THE MILES WE RUN

Personal trainer Beder Solway, the co-founder of online fitness platform ABS Fitness, presents her story of her in vitro fertilization and surrogacy journey, along with self-help practices.

Two years before writing this book, the author, an avid runner, completed the 2022 New York City Marathon at the age of 51. The race was grueling, she says, but far shorter and easier than her lengthy and often discouraging struggle to have children. Her first pregnancy in the late 1990s was difficult; she experienced shortness of breath, she says, and labial swelling that “resembled a cow’s udder.” Her baby, Hannah, was born premature but healthy. However, after the author was diagnosed with a genetic condition that overtaxes the heart, she was warned not to have more kids. Unwilling to give up her dream of a large biological family, she turned to a procedure that involved implanting an embryo into a surrogate mother. After painful fertility treatments and repeated failures, Beder Solway and her husband left their Canadian home for a New Jersey fertility clinic. They discovered that one potential surrogate mother had a history of drug addiction, but a perfect match later materialized. Beder Solway frequently compares her quest to long-distance running; both require patience and preparation, she says, and in both cases, she experienced a feeling of “hitting the wall” but pushed on. The book cleverly contains the same number of chapters as miles in a marathon (26.2, before a brief, bonus 27th chapter); at the end of each, she asks philosophical questions that aim to foster self-examination. Some readers may wonder why the author felt it necessary having children through IVF, particularly when she already had a biological child, and she addresses this in the text, and many will find her perseverance to be admirable. Also, the passages in which she expresses her love for her long-awaited offspring are clearly heartfelt; at one point, for instance, she lyrically writes of touching her son Aidan’s fingers: “Each contour of his skin felt like a love letter written in Braille.”

An earnest remembrance that will be meaningful to readers undergoing similar experiences.