The Pursuit of Family: how one couple, two judges, and three wombs made a family of six

Julie’s life story was never supposed to be interesting enough to move beyond the pages of her diary. The vision of her future was simple. There was a suburban house, a couple of kids, and a minivan shuttling to piano lessons and soccer practice. Nowhere in that vision were there D&C procedures, baby sellers, or shrieking, drug-exposed infants. Never did she picture herself crossing the Mexican border to receive an FDA-banned procedure or watching her embryos being placed in another woman’s body. As her imagined world crumbled, the worst shock of all was the overwhelming sense that she no longer belonged to any world. The Pursuit of Family was born out of Julie’s desire to prevent others from feeling the unbearable isolation she felt. In this brutally honest memoir, she navigates through the agony, obsession, and loss of identity that transforms the infertile person. She offers infertility sufferers the sense of connection she longed for and a wealth of information about nearly every aspect of the struggle to build a family. For those who are not struggling with infertility, her story provides a glimpse into what millions of their fellow human beings, maybe even their closest loved ones are going through.