I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood

Lisa Manterfield was a sensible 32-year-old when she met The One-a man who sparked a passion for tango, an urge to break down closed doors, and a deep-rooted desire to reproduce. Five years later she was a baby addict, hiding her addiction, plotting a maternity ward heist, and threatening anything that got in her way, including her beloved husband and his pesky practicality.
In this gritty, award-winning memoir, Manterfield traces her spiraling route from rational 21st-century woman to desperate mama-wannabe. She examines the siren song of motherhood, the insidious lure of the fertility industry, and the repercussions of being childless in a mom-centric society. But this isn't just another infertility story with another miracle baby ending, nor is it a sad introspective of a childless woman; this is a story about love, desire, and choices-and ultimately about hope. It is the story of a woman who escapes her addiction, not with a baby, but with her sanity, her marriage, and her sense-of-self intact.
2012 Independent Publishers Book Awards winner.
Praise for I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home
"In this memoir of love and loss, Lisa Manterfield dares to reveal the depths of her desperation, and in so doing, dares to reveal the depths of her heart."
~ Jennie Nash, author of The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming and Other Lessons I Learned From Breast Cancer
"I'm Taking My Eggs And Going Home is a wonderful book, full of heart and hope. As funny as it is moving. I couldn't put it down."
~ Carrie Friedman, author of Pregnant Pause: My Journey Through Obnoxious Questions, Baby Lust, Meddling Relatives, and Pre-Partum Depression
"Lisa tackles a taboo subject with candor and aplomb. Her voice is a welcome sanity check for women left to wonder how society became so fixated on motherhood."
~ Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, author of Silent Sorority: A (Barren) Woman Gets Busy, Angry, Lost and Found
"A raw, transparent account of the gut-wrenching journey of infertility. Lisa writes with poetic, reckless abandon. Anyone who has ever suffered through infertility will thank her for pouring on the page the painful process of coming to terms with never being a mom. A true sister in the journey of infertility!"
~ Stephanie Baffone, LPCMH, NCC licensed and board certified mental health therapist
"The book was so much more than an infertility story. It was an account of real life and the barrage of situations women face in adulthood. I hope many women will read this and feel comforted, whether they have faced infertility or not."
~ Lily Hay, author of The Infertile Mind
"Be ready for boldness. This writer doesn't do sugarcoating. Hip Hip Hooray to her for telling it like it is, and also for seeing this very important story through to a book."
~ Sonja Lewis, author of The Barrenness
"I couldn't wait. I downloaded it, read it, and I LOVED LOVED LOVED IT!!!! Did I mention I loved it??? I'll be buying copies for family and friends. Not only is it poignant, it is a beautiful love story! Can't wait for it to come out in print so I can read it again with my husband."
~ Sue P. member, Life Without Baby