evan and Ellie, weighing just a pound at birth, at twenty-three weeks gestation. During the delivery she begged the doctors to "let her babies go" - she knew all too well that at twenty-three weeks they could very well die and, if they survived, they would face a high risk of permanent disabilities. However, California law demanded resuscitation. Her daughter died just four days later; her son survived and was indeed multiply disabled: blind, nonverbal, and dependent on a feeding tube.This Lovely Life tells, with brilliant intensity, of what became of the Forman family after the birth of the twins - the harrowing medical interventions and ethical considerations involving the sanctity of life and death. In the end, the longdelayed first steps of a five-year-old child will seem like the fist-pumping stuff of a triumph narrative. Formans intelligent voice gives a sensitive, nuanced rendering of her guilt, her anger, and her eventual acceptance in this portrait of a mothers fierce love for her children.