Martha Beck

Martha Beck is the author of the memoir Expecting Adam. Ms. Beck was a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard when she learned she was expecting her second child. Ms. Beck, who suffered from an undiagnosed autoimmune disorder, had a difficult time with her pregnancy. Ms. Beck was nauseated all the time, weak, and lacked coordination. She would often faint for no apparent reason. All these things made the pregnancy especially difficult for Ms. Beck almost from the moment she learned about her pregnancy. The stress of Ms. Beck's physical condition was only compounded by the fact that her husband, also a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard, had accepted a consulting job that would require him to fly to Asia every few weeks throughout Ms. Beck's pregnancy.

Ms. Beck suffered from depression on top of her physical problems, as well as a terrible struggle to keep up with...