Imogen in Waiting: A Memoir of Modern Reproduction

When twenty-six-year-old Lindsay Bartels is diagnosed with breast cancer, she also learns she is a carrier of the BRCA1 genetic mutation. To not pass on the cancer-causing gene, Lindsay and her husband undergo IVF, only to find themselves with three viable embryos: two healthy males and one female—with BRCA1. Imogen in Waiting is the story of a mother grappling with an impossible decision—whether or not to bring a daughter just like her into being—while also asking some of life’s biggest questions: What makes for a life worth living? How do we live with our decisions? How do we navigate the unknown? Told to her female embryo, Imogen, Lindsay’s story is both human and God-like, about both agency and surrender, capacity and limitations—and how life is always happening in the middle of it all.