THE STORIES WE CANNOT TELL

Rasmussen’s novel follows the courses of two pregnancies, each marked by trepidation, heartbreak, acceptance, and joy.

For Rachel, a 30-year-old kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles, a baby can’t come fast enough. She and her husband, Brett, have been trying for years, but when Rachel finally finds herself pregnant, the news ushers in a host of concerns: When to tell her parents? How to decorate the nursery? And the worst question a pregnant woman can ask herself: What if something is wrong with the baby? With compassion and warmth, the author sheds light on the physical and emotional roller coaster a pregnant woman experiences and the ways in which a pregnancy—whether it’s planned or not—upends one’s life. Alternating chapters tell the story of Katie, a 32-year-old single woman who becomes pregnant after a chance encounter with a former classmate. Raised in a dysfunctional household, Katie has serious concerns about raising a child alone, especially after she learns that her baby has a 1 in 3 chance of being born with Down syndrome. A devout Catholic, Katie seeks support from her church even as her circumstances force her to consider an abortion. After Rachel also learns of a threat to her fetus’s health, the two women meet in a support group and form a deep bond. The novel suffers from a few strained plot turns, such as Katie’s belated attempt to uncover her ancestral history, but its true heart is the friendship between Rachel and Katie, a connection that affirms the importance of chosen family. The author endows her characters with an endless capacity for light banter. In a novel that concerns miscarriages, abortions, fetuses with life-threatening conditions, and families cracking under pressure, this buoyant sense of humor sometimes feels jarring, but it does brighten up the mood, as in a tender scene between Rachel and Brett: “I think you should leave me and find someone who can give you a baby. What about Martha from the dry cleaner?” Brett responds, “You will never get rid of me; I love you too much….Besides, if things didn’t work out with Martha, I’d have to find another dry cleaner.”

A compassionate, nonjudgmental look at the difficult decisions that pregnant women face every day.